Tuesday April 3, 12:36 p.m.
It's been whacked-out in Japan meteorologically speaking for the past several hours. What is basically Typhoon No. 1 for 2012 has been battering Honshu. The usual scenes of long commuter lineups at Shibuya Station in Tokyo, people with self-destructing umbrellas and diagonal postures, and tipped-over trucks have been filling the screens on NHK. This was something that had been foreseen a whole day in advance, with a representative of the Japan Meteorological Institute warning of transportation disruptions, and even so, people still went to work before being told to get home in the early afternoon. Such is the feeling of corporate duty.
Of course, my old subway line, The Tozai Line, which pierces through the megalopolis from the western suburbs of Tokyo to PM Noda's hometown of Funabashi, Chiba, suspended operations for the aboveground portion...which is where I lived. Basically, I would've been stranded in my neighbourhood....not a bad thing, though since I can just watch carnage from the safety of my apartment with a coffee mug in my hand. The ironclad rule is that once winds are measured going above 20 m/s....which I calculated to be 130 mph, all trains and aboveground subways shut down immediately. The winds were whipping around at 25 m/s.
A number of my Facebook friends in Japan are relating war stories right now, whilst I watch the first typhoon from the safety of my hemisphere.
