The rain continues for the third consecutive day here in our suburb of Minoh. Heavy rains, ranging from 53 centimeters to 25 centimeters are reported throughout western and southern Japan. As of this morning, 8:56 AM, it is still lightly raining. It is so humid and wet everywhere one goes.
We are receiving fewer emergency alerts on our phones. This being Japan, there is a distinctive ring tone for them. Distinctive tunes are used for all sorts of events in Japan, from the arrival of a train to the station to the automatic doors sliding open at the convenience store to inserting your card into an ATM.
I would like to thank the person who put the earthquake (jishin is the word for earthquake in Japanese) ringtone on YouTube. It is one of the most memorable because like a Pavlovian response, I associate it with the room I am in shaking because of tremors. There is also a good explanation on how the earthquake warning system works. The epicenter of the earthquake of June 18 was only 10 kilometers away, so we received the warning while under the table. I will never forget that sound.
Oliver and I checked out one warning received that a rice irrigation reservoir embankment a couple blocks from our house “may be broken”. You can see the embankment to the far left in the photo below. It is at the top of a hill. Below the hill are rice paddies and further down are homes. It didn’t break and so really not much to see. They probably evacuated the residents of houses directly beneath it to evacuate.
Despite being stuck indoors most of the day, I managed to have some fun. The IB scores were released so I spent part of the day analyzing our results. Oliver and I went to the school library to borrow some books. We visited the doctor for Nadia and I completed the evening going to a local izakaya (informal pub) to watch Uruguay and France World Cup game. It was a mostly boring game with few scoring chances. It will be an all-European semifinal as both Latin American teams lost last night.
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