Sept 15 Typhoon

There was a serious Typhoon, and Kyoto was impacted, but not Will and me.

It had been coming for some time, and we had been following it on the weather map with the Japanese Meteorological Agency  I am signed up with the Embassy, and had an e-mail from them alerting us about the upcoming typhoon.  I bought a big 20 liter jug for storing water, and we have food and flashlights.

Sunday the 15th was my birthday, so we went out in the morning to see a Temple not too far from the house that we had not yet explored.  An elderly couple were getting some sort of special  blessing, and the priest was chanting.  The temple also had a great garden -- and unlike many of the more famous ones, you could walk through much of it.

We knew that the rain was coming, but kept exploring, and walked through a large area of land that was mostly overgrown, and included a run-down shrine.  It was misting a bit as we finished that path.  After a Chinese lunch, we headed out -- and now it was starting to rain. 

We went anyway to the nearby Temple handicraft sale, and explored some of the art-fair like booths.  Some of the vendors had tents, some were huddled around the perimeters of the various Temple buildings.  Most of the work was unimpressive (clearly not juried), but I found 3 interesting bowls.

By now the rain was really coming down, and we took a bus back to the apartment.  By supper-time the rain let up a bit, and we went out to a wonderful Japanese restaurant where I had the traditional Kyoto keiseki -- mostly vegetarian. 

It did continue to pour rain, but we never experienced big winds.  This issue was flooding in some places.  Near us the river has banks that allow it to expand a lot.  On Monday (a holiday) we could see that the rive was still way up, and some damage had been done from the roaring water.

I think we slept through the worst of the storm -- in the night there was as much as 3 inches an hour!  The large river on the west side of Kyoto flooded.  Apparently more than 250,000 people were evacuated because of flooding, and it was considered the worst Typhoon in a long time.  But our experience was not traumatic.  The photo in the paper had folks in water a little above their ankles trying to push a boat with lots of well dressed hotel guests.

On Tuesday, Will walked further up the river and saw a big hunk of path and wall washed away, and the huge stones that had been providing support were gone.  We never felt much wind, though there certainly was a lot of rain.  Again, we seemed to have slept through the wind also.  Even with all the damage, it was downgraded from a typhoon to a tropical storm.

And, delightfully, the weather is cooler and clear now.