Typhoon. Or, Is That Bird Really Flying Backwards?

Eight years ago, during my senior year in high school, I celebrated my 18th birthday in the middle of Tropical Storm Dennis.  Eleven years ago, I received Hurricane Fran as an unrivalled birthday present from the Atlantic Ocean.  My hands are still calloused from all of the wood I chopped.  That was my 15th birthday present from my father–calloused hands.  So it's fitting that Japan's ninth typhoon of the season is hammering Hokkaido right now and I therefore will begin my 26th birthday with wind, rain, and cloudy skies.  Thanks Japan, you're the best.

But seriously, though.  This typhoon is unreal.  And that's coming from someone who grew up with two of the worst hurricanes in North Carolina history–Fran and Floyd.  Maybe it's because typoons spin in the opposite direction.  Or at least I think they do.  Can anyone verify that for me?  Regardless, I've learned today that riding a bike in a typhoon is an even worse idea than walking in one.  As is carrying an umbrella.  It only took one solid gust of wind for that thing to be completely destroyed.  Also, Japanese people don't really seem to respect typhoons in the sense that they continue to live their normal lives, going to work, driving around, meeting friends, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it is raining sideways and sometimes upwards.

We'll see how this develops overnight.  In the meantime, however, there is birthday champagne to drink.  Now we're talking.  Good company and good alcohol are the best ways to pass the time while hunkered down, hiding from the storm, and fortunately, I have both.  Now if I could just discern what kind of dinner is being prepared in the kitchen...