Goodbye, Typhoon

Yesterday, the weather service posted this graphic of the projected path of the typhoon that's blowing through right now. I thought it was a bit comical the way it turned at sea and moved DIRECTLY toward Japan and up the coastline, almost like it was aimed. It seems like it's moving faster than expected, and tomorrow's forecast is beautiful. There were VERY heavy winds all morning here, but no problems. In this area, after they hit land, typhoons immediately begin to lose power and quickly dissipate as they move inland. The result is mostly heavy rain, usually not enough to be dangerous; nothing like the recent tornadoes in the States. It is rather unusual how early the typhoon season started this year, though; this is already number two. Hopefully the rest of the typhoons AND tornadoes this year won't cause problems.
The weather service also officially announced that the rainy season (tsuyu) has begun. That's early too this year, so hopefully it will end early also.

A quiet Friday evening at home...

Nozomi used her creativity to produce some, uh, ... well, ... what are they? Costume accessories? Cheap props from a basement-budget horror movie? Anyway, we had a good laugh...
I really am going to post some vacation pictures soon...

Family Get Together

Yesterday Nozomi & I spent the day at her parents' house. Her sister, uncle and aunt were also visiting to celebrate her Grandmother's return home from the hospital (and our birthdays). She's doing very well; thank you, everyone who prayed for her!
 Nozomi's mother asked us to stop and buy big platters of take-out sushi from a restaurant. On a side trip to the grocery store, I learned a new vocabulary word; I wanted smoked salmon, which is usually easy to find in the deli section. I didn't see any, and then realized I didn't know how to say smoked salmon in Japanese. I tried, "Smoked salmon arimasu-ka?", and after about a one-second pause, the staff person figured out what I wanted and showed me--it was in the fresh fish section, and I'd walked right past it twice. I looked at the package label and it said "スモク サモン" (sorry, you won't be able to read that if you don't have Japanese installed; alphabetica lly "su-moh-ku-sah-moh-n"). Some things are easier than I think they'll be...
We had a great, relaxing day with family.