Pictures of the Typhoon... Kind of.

So these are the pictures of the typhoon.  Or rather, these should be the pictures of the typhoon, except that it moved an awful lot quicker than people were expecting, and therefore the brunt of the storm hit around 5AM here, instead of the predicted 9AM.

I even woke up especially early (8AM) in order to capture this event on camera.  However it had already passed, so all I managed to get were a few shots of the wind, and an incredibly high tide.

The air pressure was so low it made my joints ache, as if I'd been scuba diving or something.  This also made the sea level extremely high, and if there had been any wind whatsoever I'm sure the sea would have caused some problems.

As it was, the wind was actually pretty strong.  But there was nothing else of incident really, no blown over houses, no cows sailing past the window.  It was strong enough to physically push me off my seat a couple of times, which would have been hilarious for anyone who happened to be watching, had there been anyone else within fifty miles of me.  In the early morning there was no one anywhere close to me.  I think everyone was still under the impression it was storm weather, or had the potential to be stormy.  By midday it was sunny.  Annoying.

So basically I've never been blown away before, (well not since being a child presumably) and this did make me think that if it had the power to move me when it was only the trailing edge of the main event, the winds inside must have been really impressive.

The whole event has basically made me want to see a proper storm close-up.  I think it really would be impressive.

Anyway, onto the pictures!

So I found some other people out and about like I was, so I felt duty-bound to take some pictures of them.

A lot of the people walking around were salarymen aimlessly wandering about, when they definitely should have been at work.  I made the assumptiont that their employers had given them time off, but they didn't want to spend it at home, so they pretended they had to work anyway; suits and all.

Having said that though, wearing a suit seems to be obligatory for men here, even wearing the tie at all time must be adhered to.  So I'm sure I won't be climbing any corporate ladders if I get a job here.

Ok so I bought a set of waterproof legs to go over normal trousers in the local corner shop; thinking I'd need them for the reporter style 'being blown down the street in pouring rain and thundering ocean spray,' camera shot I was looking to get.  Of course that didn't happen, and I was thoroughly disappointed when I took them off.

This is me looking confused.  It was pretty much 9AM at this point, and I was wondering where the storm was.

I was all done up in plastic finery to avoid gettinng wet, but there was no rain!

Palpable disappointment in this photo, I think you'll agree.

So this cool looking building is a ferry terminal, and a park.  There's grass and benches and whatnot on top, and this was my primary destination originally.  However they denied me access to the park on top, even though I'm sure it wouldn't have been much worse than where I took this picture from.

You can also see the height of the tide in this picture.  That little road is an access road for cars and whatnot, and when I came here a few days ago the sea was about two metres below that, despite being at a high tide then!

So this is the biggest building in Japan again.  Remember when I said you could see it from anywhere?

I wonder what it's like to have those winds in a building that high and wide?  I'm sure that would have been an interesting experience for anyone inside.

So it did rain a little bit, but nothing worth shouting about really.

I put on my waterproof trousers just to get some kind of use out of them.

Stupid?  Yes.  But I'm never averse to making myself look like an idiot.

Even the few people that were out and about disappeared at this point, and it felt like I had the whole city to myself.  It was quite an interesting situation, and let me get pictures of the sea that would have been impossible without this weather.

And this was on the way back to the hostel, about thirty minutes after that last picture was taken.

People think the weather changes quickly in England, come and visit Japan during a storm.  It's amazing how quickly everything switches around, and going from rain and wind to bright sunshine and... wind takes seconds.

By this point the general populace were out and about too, so a few people were falling over, and stuff was getting blown around so the walk back to the hostel was quite fun.

And people still had their umbrellas.  No-one here has quite  twigged that imbrellas, rain, and fifty mile per hour winds do not mix.  It's really funny to see a line of people put up their umbrellas, and them all get snapped in succession.  I would love to video it, and maybe I'll get the chance another time.

And we end with this guy.  He's staying in the hostel too, and is studying Japanese at the moment.

I've not had a lot to do in Yokohama lately, because of all the interview based waiting around, so I've spent a long time aimlessly wandering, and chatting to the random people who turn up about the place.

I've spent a long time talking to this guy, so I definitely feel he's worthy of recognition in my blog.  Brazilian born Japanese are becoming commonplace in my travels!

Ok so I took a few videos as well.  This first one is during the night, and is basically demonstrating why I couldn't sleep, with a little voice-over on my part.



Ok now this second video is to demonstrate how windy it was.  Think of this video as the base level of windiness, gusting much harder than this at times.



And that's pretty much all there is to that day of disappointing non-typhoon action.