I'm not sure what it is, but my Sunday morning at 9am walk to Shibuya seems to be when Tokyo delivers its worst weather! It was disgusting and pissing down rain again today, which happens so oddly often on Sunday, and barely at all any other day. I didn't lose another umbrella to the walk as I did two weeks ago, but someone did, and then abandoned it right by a crosswalk, looking very sad and dejected. Broken umbrellas just look so pathetic all bent and wrong looking!

So I taught this morning at ten, which was about the same as it always is, and the wandered over to the library to exchange books - I got a lovely pile of pink, save for a Bill Bryson book, and Eats, Shoots and Leaves. I figured it was high time I read it, especially if I am going to be proofing at work ;). I got home at about 12:30, just in time for Peter to decide to get up (!), and then stayed here for a couple of hours, reading and the such.

At threeish I went out again to teach, luckily it had stopped pouring, so we just had a lot of grey to deal with, but it wasn't sloshy anymore - good as I'd just managed to dry out from the first go around! I was teaching a new student today, he turned out to be quite nice. His English is already really quite good as he was an English major and then spent about 10 months studying in Vancouver. We had a pretty easy conversation, which bodes well for the future, although afterwards, he sent me a really funny email, saying, in part: "YOU LOOKED MUCH MORE SINCERE THAN I HAD THOUGHT." Ummm OK... Sincere? As in, not going to fleece him? Trustworthy? Homely? What? I'm curious what he actually meant by that, as sincere isn't really an adjective I'd use to describe someones personal appearance ;). Anyway, I guess it's a good thing, so I'm not complaining, but it is funny how translations get mangled when going between languages!

One note, we met in Shinjuku, and walked past Krispy Kreme, which had an insane lineup, which the 'most popular ride at Disney' style line placards pronounced was going to take 1 hr and 40 minutes to get through! No wonder people seem to always leave there with boxes of donuts - you wouldn't want to stand through that for just one, would you? I wonder if the pouring rain scared anyone off this morning? I wouldn't be surprised if the answer was no! Timmies take note! Clearly a Tim Hortons in Tokyo would be a good idea!

By the time I got home, Peter and Venus were at the office, so I caught up on an old Desperate Housewives, stretched, wrote, read, watched RENT, etc. for a couple of hours before they got home. We were both very hungry (and well co ordinated) so Peter called before he left the office and I had dinner ready the minute he walked in the door (so housewiferish of me!) It involved tater-tots which I haven't had for sooo long! Oishii desu.

We watched Little Miss Sunshine after that, which I'd seen and Peter hadn't. I think its a great movie and that Abigail Breslin, who at ten, was the youngest nominee at this year's Oscars, was great. The whole family is so fantastically dysfunctional - there's nothing quite like pushing your VW van to get it to start and then leaping it one at a time as it rolls off down the highway!

Making news today was an earthquake in North-Central Japan, which measured a quite powerful 6.7. Anyway, tragically it killed one person (done in by a falling stone lantern in her garden), and injured 162+ others (mostly minorly). According to the news story, you could feel it in Tokyo, but I missed it (or couldn't tell it apart from all the other little tremors you feel here every day!).

There is one pretty entertaining side to the reporting though, which is the 'tsunami' they keep talking about. Here's what Bloomberg had to say:

"A tsunami about 10 centimeters (3.9 inches) high came ashore around at 10:12 a.m., the agency said."

Ummm how on earth do they even measure that? Or declare it any different than any other wavelet lapping the peninsula shores? I mean clearly, we're grateful that a tsunami didn't happen, but maybe they could just say that?

Here's hoping I'm not in the subway if a big earthquake hits Tokyo when I'm here! Especially the Oedo line in the deepest depths of waaaaay down there (17 storeys deep, I believe, and hot as anything!)

D.