Typhoon Vongfong

*blue dot is Okinawa

Since living in Japan (July 2013), Tony and I have experienced 6 typhoons.  Quinn has been through 2 already....

Of all the typhoons we've been through, Typhoon Vongfong was probably the worst one yet.  As you  may have heard on the news back home, Vongfong was considered the strongest typhoon of the year.. and the looks of it on satellite you could have seen why!  The typhoon was moving SO slow (around 8mph) that we had the strong, loud, obnoxious winds for nearly 3 days.  Here's the breakdown

Friday night:
The winds really started to pick up Friday night which caused a few lost "zzzzz's" on my part.  Tony and Quinn slept great - not sure how!!  We knew Saturday was going to be the worst day as Vongfong was predicted to hit Okinawa directly around 11:00pm.  I remember wondering Friday night how the heck it was going to get any worse!  It did.

PREPARATION

Satellite came off the roof

Margaritas poured (notice how small my drink is - had I not been nursing, I can assure you more margaritas and more wine would have been consumed)

Bringing the flowers/plants in.  The salt water ruins them in a matter of minutes.  I saved them all!

Filling up the bathtub, just in case we run out of water

Saturday:  Little did we know that today we would lose power for 28 hours straight.  The morning was fine.  Quinn took her normal naps (somehow) and Tony and I did our normal chores inside.  I made some food and did all the laundry in case I wouldn't be able to.  Around 2:00 the power kept going in and out. I crossed my fingers, but it didn't work!!!  We lost it at 3:00pm  The night was actually pretty fun.  We lit a lot of candles and cozied in for the night.  Quinn was amused and I'm sure was wondering what the heck was going on with her weirdo parents!

Through the window to our backyard.  Wish I would have recorded the sound of it that day!

Starting to burn the candles...

What else to do when you're bored????

Our Japanese neighbor brought over some GREAT curry!  

Tony made me some coffee from his Jetboil.  Thank god.

Saturday night:  I was over it.  The cozy night in, constantly checking the weather, the TV not working, worried all our food was going to spoil, blocking out the wind as much as I could, etc.  It was finally time for bed and there was no way I was going to sleep a wink.  I managed to get a couple hours of sleep, but I couldn't get much knowing that the eye of the storm was going to hit us.  My phone was about to die, but thankfully my mom bought be a pocket juice charger before I left the states.  That gave me another hour or 2 of weather updates.  Quinn ended up sleeping with us that night.  She also decided to spread her arms out as wide as they possibly could go, too.  BED HOG! ;) We put the sound machine on right above her head, in-between ours and turned it to the "rain" option - thought that made sense considering...

This is what comes up on our phones when there is an emergency.  Now if only I could read it!

Sunday:  Lets just say that being inside with no power for a day can really put your marriage to the test :)  Tony and I were going a little stir crazy...ok, A LOT.  We decided to get out and take a drive and look at all the damage.  The crops looked awful - so did all the trees, bushes, flowers, etc.  It was all brown and dead...so sad, especially for the farmers.  As I was putting Quinn to sleep that night the power finally came back on. I've never been so thankful for power in my life.  I felt human again.  After Quinn went to sleep, I ran a quick mile on the treadmill (training for the Thanksgiving mile run) and made some dinner.  Phew.  It was over.  Here are some pictures that I took from people who posted on Facebook.

Cape Zanpa.  This is about a mile from our house.... 

The typhoon didn't cause as much damage to the island as some were predicting.  I am thankful that the houses here can withstand all of the craziness that rips through.  There will be more of them in the next 18 months we are here, but for now I am happy that the typhoon season is about to come to an end.  Free until June now!!!  Or so we should be :)