In case anyone is following this, I may try to get a little sleep in. I'll check back in after that.

Red Circle

11:52

We're just about in that thick red circle denoting the 50 knot or higher winds. Wind gusts are getting noisier as the rain continues. Definitely seeing a worsening of conditions.

Rain

10:52

Check out the radar showing the rain intensity. That's us in red.

http://www.jma.go.jp/en/radnowc/index.html?areaCode=210

New warnings

9:40

Not really surprising, but the region including Ise is now under official warnings for storm, heavy rain, flood and high waves.

Wind prediction

Some forecast specifics are coming to light. If the track and intensity holds as currently predicted, we may see 100 mile an hour sustained winds and gusts of up to 134 mph.

Phase shift

It's 10 to 9 and things are picking up out there. I can hear the wind whaling and bursts of rain up against the window. I just took a peak outside and saw an ambulance or something up the road. Could be unrelated but not sure. The water on the roadway looks gnarly in the wind. More later.

(The tracking images on the blog should be updating here too, or you can go check them out at their original sources. The JMA site also has a precip radar and a satellite image. )

And a note to family: If we lose power, I may change over to twitter. See my feed at www.twitter.com/danofthenorth

News reports

7:42

This article by Rueters says this may be the strongest typhoon to make landfall on a main island of Japan in 10 years. I should note that my goal here, mom, is not to scare you. But after a day of hearing some people freak out and others say "oh it's weakening" I wasn't sure what to think. I'm still not sure what I'll see here. But I feel pretty well safe and informed. There's a branch of city hall across the street and plenty of neighbors nearby.

I'll update again in a while.

Update

7 p.m

Mie and many other areas are now under the official storm warning. TV news says to expect peak wind around here at about 2 a.m. Meanwhile, about 500 ml (1.6 feet) of rain are to be associated with the storm in this area (I suppose this includes the rain that's already been falling).

We're also now inside the yellow circle here in Ise (perhaps that's what prompted the storm warning being made official). I haven't noticed any wind pick-up just yet. We shall see.

Precautions: I have extra food and water on hand. TV news said to fill the bathtub, as it can allow the toilet to flush if the normal plumbing goes out. I don't have a flashlight, but next-door neighbor and ALT colleague Anette does.

I have no idea what to expect. If it is a category 1 storm when it reaches, sustained winds could be up to 95 miles an hour .

More later ...

Home from work ... the rains pick up ... oh right, plus wind ...

It's 20 after 5 p.m. and I've arrived home from work. The rain has been going non-stop since morning, but it is just now starting to pick up. Drainage ditches through the rice fields are filling up but not overflowing. The nearby Seta River is high, but I've seen it higher in periods of heavy rain. A ways to go before even close to threatening overflow.

The wind is also stronger than this morning. Though we are not yet in the area likely to see 30+ mph winds. This photo above is the tracking of the typhoon on the Japan Meteorological Agency website. The yellow outline shows areas with winds of 30 knots or higher (34 mph). The thick red circle is areas with winds of 50 knots or higher (57 mph). The lighter red line shows a vague "storm warning area" ... which at this point is just an advisory/warning that the storm is coming.

As the hours pass we may get more specific warnings for high winds or flooding. Despite the weakening, we can still expect the storm to be Category 1 strength or borderline Category 1 / tropical storm as it moves over the area. And we are still in the section of the storm (top-right quadrant said to pack the strongest winds.

At the moment I'm just sitting at home checking info online and on TV. No big plans but I may head over to fellow ALT Conrad's apartment nearby to watch movies or TV shows and see if anything happens.

The brunt of the storm should come in the early morning hours. A decision on whether or not students have school will be broadcast around 6 a.m. Early prediction -- there will not be school. Staff still have to report, they reminded us in the morning meeting. I'll go along unless it's dangerous to go out.

More later ...

