Wind. Big Wind.

Kyoto has a lot of bugs. To the point that I wasn't able to go to El Coyote because I found that one of my bananas went bad, and there were fruit flies flocking to it. Gross. I needed to get rid of all of them and I did. It doesn't help much either that this is the end of rainy season. It has been raining for FOUR DAYS STRAIGHT (not that I mind, my bike has a flat tire and I don't ride my bike in rain like this regardless) and today is the real kicker; there is a typhoon going on right now outside. My mother, the well-meaning person that all mothers tend to be, tells me that there is a typhoon coming this past Monday; I, the student living under a rock and has no tv, brushes this off as "Oh, ma its just rain, it IS rainy season you know." Only when my teacher confirmed it that it was a typhoon then I realized, "OoOoO...typhoon!" As Cat told me, "typhoon" sounds cooler than "hurricane."

The funny thing is that "typhoon" is "tai-fuu" in Japanese, so the pronunciation is really similar. The characters for it are 台風. The last character, "fuu" means wind, so this is just one nasty wind. As usual, everyone back home is flipping out and this morning - or rather afternoon, I slept until 12:30, I figured I deserved the sleep-in - I rather grumbled grouchily, "PEOPLE! GET A MAP!" Then again, it didn't help that I turn my cell phone off at night to save the battery so I don't charge it so much (and hence, save on the electric bill) so I'm guessing the NYC familia were flipping out with good cause.

I will say it again: I am in a LANDLOCKED area. There are mountains on three sides if Kyoto which means that the hot air doesn't move so the tai-fuu is quite welcome in my book; I am not even using my AC today, just have my window open. And to top it off, the Kansai region does not get as many earthquakes as Kanto - it took four little earthquakes to tell my mother that everything is fine. Seriously, its just rain and wind now - a lot of rain but the wind isn't strong. If I lived in Okinawa, then people can worry. Thing is, people don't know that I am pretty far from Okinawa. Baaaahh....seriously!

Four earthquakes, one typhoon. Gotta love Mother Nature. Maybe I should get my mom a map of Japan for her birthday, which is in two weeks.