There seems to be another typhoon heading toward Japan this week. (;_;)
I went to a photo session on the day the last one hit Tokyo.
Some details below..


It was raining all day, and the typhoon was on a direct course for
the Tokyo area.  I was checking the web page of Ichigo House to see
if the photo session might be cancelled.  The event was scheduled to
start at 19:00, and the web page stated that they will decide at
17:00 if they will cancel the event.

At 17:00, it still wasn't raining too hard and the wind wasn't that bad.
The web page stated that the event will go on as scheduled.
Since it only takes 30 minutes to get to Ichigo House, I left my house
around 18:00.  The weather had gotten a lot worse in the last hour.

When I got to the train station, I found out that the trains were stopped!
I waited a little bit, but they announced that it didn't seem likely that
the trains would start running too soon.  So I decided to take the bus
to the next station.  From there I would be able to take the subway.

The bus ride was over 15 minutes, but I made it to the next station.
I went inside to see if the trains had started running again.
Some trains were partially running, but not the one I wanted to take.
There was a land slide near Ichigaya station, which had stopped the
Soubu Line.  So I had no choice but to take the subway.

When I got to the subway station, I found out that the subway was having
problems too.  There was a water leak, so the subways were only partially
running.  But the problem was farther ahead than where I wanted to go,
so I would be able to make it to Ichigo House.

I took the Marunouchi Line, and then transferred to the Oedo Line,
and finally made it to Higashi Nakano station.  When I got out of the
subway station, the rain had already stopped.  It was getting warmer.
But it was already 19:15.

I got to Ichigo House around 19:25.

It seems that the photo session started around 15 minutes late,
so I didn't miss that much.

Photos at http://photos.usagi.org/ichigo/20041009/

The second session was a pizza (and beer) party instead of a
photo session.  A small table was set up in the middle of the room.
There were two pizzas and some other foods, along with several
cans of beer.

Yumiko changed back into her cherries one piece.
We all sat down and ate and talked until 22:10 or so.
There, Yumiko made an announcement about her future
(which I can't make public until 10/31).

Yumiko won't be able to appear in many events after this month.

--
Hitoshi Doi
                         " this space for rent "
http://www.usagi.org/~doi/                                    doi@win.ne.jp