Weakening

The typhoon is weakening faster than previously expected. It's now a Category 2 storm. By the time it gets closer to our area overnight and early Thursday morning, it will be a Category 1 weakening to a tropical storm.

Certainly still cause to be carefull but it looks like less of a threat than once thought.

Typhoon Melor

On this Tuesday night, Japan is staring down a storm called Melor. At this hour, the typhoon (same as a hurricane) is moving over Minamidaito, an island that is part of the Okinawa chain.

Soon, the storm will begin to track northeast, potentially passing directly over us here on the Kii peninsula (circled in red).

Ise is on the tip of the eastward jutting peninsula-within-a-peninsula in the northeast quadrant of the circle.

Forecasts appear fuzzy as to Melor's exact center path, but here in Mie and Ise we are within the possible direct-hit area. Meanwhile, present TV predictions show the center path pushing through the middle of the Kii peninsula.

I was also reminded by the TV weather guy that the strongest part of a tropical system is to the right of the center (see image at left). Current TV predictions, then, do not bode well for this area.

Although perhaps not as strong, this storm has a path that resembles Japan's worst typhoon in recorded history, the 1959 Isewan Typhoon, named for the bay to Ise's east that extends up to Aichi prefecture and Nagoya City. That storm killed more than 5,000 people. Here is the path of that typhoon:


While the path is similar, the 1959 storm was stronger. And of course, today more precautions are in place. Better seawalls to fight flooding off the bay. Better knowledge of how to prepare and stay safe. Stronger buildings.

Nevertheless, this storm has the potential to be dangerous.

The first effects of the storm may be felt here tomorrow (Wednesday) afternoon or evening. For this reason I wouldn't be surprised if students are sent home at midday. School also could easily be closed on Thursday. This is just for students though. According to the "rules," staff still report to school.

If a staffer cannot get there, the system would expect them to use paid leave. It's laughable how ridiculous this is. I don't plan to use paid leave if I can't make it to work on Thursday. However it's fair to say the school may be safer than my low-lying, river-butting neighborhood.

I have never experienced a direct hit from a typhoon/hurricane, nor can we be sure about the strength or path of the coming storm. But at the very least I plan to stay informed and take basic precautions.

An update

The Osaka trip redeemed itself, mainly in the form of Mexican food at Osaka's El Pancho restaurant the day after the USJ adventure.

Oh, I should also mention that we went to Costco. There are a few Costco outlets scattered around Japan, and they look exactly like their U.S. counterparts, down to the products and store layout.

When we arrived by train and taxi in the early afternoon, there was a 20 minute wait to sign up for membership (roughly $40 for a year). We then were set loose in a jam packed store -- think holiday weekend at peak hours -- for about an hour and a half.

We didn't have a car, so we couldn't fill a cart full of wonderfulness. Also we couldn't really do things that needed to stay cool.

I bought a huge container of Picante sauce, a 20-pack of flour tortillas, a small pack of beef jerky, and a some onion and cheese bagels. It all fit nicely into my backpack, but that meant for a heavy bag to heave around train stations.

Hopefully we can head back to Costco again some other month, but this time by car, so we can load up on more items and perhaps even take orders from friends.

I gave away half the bagels, and my half is long gone. We used 10 of the tortillas at a bbq/burrito party, and the other 10 are nearly gone from my fridge. The jerky went fast during a night out at the bar.

Meanwhile, the winter holiday season approaches, and I need to start thinking about plans now. I was in Oregon as recently as June, though I was busy with the Canfield-Nealon wedding. Then I hit Hawaii in August. So I'm strongly leaning toward staying out of the U.S. this Christmas.

I might instead hit the slopes of Nagano. There are a few others already talking about putting together a trip, and it would be nice to see if I can still ski after a several-year break.

Other options include an even wintry-er destination: Japan's northern-most island of Hokkaido.

Still undecided. And I guess it's possible the U.S. could slip in there. Oregon? New York? Money?

