Category: experiences

Jebi, this season’s 21st typhoon has moved on, and I am fine – thank you to all my friends who have inquired the last two days. However, the damage in Kyoto (and the rest of Japan) is bigger than I had expected by just looking out of my own window.

I went to town today for a meeting, and along the river, many of the cherries there have lost at least small branches, and two were toppled altogether. Those are old trees, one of the uprooted ones had a girth of at least one metre! More trees were uprooted along the Imperial Palace, and this caused huge traffic disruptions in the city. Nijo castle has lost a number of its beautiful ornaments and will be closed for the time being. A big drama happened in Hirano shrine, which is famous for its cherry trees: Many of the trees were destroyed, together with one of the buildings that was a designated national treasure. All of its pillars broke in the storm, and the heavy roof now sits directly on the floor of the collapsed building.

Things were especially bad in Arashiyama, the western part of Kyoto city. There, many buildings are nearby the mountains, and the area is prone to floodings and landslides even without any typhoons. The famous Togetsukyo bridge lost its handrail for about half of its length, and there was a blackout on Tuesday evening because a number of electricity poles fell down. I hope nothing much has happened to Nonomiya Shrine – it will be the What’s up in Kyoto highlight for next month…

Outside of Kyoto, I think that Osaka and Kobe got hit worst. Kansai airport is still flooded, and I am sure you have seen the tanker that crashed into the bridge connecting the airport with the mainland. The repairs at the airport are estimated to take two to three weeks, but officials are confident that at least domestic flights will begin earlier. I don’t know how long it will take to repair the bridge though, and people are talking about rerouting international flights to Kobe or Itami (the old airport of Osaka/Kyoto).

However, repairs and cleanup have already begun. Even the bicycle path next to the river has been freed of branches, although they have just been moved aside. Homeowners also get ready to fix things, for example the building opposite of mine seems to have sustained some damage to its roof. So, things are being fixed (temporarily, I hope) in the typical Japanese manner: by duct-taping a large plastic tarp over the hole…

Not even two weeks after the last one (actually: the last two) we’re having another typhoon! Jebi, typhoon #21 of this season has made landfall on Japan at around noon, and it is the strongest one to hit Japan since 1993. It will move directly over Kansai – Kobe, Osaka, Kyoto – one of the most densely populated areas in Japan.

There have been severe weather warnings, some places were even called to evacuate, and apparently, Kansai airport (which is situated on an island in Osaka Bay) is already flooded. Many places came prepared though, railway lines were closed this morning already, and many shops – even big department stores – were not even opened, as were Kyoto Zoo, Nijo Castle, the Film Studio Park, and other big tourist venues in Kyoto.

As for me, I am home and I won’t go out until this is over. The wind here is so strong that it pushes water through tiny gaps in the seals of my windows. The trees outside my building are mauled by the wind, and there are leaves everywhere on my balcony. I have removed the few things I had on there, but the heavy aircondition unit has been pushed all the way to the edge. Just some ten minutes ago I received a phone call from a friend who advised me to get some water in a bucket in case electricity is disrupted – something I hadn’t thought of myself. Obviously.

Okay, I’ll hunker down for the time being. I hope things will not get too bad. If you want further updates on the Jebi situation, head over to twitter and follow the special Jebi typhoon #21 hashtag: #台風21号 https://twitter.com/hashtag/台風21号

Update at 8:30 pm:
It’s over here in Kyoto. The worst wind and rain was at around 3 pm, but it seems that all in all, the typhoon passed Kyoto by in the west. By now everything is quiet again. I took a quick walk along the river to Demachiyanagi, there are lots of leaves and big branches on the ground, but that seems to be all. I did read that some people were injured at Kyoto station, where a tile of the glass ceiling fell down.

It seems to have been much worse in Kobe and Osaka: 2 people dead, many injured, some 600.000 households (temporary) without electricity. A large tanker was pushed into the bridge connecting Kansai airport with Osaka. The bridge is heavily damaged, one section got pushed out of alignment by a whole two lanes! The railroad there seems damaged too. It will take ages until this is repaired – if you’re going to/from Kansai airport any time soon, there will be enormous delays!

Today, Kyoto has shut down much earlier than usual. I went to town in the afternoon, and many smaller shops on Shijo street – one of the main shopping streets downtown – were closed already, and many more closed by 17:00. The cafe, where I usually meet my English student, closed much earlier than usual at 18:00.

Why? A typhoon is approaching Kyoto, and people wanted to go home safely. In fact, there are two typhoons approaching Japan, one, number 20, from the southeast, that will make landfall some time tonight, and the other one, number 19, is southwest of Korea right now, also moving towards Japan (although there, Korea lies on its path first, so it may lose force there before hitting Japan).Right now, there is not much rain, but we have wind speeds of 30 km/h with gusts of at max. 55 km/h. It doesn’t sound good up here in 5th floor, and I think it is a better idea to close all my windows over night. I hope everything will be over tomorrow.

