Today was a good day

Was it Ice Cube who said "Today I didn't even have to use my A.K., I got to say it was a good day"

The picture above is not Ice Cube it's New Model Army, about the financial collapse. Because it shattered our illusions it was a good day. I like the cover.

Anyway... here is my day.... all done on foot!

Sunday in Tokyo. Better served by perhaps Lou Reed.

Wake up.

Rub eyes, New Zealand qualified for the world cup yesterday. Too much sake at a ramshackle little bar in Golden Gai that could fit no more than 6 people. Must have been good quality because I have no hangover.

Coffee. Shibuya crossing, pay respects at the shrine of Hachiko, the faithful Akita dog who waited in that same spot every evening for 9 years. The Japanese love loyalty.

Bought a couple of 80's Japanese punk rock CD's, as reccomended by bar manager in Golden Gai...

Breakfast in an arts centre cafe: rice, hot tea, pork and potato. Delicous.

NHK Centre at Yoyogi, outdoor stage at the Tokyo Dance Music Festival. Completely free. It is sunny, crystal clear, 20 degrees. A perfect day weather-wise.


Walk on, Yoyogi park, check out the random people: dancers, musicians, actors, dog trainers, walk about and soak it up.

Meiji shrine, one of the most revered spots in Japan, where did all the tourists come from? yikes!

Home, nap, then ..... 13km run around the circumference of the Imperial Palace. Visually stunning after dark.

Shower, down the local for dinner. Nothing too heavy. 3 beers. Great service. Take away cake for dessert.

Home, serious leisure mode now... DVD! In Bruges. Bloody excellent. Highly reccomend.


Work Monday, people were like "why are you grinning, you look like you've had the best weekend!"

Well, maybe ...

Typhoon!

Vietnam was hit by a typhoon last week. Mum wrote a really good letter to us about the impact and to let us know she was ok.

I think people don't often get the whole "my mother lives in vietnam" thing, maybe a picture (and a letter) paints a thousand words. So for a bit of a change....

Firstly here is a link to the typhoon path

These are videos etc on YouTube of the flooding

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Hi there
In a particularly active year in the West Pacific the weather people have counted 25 typhoons so far this year. Many of them have hit the Phillipines and then veered north, but this week we had one come right across Quy Nhon.

We had been watching the progress of the storm on an internet site I have boookmarked, as it approached the coast and noted that it was forecast to upgrade from a "tropical Depression" to a Level 1 typhoon just before the eye reached the coast.

The high winds and squally showers started in the middle of the day on Monday 2nd Nov and increased steadily all day and through the night. I understand the eye of the storm passed through or near to Quy Nhon during the night and the high winds and heavy rain continued until the following morning decreasing only slowly during the day.

I was alerted to some of the damage when I fielded a phone call from an expat on a train at our Dieu Tri Station, late on Tuesday. She said the group of cyclists she was travelling with were on a train at Dieu Tri Station and had been stopped there since 5.30am - about 12 hours at that point - with no information about when or if they might be able to continue. There was very little information available from anywhere at that stage, though we knew the emergency rescue squads would be out assessing the situation as the day went on. The universal answer to enquiries I was making here was "we won't know anything until tomorrow morning". Most of our guests were resigned to waiting it out when we told them what we knew and were able to help them alter travel plans etc. By the evening I was greeting people with "so where are you not going to, today?"

By Wednesday morning the storm had moved inland, through neighbouring Phu Yen Province and expected to end up in Cambodia. Reports now revealed that there was a big landslide affecting both road and rail to the south of Quy Nhon in Phu Yen Province. And the two big rivers that water the Tuy Phuoc area adjacent and to the north and east of Quy Nhon, had both breached their banks with severe and large scale flooding.

The little stream that normally flows under the bridge on the the road from QN to Phu Tai junction had turned into a torrent that flooded Tran Hung Dau St from the area of the Twin Towers (Thap Doi) out, and prevented road access from the city to Route 1. Houses ibordering Tran hUng Daoa Street in that area were flooded to a height of more than a meter.

Our Dieu Tri train station was completely surrounded by flood waters and not accessible by road at all. All the villages in the flood plane of the Tuy Phuoc rivers were underwater and we saw on TV survivors being rescued from rooves of houses, with small children having to slide down into the arms of rescuers waiting in a boat below.

In the afternoon we were able to confirm that access to the south from Quy Nhon was blocked by a large landslide in the next Province to the south (Phu Yen), affecting both road and rail routes.

We saw a couple of helicopters overhead circling overhead, assessing the damage in the surrounding area and by the evening we saw the first scenes on the local TV of survivors being rescued by boat: a woman wading to the rescue boat through flood waters up to her chin, whole families perched on the highset point of their roof, with the waters lapping at their feet. They would have been there for a couple of days by that point.
On Wednesday as the waters receded the first train left for the north in 2 days and some buses were starting to move. However, the rail route to the south remains blocked and is not expected to be cleared today (Thursday) The railways are offering a road service down to Tuy Hoa and connection to one train a day from there.

Reports are still coming in as to the extent of damage in rural areas and it is expected that there will have been a significant loss of life. One causalty that has affected us directly is the father of one of our staff who go up on to the roof to repair leaks after the storm had passed, apparently slipped and split his head open on the concrete path. Very sad, a lovely man who was the chief care giver for his under school age grand children, allowing their mothers to work without worrying about them.

regards
Barbara

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Body Language

To add to the long list of things, that "just don't work like they should here". Alongside my keyboard, phone networks, ATM machines, electricity, taxi drivers, and so on.

Body language is great, right? I mean, you can go into a petrol station in the Tuscan countryside, ask for directions in English off a guy who doesn't speak a word of English, listen and watch as he explains, thank him, and then get to your destination. Without body language this type of thing would be near on impossible.

James said to me before I came, that "your normal reflexes don't work here". It's more than that.

I'm sitting in a cafe getting ready to go and the waitress is filling my glass of water. It's OK, I'm gesticulating, we are leaving, I don't need water, no we're going, it's OK, more hand waving. She smiles and nods and fills up the water. Doesn't help of course that they don't really have a word for 'no'.

It just doesn't work. All the things you've learned about how to communicate, and all the non verbal cues, 90% of it is simply turned off. It's like even with the language you still have to re-learn the body language piece. Massive blind spot! Who knows what cultural faux pas I am committing on a daily basis.

Go with the flow I guess, and keep learning.