Hollywood Dreaming

I report this morning from Osaka, in fact, in the middle of Osaka. Yesterday I went to Universal Studios Japan, referred to here as USJ.

I should note that it is the middle of a 5-day weekend. Three national holidays aligned themselves to make a mini-vacation in the summer-heads-toward-fall period of late September.

Needless to say, USJ wasp packed.

We managed to ride only one real attraction, a rollar coaster called Hollywood Dreams. The wait was more than 2 hours.

Meanwhile, the mass of people walking around the park, in the still-summer heat and Osaka humidity, were naturally thirsty. But vending machines at USJ are scarce. Seems they'd rather have you wait in line for an hour to get a drink and why-not-a-meal at one of the theme park restaurants.

This next (last for now) picture might not mean much to those outside Japan, but this country is loaded with vending machines. They usually look like the one in this picture, except for the red light shining beneath every beverage. That means that all the drinks are gone. Yes. All of them. This was at 6 p.m. Four hours to closing time. It was never re-filled.

The Earliar In The Night Show with Jay Leno

Thanks to the Internet and its pirates, I watched the first episode of the new Jay Leno show, NBC's consolation prize/cheaper-than-a-drama 10 p.m. hour of something allegedly "new."

Instead it was the same old Jay. The trappings of The Tonight Show morphed into something that felt 1990s. The musical backupled by the same laughing leader, renamed "The Prime Time Band." The same burst of energy from back stage flowing into the same handshake affair the faux host Larry Sanders once comically tried in an effort to boost his ratings.

As for the conent, its much the same too, with an opening monolouge that was as strong as you'd expect when it draws from three months of material. Leno himself was energetic and appeared in his element. But the comedy bits fell flat. Kanye was there, too, apologizing again, and garnaring more headlines and angles for Jay's debut. Jerry Seinfeld, in a tux, was funny as you'd expect, and his bit-within-a-bit featuring Oprah was perhaps the comedic climax of the program.

But judging from Day 1, the new show hardly deserves the "new" designation. As he expands his roster of guest comedians in skits, and perhaps follows up on stated plans to give the mic to up and coming stand-ups, maybe the show can find a niche. But I imagine the Leno niche -- already established from his days with The Tonight Show -- won't be seeing a major shift at all.

The Swine and the Surgical Mask

Swine Flu is making its way through my school this week, with one 40-student homeroom on a 3-day leave because the virus was spreading rapidly. A few other cases from other classes, all second-years (juniors), have been reported.

I came down with a bug last week, manifesting as a sore throat early in the week. Out of an abundance of caution (haha) I stayed home on Wednesday. It didn't get any worse so I returned to a normal schedule. As usual the sore throat shifted to sinus pressure and then some sneezing (this time only about three sneezes in total) and then it faded to nothing in time for the weekend.

Not Swine Flu.

But I guess there is a fair chance I will catch it, working in a school. Many students and staff around here are wearing what we call surgical masks as a preventive measure. Fortunately they also pressing more logical prevention techniques such as thorough hand-washing and sneeze-etiquette, as well as keeping the known sick kids at home.

I am trying to remember to wash my hands more often, and I need to get in the habit of bringing my own hand towel.There are no paper towels and hand-dryers in the bathrooms here, just a single towel than I guess they think everyone should use. On top of that there isn't always soap in Japanese bathrooms, even at schools.

The Swine Flu fear has changed this a bit, in the form of more readily available soap.

A rather flat post, but I wanted to try to keep blogging after that rush of posts the other week. I will try to keep it up from now on as well.

I want my money back

Here now, is a weekend wrap-up:

On Friday, mainly I lost money.

Well that wasn't the plan, but a post barbecue trip to the bar led to an impromptu 3-person poker game, a tournament-style hold-em bout that I failed to win.

Here is the money (roughly $30) in the original pot.


I lost. Then I tried to buy back in. Then, I lost again ... to this guy, on the left, who informs me his winning on Friday led to more winning in a much larger Saturday-night game.


