I swear this isn’t an East Asian Typhoon blog. But after 10 months of nothing, I bring you…. another typhoon post! It’s that time of year again, and while last year’s Shanshan fizzled out upon arrival, this weekend is looking to be a little hairy. After a long hiatus (since 2001), Mrs. (Mr. ?) Man-Yi is on his way to Japan. Mr. Yi is currently ranked as a category four super typhoon. The typhoon is expected to arrive in Kumamoto at around 12pm tomorrow, with wind gusts as high as 130 kt (240 km/h, 150 mph)! Also, the last two weeks have seen extreme amounts of rain, causing flooding at various places around Kyushu. If this typhoon brings a lot of moisture with it, things could get bad for some people. I think I’ll go stock up on some drinks and food just in case tomorrow turns out to be a wild one.

The above map shows Typhoon Shanshan’s movement within the last couple days, and its predicted forecast. You can see that Kumamoto has just entered the “storm warning area” and will in fact be fairly close to the eye of the storm. We’ve been anticipating the typhoon all week, but it sounds like it will weaken when it hits my area. Probably not the typhoon I was anticipating, but instead maybe just a major storm. If fact, even though I’m in the red zone, I haven’t even noticed anything crazy yet. My post title has a question mark because I’m wondering if anything is actually going to happen. There’s been a little bit of hard rain and some strong winds, but nothing extraordinary compared to other storms we’ve had. I’m still waiting for the cows, bicycles and roofs to go flying by my window! But I probably shouldn’t dismiss the storm just yet; I originally began this post with a statement whining about how weak the typhoon as been so far. So what happens? The power goes out! The first time that’s happened. Even in the midst of writing this post the winds have already picked up. This should be an interesting ride.

Here are some links for Typhoon Shanshan:

• Japan Meteorological Agency
• Tropical Storm Risk
• Digital Typhoon

Last night I arrived in Obihiro, Hokkaido. I’ll be staying until Monday. The reason? Rally Japan. I’m a big fan of rally racing, and especially WRC (World Rally Championship). WRC events are non-existant in the US, so I wanted to take advantage of my time in Japan.

There wasn’t much to do since I arrived in the afternoon, and none of the events had started yet. So I made my way to Rally HQ to get my pass and information. Unfortunately it was raining then, and today it’s raining again. Oh well.

Here I am at Rally HQ.

Dinner was butadon (roasted pork on rice) and some zaru soba. I don’t usually eat pork, but I had to try since it’s famous here. I have to admit, it was rather tasty. This was from a shop in the JR train station.

To cap off the evening, I enjoyed the onsen (hot spring) that is available at my hotel. Since I’m paying quite a bit for this hotel, I’ll be using it as much as possible!

Next up will be the Shakedown!

This goodie has been hiding from me since I first moved into my apartment. Who knew such philosophy could be found on a garbage can. I now wonder, is my lifestyle too extravagant? I have to do some thinking…

Most of the world calls it football, however USA and Japan both call it soccer. Two weekends ago I was invited to a soccer game in Kumamoto. Rosso Kumamoto (ロッソ熊本), as the local team is called, played the Arute Takasaki (アルテ高崎) team. I think ‘rosso’ comes from the Italian word for red. As you’ll see, the Kumamoto team is, well, red. I have no idea what ‘arute’ means. Since it’s written in katakana, it’s probably a foreign word. It could be some other language besides English, but I my google searches came up empty. Anyways, on to some pictures.

That’s KKWing Stadium, home to Rosso Kumamoto, and used for other various activities. Looks a little empty doesn’t it? The stadium holds around 32,000 people, and that night 7200 people showed up. Not bad for a local team that’s not even in JLeague, I suppose. Even without many people, it was a lot louder than many sports games I’ve been to back in the states. We sat near a section that was constantly waving flags and singing songs, and the rest of the crowd was into it as well. Most impressive was that the cheering did not let down at all throughout the whole game. It was definately an interesting experience. I had a lot of fun and wouldn’t mind going again sometime.

This group was at full swing from start to finish! Talk about true fans.

Here are some action shots from the game. I’m actually somewhat impressed that the pictures weren’t all blurry.

Kumamoto won that night, 3-2. Here are the champs exiting the stadium: