happy - faqjapan.com

I have to walk ten minutes from my Nagoya hotel to a differenthotel with my laundry. The rain is hard, the super typhoon has made landfall, and the rain and wind are stronger than I have ever experienced. But I need to do my laundry. The sky outside is the darkest grey. I eventually find the other hotel. Luckily the coin laundry is accessed directly from the street, sparingme the awkwardness of going into a hotel thatI am not staying at just to use their facilities.nThe laundry room is accessed through a shutter door that is currently prisedopen by what looks like a rotten plank of wood;a little worrying. Outside, noisy construction work is taking place, despite the weather. The noise makes it rather difficult to concentrate on my book. I plan to spend as little time as possible outside today, so there is no point traipsing back through the storm just yet.nInside the coin laundry, the roomis dirty. The old vending machines no longer dispense detergent; luckily for me, I bought a 28 single-wash sized pouch on the way here. I sit reading, waiting for my clothes, occasionally glancing up at the dirty walls.nnnnnLaundry done, I head back to the hotel as fastas I can. On the way, I see abandoned inside-out umbrellas dumped on the street. I watch as people duckand diveinto a shelter. I see areas of the pavement completely flooded. Meanwhile, the sound of sirens fills the air.nBack at the hotel, I sit by the balcony on the second floor of thelobby, quietly reading my book. I dont mind the rainy days really, I quite like the peace of sitting in silence reading. It seems alot of people are holed up in the hotel today. Every now and then someone will walk to the window,see that it is still raining, then go and sit back down. We are all waiting for the typhoon to pass.nAt 3 pm I am allowed back into my room. As I hairdryer my shoes, I keep an eye on the news. After a short while, I hear the words, Nagoya Station.nnThere on the news is the train station. Taxis parked outside, rain falling. The typhoon has moved north now, but the backlash of rain stills falls.The Bullet Trains have all been cancelled.nJapans biggest broadcaster NHK seem to love this sort of stuff;for the next two hours, all they talk about is the typhoon. Cut to: Windscreen wipers frantically moving back and forth. Cut to: Drains overflowing. Cut to: Businessmen trying to juggle briefcases and carry an umbrella, thenwhooshthe umbrella flies inside-out. Cut to: All of the bicycles blown over by the wind. Cut to: Rivers overflowing. Cut to: Trees shaking in the wind. Thisis about all I seefor twenty minutes, then the footage repeats, and then repeats.nnOutside, the rain looks like a white sheet being hung over the skyline. The wind is stronger now.It blows the rain sideways, so much so that it is very difficult to see the buildings in the distance.The last super typhoon I experiencedpassed miserably through the night; I never really got to see the chaos that it caused. Sitting here, I realise just how gloomyand grey today has been.nEventually, the rain stops, and the wind dies down. At 7 pm I head out to the twenty-four-hour supermarket. On the way, I pass I sign about littering. Ten million yen fine and five years imprisonment. Inside the supermarket, a digitally transposed version of Dreams by the Cranberries is playing. I buy some cheeseand a small bottle of wine. At the self-service checkout I scan the wine, a message pops up, Are you over twenty? yes/no. I press yes and then finish and pay. No one around to check, just press yes. Honesty is the best policy.nOn the way back I pass arestaurant with a full set of Christmas lights.The fullworks.nnBack at the hotel, I Skype with a friend from England. After that, I getdeep into my reading, untilI finish my book. At10 pm I head out to my nearest Family Mart to pick upsome food. Inside Family Mart, that same Japanese song with the nice melody is playing. I can justmake out a few words,it will hopefully be enough to find out what it is.nWhen I return,I turn my attention to Japanese pop music. I listen to the top 30 songs in this weeks Japanese Billboard Charts. At 9th and 10th are two different songs from the same artist. A song from the anime Sailor Moon is in the top ten. AKB48 sister-band, SKE48 are number one. The song I am trying to find is nowhere to be heard.nInstead, I find myself staring at this sign in my hotel room:nnI do eventually find out the name of the songthat I keep hearing. It turns out it is a cover version of that other song I keep hearing, the one from Disneys Frozen:Let it Go. AJapanese version played on piano, sounding very different to the English version, anda lotbetter too. I spend the rest of my eveninglistening to different Japanese versions of Let it Go on YouTube, but cant find the particularversion I like. Iprobably shouldnt have admitted that though. I cannot bear the responsibility.nRead the next part of my Journey in Japan, where I leave Nagoya and head to the ghostly seaside town of Hamamatsu, and get lost in the woods by clicking here.

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