The barbecue was a nice little get together at Sean's place (Sean being the Guy On The Left Who Took My Money). Nice burgers, made nicer with the kick from some Huy Fong Sriracha. Now that I think about it, I left my Sriracha at Sean's too. He takes everything.

On Saturday I headed for Nagoya. I picked up an application for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, which I plan to take in December to prove that I am kinda OK at Japanese but not as good as I probably should be after 2.5 years.

Then I went with a friend to the Port of Nagoya, where we toured an old scientific-explorer ship-converted-into-a-museum. More on that in a later post, perhaps.

After looking around the port area, it was time for a dinner of Indian curry.



Overall, a nice weekend. Some stats:

Money lost: $20
Mannequins of Japanese scientists on a ship-museum posed with: 3
Spiciness level: moderate to high

That's all for now.

sketched

Many of our students are talented artists. Often, as English Club winds down, these students flock to the white board and begin sketching. Popular choices are sometimes interesting takes on characters like Doraemon, Hello Kitty or others. Occasionally we ALTs become the targets as well.

Here is a caricature done by a second-year student we call Oku-Rina. I think it captures me well.

Map My Run

As noted a few posts back, before all that food and sight-seeing stuff, I'm attempting to put some more exercise into my routine. Last week was solid, but it didn't take off beyond the 6-mile run and the single gym trip.

Needless to say the weekend went by without any further exercise besides plenty of walking around the tourist spots of Ise.

This evening Annette and I headed out for a run after dark, so we headed through the city instead of out toward the bay like last week. We also planned to cut the distance in roughly half.

We followed a path I've taken before, along the Seta River toward the city center, and then back again. I like the route because there's not much traffic and it's expandable if you feel like going farther up the river.

I signed up for a website -- www.mapmyrun.com -- which does just that. Below is a look at today's run (let me know if you can't see it). We actually stopped running right at the 3-mile mark, though we didn't know that at the time. A quick cool-down walk and we were home again.

A nice, quick, and mostly painless run. New goal: repeat or build upon the effort tomorrow.

Foodstuffs

Lots of Japanese women have blogs on which they mainly write about to post photos of what they've been eating or making. Am I turning into a Japanese woman?

Last night, our usual bar Nanaimo hosted a takoyaki party. Takoyaki is another dish most famous for being Osaka fare, but like okonomiyaki it's popular throughout the country. In this case, there's a similar batter base and the same put-in-what-you-like process for ingredients.

The main difference is the shape -- in this case little balls. The tako in takoyaki means octopus, as this is the most prevalent filler. But you could really add anything. Last night we used quail egg, cheese, pork, kimchee in addition to the octopus.

The picture above shows me helping prepare the takoyaki. I was perched there for a couple hours straight trying my hardest not to screw up the food that paying customers would attempt to enjoy.

The key is a fast spinning motion around the outside of the forging ball. Attacking too soon can mess things up. Or being a silly a foreigner. I had moments of glory, but there were those other moments too.

And also, I had beer.

Today I opted for a lighter dinner, leading to a salad. I had only tomato, cucumber and some bacon to work with. I got the bacon to ultra-crispy mode and chopped it up into bits, then threw this in with the chopped veggies and added an onion-flavored dressing. It was pretty good.


But a couple hours later I was hungry again. So I made up some pasta with a spicy meat sauce to serve as a second course for dinner and also as tomorrow's lunch at work.

To spice up the regular store-bought tomato pasta sauce, I added a mixture of sirracha chili sauce and the aforementioned onion dressing. Very tasty. Perfect amount of spice. In fact I might have to break into the fridge and have a litttttle bit more.

Okonomiyaki

The previous post mentioned the pancake-like dish called okonomiyaki.

A little background. Okonomi means "what you like" and "yaki" means to cook or grill. So the idea is you add whatever ingredients you like to a basic pancake-like batter, top it with a sauce, mayonaise and more and then eat. This is one of the signature dishes of Osaka, but it's available and popular all over Japan. (Wikipedia for the hard facts.)

