Typhoon day is the new Snow day

Coming from Minnesota I grew up like many children wishing and dreaming for snow storms to come on school days. It always seemed like a waste of good snow if the storm came on a weekend. We always hoped they would come early enough in the morning to cause the school bus routes to be drifted over and stay long enough that school was canceled not delayed. But we also hoped that it would clear up enough mid morning that we could go out and play in the snow.

Now that I live in Japan I'm experiencing a new type of 'snow day'. It is tropical storm season in Japan and we've just been hit by Typhoon Melor which brought heavy rain and winds as fast as 198 kilometres (123 miles) an hour. Schools in Japan follow the guidance of the Japan Meteorological Agency and when they put a warning in your district the schools in that area close. This morning at 6am my area of Kinki was colored RED meaning - we had a warning. My school and any other schools in our region were canceled. Later in the morning we moved to yellow meaning weather was downgraded to advisories. Currently(Thursday 4pm) my area is one of the few green areas on the map meaning there are no advisories.

Yesterday after school the winds started to pick up and the rains increased. Before I went to bed I had shut the shutters on all the windows in my house and had cleared the yard of anything that might be blown away. Between midnight and 1 pm the storm winds sounded to be the strongest here. Cookie didn't like the sound of the winds and was whining, barking and growling at the storm. By the time I got the phone call at 6am that school was canceled, the winds had reduced significantly but it was still raining. Train lines had delays and debris was seen in the streets. Flash flood warnings were out but from what I can see my neighborhood didn't have much damage or standing water. By this afternoon the sun is shining, the birds are singing and people are out in their yards sweeping up the branches and clearing debris.

The storm has moved northwest and is causing other challenges for various parts of Japan, tornado force winds, flooding, electricity outages, etc. But overall it seems
that this storm is not as severe as was expected. Praise the Lord!

How did I spend my 'Typhoon day'?
I've spent the day catching up on sleep, trying to fight off this cold that has lingered, reading a book, cleaning the house, correcting papers and preparing for tomorrow's chapel message. I'm enjoying a slower paced day away from school but it is not quite the carefree feeling of the 'snow days' of my childhood.