Last Sunday, after a hiatus of about three months, I visited the soroban class in the Int. Community House (KOKOKA) again. I did not do quite as badly as I had expected, but I do need to start practising regularly again if I don’t want to give up that 1st Dan degree altogether…

Anyway, I was also very happy to see that one of my friends was working at the information counter that day, and because it was an unusually quiet Sunday, we had the opportunity for a long chat and even an extended lunch together. She had said it before, but she repeated it again: “You always look so happy. Every time you come here, you light up my day!”

Afterwards, on my way home, I dropped in another friend’s place. She owns a lovely cafe and sells hand-made chocolates (which was what attracted me to her cafe in the first place). Usually, I don’t visit her cafe in the weekends, because it is very busy, but it appeared to be a very slow day all over Kyoto, so I went in for matcha and chocolates and a chat. Again, I received a compliment: “You know, other people who have lived here for a while usually get bogged down by the mundane and it shows. You don’t – you still sparkle!”

Thank you so much – to both of you! It always surprises me when somebody says something nice about me or to me. I guess I don’t expect this because I don’t like people much myself – not as a mass phenomenon, at least. But maybe I’m learning how to pick the right individuals, those who don’t feed on bringing others down. It’s been long overdue anyway.

To me, the Japanese language is fantastically frustrating and frustratingly fantastic. Especially their loan words, which are almost always written in Katakana, can be a challenge. This is mostly because the Katakana give no indication as to the origin of the word. It could be an English word spelled correctly (as far as this is possible in a syllabary) or a French word written phonetically. The fact that many of these words are abbreviated doesn’t really help either. And on top of that: false friends – words imported from some other language that took on a completely new meaning in the process.

The following is an interesting example of this. My Japanese teacher, whom I meet once a week likes to wear hats. His summer attire is a real Panama hat made from straw; he got it from his brother-in-law who once went on a trip to South America. Anyway, this week he pointed to a pin at his hat, and this is the conversation that followed:

“What is this called in English?
“A pin”, I said.
“Not a badge? That’s what we say in Japanese.”
“No, a badge is made from cloth and is sewn onto clothing.”
“Oh, in Japan, that’s called a Wappen.”
I laughed: “Wappen is actually German, and it means the crest of a noble family.”
“In Japanese, that would be called a mon.”

I rest my case.

Last Sunday a friend of mine took me to a local shrine’s summer festival, a new opportunity to meet the neighborhood! It was a small festival, where the neighborhood association prepares food and drinks for cheap prices, and there was some entertainment as well: First a taiko band (Japanese War Drums), then Hawaiian Dance (yes, I found this a bit odd too, but it was nice), and finally, when the evening got a bit later, the perennial Japanese pastime: Karaoke. We left at this point, but it was fun, mostly because my friend knew a lot of people there.

I always enjoy going to the things that are not geared towards tourists. People are friendly and forthcoming as ever, but it’s just this little private charm that makes all the difference.

I’ve been living in this apartment for about three and a half years now, which, now that I think of it, is the longest time I have lived anywhere since I left the students dormitory to move abroad.

Anyway, finally after all these years, I have gotten tired of the state of my genkan. The genkan is the entrance to a Japanese home, it is usually very small and a little bit lower than the rest of the house or apartment. It is considered somewhere between the inside and the outside, and the place for people to take off their shoes.

Talking about shoes… I’m a woman. I love shoes. And even though I only have 30 pairs of shoes altogether (which means I’m practically walking barefoot), they do take up a lot of space. So far, I have put the ones in season in the genkan for easy access, the others were stored away out of sight. Well, easy access… with 15 pairs of shoes, things do get a bit tight and messy in a small entrance. But last week, I’ve finally had enough: I went to the Nitori and bought a shoe rack!

And it was delivered yesterday. At first I thought Nitori was just a Japanese version of IKEA, and in a way it is, with a subtle difference: The furniture comes almost assembled, and if you pay for delivery (only 1000 yen), it will be put up for you. So, when the two delivery men came yesterday around noon, they unpacked the shoe rack and put it right where I wanted it. All I had to do was to put in the shelves at the right position – and to apologise profusely for not having an elevator to get into my 5th floor…

Anyway, this is my genkan, before and after shoe rack: I am very pleased with the result, my entrance is now less cluttered and much easier to clean, and: I could fit almost all of my shoes into it! So: another room finished after office, kitchen, and bedroom. The biggest room is still a “work in progress” though: my livingroom. I’m getting somewhere with it though: A couple of months or so back I finally installed curtains. You see, I am indeed settling down!