In Osaka city, there are many okonomiyaki shops around. In Ise, there's a nice little shop just down the road from my place. At this shop, like at many, you can have the staff do the prep and cooking or you can do it yourself at your table/grill.

In the past, eating with fellow foreigners who often forge a collective aversion to culture, I have opted to let the professionals do the dirty work. But on this occasion, with a Japanese friend, it was a chance to try for myself.

Here is where it all begins for the customer. The big bowl has the batter and some toppings, including the pork. My kimchee is off to the side.

The Mom (appears to be a Mom and Pop operation) told us to mix up the contents of the big bowl, pour half onto the grill, add the main ingredient(s), pour on the rest of the mix, and then begin the grilling.

Here is mine in the early stages of grilling. It may be hard to gauge how big it is, but picture it as a two-spatula situation.

After a few minutes, when the underside begins to solidify, it's time to flip. First I watched Mai handle hers with the grace expected of a local. She slid in the two metal spatulas and sent the unit up and over itself, landing it perfectly in the same right-center spot it had been before.

My turn. What I lack in grace I make up for instincts, so when my flip went awry, sending the disc of goodness onto the rear quadrant of the grill, I tried to use the spatulas to pull it back to the center. Oops. Some of the ingredients came out, but the disc stayed put. The result -- the salvage, really -- was the birth of what I call the okonomi-baby.

But all in all my cooking experience was good. The final product looked decent, though not as good as its natively-engineered counterpart.

If you want to try this at home, which could be fun, try an online recipie. Here's one from About.com, although I of course cannot personally vouch for it. You can probably subsitute or omit a lot of the topping ideas (fish flakses, for example). One could have of fun trying different fillings and toppings (sirracha!).

Ise, toured

On Saturday, a friend from Nagoya came down to Ise to visit. Ise's a small town but a big tourist draw because of the Ise Grand Shrines, which are very important to the Shinto faith. Near the main shrine there's a traditional shopping district called Okage-yokocho. There you can buy gifts both cheap and not, eat a variety of foods and snacks, and mainly, you can enjoy a bustling atmosphere that Ise cannot offer anywhere else.

My friend, Mai, had been to the shrine once as a child but she didn't remember at all. So that meant I got to play host and show her around. The first stop was lunch. The Okage-yokocho area has a wealth of restaurants. We opted for one with reasonable prices and a short wait. Many shops in the area offer "Ise-udon" as a local specialty. This video explains, roughly, what makes Ise udon different from regular udon.

This picture shows my dish, curry-Ise-udon. The challenge is not getting curry-colored stains on your shirt.


And here's me posing for a photo in the restaurant.


And now that The Hair is on display here, let's take a closer look.


After lunch we went to walk through the shrine area. The idea is to go up to the shrine and pray, but the payoff at this shrine is the surroundings. Namely, trees. Big ones. And some other stuff. Take a look.


There's also a river flowing through the shrine grounds. As the Oregon Trail computer game might inform you, it's looking rather tranquil.


And here is the visitor herself.


And some more scenery.



After heading up to the alter at the shrine (photos forbidden) and praying, we headed back out to Okage-yokocho for a bit more looking around.

The first thing to catch our eyes was a cat who was zonked out. We think maybe the beer is to blame.


Then we decided to join the throngs of people all seeking to enjoy the soothing refreshment of Akafuku company shave ice with sweet bean paste inside. Right.

Akafuku is a local company founded in 1707 that is famous for its mochi (rice cake) snack. In the summer, they have a green-tea flavored shave ice with a sweet-bean-paste filling. It's ... pretty good. But you have to re-wire your conception of shave ice a little bit to enjoy the tea flavor. It's wildly popular. We had to wait about 10 minutes to get ours, and they were cycling through the customer number cards at top speed.


