I didn't know that typhoons and hurricanes were essentially the same until recently. Growing up by the Gulf of Mexico, June through November was known as hurricane season. Anything below a category 3 was probably ok, and anything above it would warrant an evacuation. In most cases, there would be a lot of anxiety and buildup only for the storm to change direction at the last moment. The big exception, of course, was Hurricane Katrina, when we packed enough things for the standard two days away and ended up not returning for two months.
During our first year in Japan, someone would shrug and casually say, "a typhoon is coming, so it's going to rain tomorrow." Nobody seemed particularly worried about emergency supplies, piling on the sandbags, or taping up the windows - telltales signs of an approaching hurricane where I grew up. It all seemed rather downplayed here, probably because the infrastructure is well-designed and better built. It's funny how the same natural phenomenon manifests completely differently in different places.
This typhoon we are experiencing at the moment is a large one, though it has not Tokyo directly. It is also a very slow-moving one. It started raining on Sunday morning, with unpredictable waves of squalls throughout the day, and it is still raining as I write this on Tuesday afternoon. It also happens to be a long holiday weekend here, so indoor spaces were more crowded than usual with locals and tourists alike seeking entertainment while sheltering from the rain.
We went to Tokyo Skytree, which contains a massive shopping complex with nearly as many places to eat as there are to shop. There is also an aquarium, an arcade, exhibits, and other entertainment venues. If you have a choice, stay clear of tourist hot spots on Japanese holidays, especially when the weather herds everyone indoors. The crowd was insane. Lines snaking out the door of the souvenir shop. One hour wait for lunch. We were lucky - I got in the line of a ramen restaurant around 11:15 (the lines begin forming at 11 and grow exponentially with every passing minute). Considered literally to be a fast food, ramen shops have quick turnover. We waited just over half an hour.
The other semi-eventful thing we did this weekend was visit Denny's. I had been curious about it ever since I read Matthew Amster-Burton's book Pretty Good Number One: An American Family Eats Tokyo. Denny's in Japan looks just like the Denny's in America. Or at least the sign does. Beyond the sign, Denny's is a completely different restaurant from its American counterpart. It is known as a family restaurant serving a wide variety of Japanese comfort foods at a reasonable price. The atmosphere inside kind of reminded me of a Shoney's from the 90s, except with better food.
We also ordered a spinach sautéed with bacon and a chicken jambalaya, which looked very different from the jambalaya I know but tasted surprisingly similar. The kids menu, like everywhere else, is full of things like juice, jello, and french fries. I didn't order anything from there. It wasn't a gourmet meal, but it was satisfying, and we ate well. I should mention that Denny's Japan is known for their drink bar (i.e., soda bar) and dessert menu, which is full of ice creams and parfaits. In terms of a balanced meal, it's a sliding scale, and the diner has a lot of leeway to choose.
As I am finishing up this post (many hours later), the typhoon is already receding. It's left a cool breeze in its wake. Could this be the beginning of autumn? I hope so. No matter how hot it gets in the summer here, you can reasonably count on each season arriving with characteristically Japanese punctuality.
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