The Tan Tans' Life Begins

We learned today that daily life in Japan is highly dependent on weather conditions. The infamous Typhoon Sinlaku (台風十三号) arrived in Owase last night, and halted the town's activities for the whole of today - school was cancelled, train services were stopped and access to the highway was prevented. 760mm of torrential rainfall was collected over the 18 hours of Sinlaku's brief stay here - that's a lot considering that it equates to about one-fifth of Owase's annual rainfall of 4,000mm. Sinlaku's destructive effects were felt in certain parts of town, with 30 over houses flooded, and 20 over people displaced and evacuated. Landslides also occured in a few places. And sadly, our crops were destroyed ;-( Thankfully we live in a relatively safe part of town so the final score was Tan Tans 1; Typhoon Sinlaku 0. See the huge, dark mass of air at the top of the pics? That is the typhoon. A video to show the anticlockwise movement of the typhoon. A few rays of light sneak ...

Today is the typhoon day, to be more exact, it started from yesterday night. Anyway, Mrs Tan Tan wil tell you all more about the happenings of the typhoon. For me.. the title spells it out. SPIDERS!!! Since the Tan Tans cannot go out of their home, its house-cleaning time and this eight legged friend just dropped in to say "hi" while Mr Tan Tan is cleaning the cupboard. It is not the small ones that I played with when I'm a child. Take a look at this photo below; ok... to give a better gauge, its like the length of a S$1 dollar bill. You can call this a Tarantula. . . or maybe not? Well, it was quite a fright when it dropped suddenly from the ceiling of the cupboard. Luckily, there's always the trustworthy "Freeze Spray" and the traditional insecticide spray. For for this 8 legged guy, the freeze spray (-85 degrees) was alot more effective!