When showing a new person around Ise, the next stop after the shrine and Okage-yokocho is the Futami Wedded Rocks, known in Japanese as Meotoiwa. From the shrine, it's about 15 to 20 minutes away by bus. The rocks, said to be husband and wife, sit just off the shore in the Ise Bay. It really isn't much to see, and the rocks themselves aren't that impressive. I'm way more impressed by the variety of frog statues.

Here's a couple shots from there.


We then lucked out and caught a bus back to town with a minute to spare (they only head out once an hour). For dinner we went for okonomi-yaki. The Japanese like to call this "Japanese pizza" but it's really more comparable to a pancake into which you put in all kinds of delicious fillings. I had kimichee and pork while Mai had mochi-cheese. Hers was way better.

(photos to come ... technical difficulties)

And that's the story. It can be fun to be a tourist in your own town. Perhaps you can relate. Back in Pendleton I always though I should try that Underground Tours thing, but I never did. What home town touristy thing do you like? And which ones suck?

Have beer will jog

I was decent, as a basketball player, on that freshman team at Mac-Hi. Voted most improved player. Best defensive player. Averaged 2 points a game. Never mind that last part.

But in those days I was kinda quick and athletic.

This was before I met beer.

I turned 17 one day, and beer has been with me ever since. It stays with me, in the form of a belly, which I keep under wraps at all times, hidden behind the concealing powers of collared shirts.

Four -- OK, five -- years of college later, and it's evident that I spent more time in the pub than the gym. After two years in Japan, where people like me love pointing out that drinking is "part of the culture," I haven't done much to change my ways.

To be fair, the amount of physical activity in my daily routine has increased significantly in Japan, where I get around on a used bicycle instead of behind of the wheel of a used car. And now that I no longer live out of Snell Hall and the nearby fast food eateries, my food habits have mostly improved.

I have lost some weight -- you can see it in the lines of my face, but I don't actually measure -- since coming to Japan. But nothing substantial.

And it goes back and forth here. I don't have to weigh myself, I just encounter Japanese friends. Here it's routine for friends and acquaintances to casually comment on another person's weight status. This isn't considered rude or a taboo subject, but almost like a greeting.

"Oh, hey Steve, it's been a while, have you lost weight?" Maybe we can relate, but only when we're buttering people up (Steve, to be fair, has been laying off the butter). In Japan, they're serious. They say that if they think you've lost weight. Or if things look like they've been going the other way, they're equally blunt: "Steve, did you gain weight?" Their tone is sometimes grave, as in, "Steve, whoa buddy, you've put on some pounds there, don't you realize we're all paying for your health care collectively? Lay off the bear claws or the appropriate cultural substitute in this context."

This week has been a high point, though, in my physical activity lifespan. Yesterday I hit the gym and did some moderate lifting and 30 minutes of cardio. Today, along with the two other Yamasho ALTs, I went for a run along the river, about 6 miles in all, perhaps twice as long as my most recent attempts at running.

And it felt good, aside from the sudden seize-up of my right calf muscle as soon as walked in the door to my apartment. More stretching, check.

So now the goal is to keep up a routine. Yeah, I've said it all before. But I might have the edge this time. The new ALTs, Conrad and Annette, are both avid runners. I can join the team as the rusty, out-of-shape guy with significant experience in the gut area.

Now, all I've gotta do is find Steve, and find out where he keeps the bear claws.

Hawaii Part One: The Only Part

I can picture it. Friends, family, random Web surfers, strewn across the globe, waiting, impatient, furious. Where is the promised follow-up Hawaii blog post? You know, the one with the pictures?

It is here, finally.

...

From my window seat toward the back of the plane, I scanned Oahu for anything familiar. Vaguely I knew that the urban center of Honolulu was on the southeast side of the island. On the north, there was North Shore. Somewhere down there was the Nakahara home. Also, plausibly, a runway.

