There’s apparently a typhoon on the way to the Kanto region of Japan. Today the “calm” before the storm brought intermittent but very heavy rains, and the loudest thunder I daresay I’ve ever heard in my life. Just now (almost 2am Wednesday morning) there was another spectacularly loud thunderclap. I’ve never been in a typhoon before. Perhaps this will break me of my love for the rain which renders me “okashii” (strange) and a “tenkeiteki gaijin” (typical foreigner) in these parts. (My seemingly unreachable goal in life is to find one Japanese native who will claim that they love the rain.)
Satellite images of the typhoon are here (via consumptive.org).
Incidentally, looking up typhoon in my Japanese – English dictionary I noticed that it’s pronounced “tai-foon” but has a Kanji (Chinese characters) reading. Usually foreign or “loan words” as they’re sometimes called have katakana readings. So curious as to the etymology of typhoon, I looked it up at dictionary.com. Quite a fascinating history.