The last two days have been overflowing (no pun intended) with heavenly phenomena.
Yesterday, I awoke to heavy rains, and lightning. Never seen lightning like that before in Japan… and the rain was so heavy that the flooding seemed to start almost immediately. But it just kept raining! Nearly all day, absolute downpours… The grocery store in Hirao has a very large parking lot, and it was completely under water. The rivers were full and many of them were overflowing. As were the streets and some homes. Unfortunately, landslides are a problem here when we have heavy rains. I heard reports of a nursing home being hit by a landslide, and several people inside were buried alive. I didn’t see the news report, though, because my television only shows snow when it rains. Ironic, huh?
Today, on the lighter side, was the heavily talked about solar eclipse. It’s interesting that the characters for eclipse in Japanese are ‘eating the sun’… I wonder if there is some secondary meaning that I’m not aware of. Anyway, the solar eclipse happened about 11am here in Yamaguchi, and it was just as cloudy and overcast as could be. I thought there was no way we’d see it… but the English students went outside to take a look and I could hear them all get excited. So I too went outside to check it out and sure enough, you could see it pretty well! Someone brought safety glasses and we all took turns J I used my camera too… and I think the only reason it worked was because it was cloudy! J Anyway… fun times and everyone was excited!
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