After the airport pickup, I showered and dressed down. No more socks. Just flip-flops for the week. (Also shorts and a shirt. They aren't that casual.) After a day or two, I realized I was the only person on the island wearing an undershirt.

No worries. My first meal was the Big City Diner in Waipahu. After a detailed appraisal of the menu I went with the turkey club (Kyle had the kimchee fried rice, which came in a quantity fit for a family of five). And while our waitress forgot our drinks, the food was good enough to make up for it.

After lunch we headed toward the North Shore, making a stop in historic Haleiwa town for some Matumoto Shave Ice. You can tell it's good because people are waiting in line for it. That's all you need to have a successful business.

Mixed in among mainland and Japanese tourists, we considered what flavor(s) we fancied as we waited in line. Behind me, a young man asked his mom whether the guidebook said what kind to get. Ha! I laughed to myself, and then to Kyle, he needs a guidebook to decide the flavor! Then the panic set it. Ahh! What should I get? I broke down and ordered the combo at the top of the menu.

We followed this with a drive around the North Shore area, which in winter features famous waves and is host to various surfing events. We stopped at a viewpoint for photos (I only had my phone at this point).

I slept late on Day 2, Friday, hoping to be ready to Be Active for the remainder of the trip. On the slate was a hike followed by a dip in the ocean to cool down.

We headed toward Lanikai, home to what's said to be the most beautiful beach around. First, we did what the Internet tells me is the Lanikai Pali hike, a quick, only sometimes strenuous venture up a hillside offering nice views. To give you an idea of the level, you can do the whole thing in flip-flops. Shoes with traction would make certain parts easier, such as the opening stanza, which is a bit steep and littered with loose rock and dirt.

Here is a view part-way up the hike:


There are two little huts along the trail, one at a false summit and the other a the top. The Internet informs me that these are World War II bunkers. For this reason, the hike itself is often called Pillboxes.

On the way down, we assured a group of struggling, rotund mainlanders that it does get easier. May they rest in peace.

A couple more photos:

From near the top.

Toward the start of the trail

After our descent, we took a quick dip and a short walk along what was indeed a beautiful beach. My aversion to the sun meant we didn't lay out, so we quickly made for a shower at a nearby park to de-sand and return home.

That's the end of part one. Part two may not ever materialize. In brief, we saw a movie and went shopping and had a lot of good food.

Now, here at the office with nothing to do, I must eat my convenience store sandwich for lunch. But I'll be picturing that turkey club as I do.

You'd have eaten a can too

At this hour, the tropical depression formerly known as Hurricane Felicia is still a couple hundred miles East of Honolulu, and she's only packing sustained winds of just over 30 miles an hour.

My Korean Air plane (do not try to get up when the fasten seat belt light is on -- they will chase you) was safely in the air as Felicia's weakened outer edges moved along the island chain. And tonight I've landed in a calm and clear Japan, one day shy of twin typhoon threats and a major metropolitan earthquake.

My six pack of fun-size cans of Mauna Loa brand Maui Onion & Garlic Macadamias has been reduced to five. Souvenirs, sure, but I get some too.

Dirty clothes, peppered with unworn socks and jeans, rest in piles near the bed. The little bag from Korean Air has a toothbrush in there. And socks. Really.

Down to my boxers. It's bed time.

Back on Oahu, Kyle and her mom and dad and brother and dog are probably sleeping in their soon-to-be-renovated house. Although the dog, Coal, may well be patrolling the house to keep the family safe from ever-present threat of neighborhood cats.

Although the five-day trip had lots of down time (Law & Order, CSI: New York and other dramas that TV offers late at night), it went by in a flash. Now, yes, I've been to Hawaii. There was a hike, a dip in the ocean, nice views, more than one serving of shaved ice, and food. A lot of food.

After some sleep, sometime tomorrow, I'll get some pictures ready and post a more detailed account of the touristy things I did around Oahu.

For now, just take it easy. That's how they do it in Hawaii. Mainly because Coal is patrolling for cats.