Sitting inside on a rainy day listening to my elementary, junior high, and high school classmate Byron Schenkman play Haydn. Even have a little tea brewing.
It is nice to have this rainy day to get caught up on some things. Like, for instance, a darn blog entry. It has been a long time since my last entry. I have two other entries in my head but have been unable to shake them out onto paper. But anyway, I do at least have one entry for May.
It seems that rainy season, or 梅雨, is upon us. It hasn’t been officially declared as far as I know, but the weather certainly would indicate that.
I guess this is my fourth rainy season here in Japan. It is traditional that I highlight each one in my blog, like I did here, here, and here. Judging from the previous entries, I may be a bit premature declaring rainy season. I’ll be sure to let my blogosphere fans know for sure. And true to form, a typhoon is on the way. This is the second of the season for Japan, but typhoon 4W, Songda, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center.
Sometimes its nice to have a really rainy day to just stay in, read, write, study, clean, nap, etc. Tomorrow though, I have a late afternoon soccer match with a bunch of friends. No, I’m not playing. I’m going to see the Nagoya Grampus (Japanese site here) play in Toyota-shi (豊田市). The stadium is partially covered, but I’m not sure if they can close the roof if it is too windy. It could be a very unique soccer experience.
What is a grampus, you might ask? It is apparently a killer whale, which the Nagoya Grampus home page says adorns the top of Nagoya Castle. I always thought they were dolphin on top of the castle, and the official Nagoya castle website calls them dolphin. The Grampus website refers to them as killer whales. You be the judge.
The team used to be the Grampus Eight which was always confusing to me. It made me think they were a rugby team and not a soccer team because I thought there were 8 players on a side in rugby (but actually there are 13 in rugby league, 15 in rugby union). The “8†comes from the official symbol of Nagoya, which is the kanji for 8, 八, which I have as the little icon for this blog. I can see why they dropped the Eight – quite confusing.
Let’s hope the typhoon fizzles out and the match goes on without too much difficulty.
