Saturday, August 20, 2016

Typhoons, Typhoons, Typhoons

We have had a very quiet typhoon season this year, with nary a single storm hitting the mainland or Okinawa. But now that our things are loaded on a freighter bound for Okinawa, and our flight to Naha approaches, this suddenly happens:


Typhoons #9, #10 and #11.

Yes, we suddenly get a traffic jam of three — count them, three — typhoons all jostling for space. Typhoon #9 is moving straight north towards Tokyo; Typhoon #10 is south of  Honshu and aiming southwest towards Okinawa (that's rare), and #11 is going on an odd clockwise tour of northern Honshu and Hokkaido.

All three are bad news, since they'll disrupt flights across the country. But #10 is especially worrisome:


Typhoon #10. Yellow dot is Naha, red dot is Osaka.

The moving company already informed us that the freighter will be delayed — they're understandably not going to sail through a typhoon — and we probably won't get our things on the 26th as planned. It'll mean a couple of nights with no mattresses or bed sheets, no kitchen stuff and no furniture. Or, more likely, another couple of nights at a business hotel.
If we even get to Naha, that is. If we're lucky #10 will veer south and off into the Pacific, but it might take a westerly course and landfall on Okinawa right around the time we're supposed to fly. In which case we won't make it there by the 25th to sign the apartment contract and register at the city office, and our tight, carefully planned schedule goes right out the window. No car in time for the start of my new job, for instance. The move could have started out better.


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