The typhoon weekender

I have just survived my first Japanese typhoon. Thursday afternoon, a Japanese teacher casually asks me if I am ready for the imminent typhoon. She laughs at my confused and surprised "What typhoon?!" response, and has to share it with the rest of the class.
My Japanese tv set remains unplugged because it keeps talking Japanese at me so I am more than a little ignorant about what is going on around me, but all of a sudden I'm on mini panic mode. Not scared, mind you, but a little excited. I've seen blockbuster movies- typhoons are all red alert, special effects laden affairs involving dramatic rescues of people stranded on rooftops, right?

Uh- wrong- try lots of rain. That's all we got- hours and hours upon hours of rain, and we're in the middle of the rainy season as it is so it was no biggie. Don't get me wrong- natural disasters are not a joke- whilst my part of Japan was experiencing the typhoon, another part of Japan was flattened by an earthquake, but I just wanted to know I was in a typhoon.

Friday found me lounging in bed on my day off (hooray for Sports Days that don't require my attendance!) listening to a hell of a lot of rain. My friends Nicki and G in the (kind of) neighbouring town of Takahashi offer to come pick me up for a girls' night at theirs- and I end up staying 3 nights. We have a lot of fun- we eat a lot, drink a lot, talk a lot and just generally hang out. Sunday, the weather clears up a bit so we take a drive to cross a bridge (the Seto-Ohashi Bridge) that will take us from our island of Honshu (the biggest island in Japan) to the island of Shikoku. At 13.1 km long, it ranks as the world's longest two-tiered bridge system. (According to Wikipedia) Check out the pics...


Nicki and G bite into a pizza


This is my issue with Japan- check out the size of the burger...