Typhoons, Turtles and Kobe, Japan

Another week finished and i finally have a day off. For many of those who may follow this blog or my video blogs on You Tube, you may now that I work six days a week. This is a situation of my own choice, but the extra money is very helpful. Hopefully, next year, I won't have to work a part time job and will have more free time on the weekends. Luckily though, with my current job, I have a lot of days of and some good holiday time.

Tyhphoon Melor came and went and it sounds as if the only place in this part of Japan that had some serious damage was Nagoya. A city that is traditionally prone to flooding, they had it happen to them again. I saw some surprising images on NHK of Nagoya Station flooding quickly while JR employees made a futile attempt to block the deluge with a few sandbags.

The typhoon sure sounded a lot worse than it really was. I suppose that's because I live on the top floor of a tall apartment building on a man-made island in the middle of Kobe harbour. there is very little protection here and the wind really lashes us. It was also made worse by the fact that Japanese buildings are normally not insulated. there is no insulation in the walls and the windows are always single-paned glass. The wind whistled loudly through the windows and rattled the heck out of them. When we got up on Thursday morning, we just discovered a lot of leaves on the ground as well as a lot of garbage that had blown around. That was it!



On a cuter note, while out the other morning and wandering through a large grassy field, I found this little critter. One of the few moments in life I wasn't carrying my video camera. I took a few pictures of the baby turtle, just before I released it into a nearby pond.


Gosh golly! What a cute little chap! I was really surprised at how sharp their little claws are. I suppose they need them for climbing up rocks and things.