Well, the typhoon's path took it right over Bungo Ono, but fortunately the damage was fairly light and I didn't lose power or water, so that was good. However, one of my teachers had a landslide take out a road right by his house, so I'm sure that was an unpleasant surprise.

This next week or so looks to be busy. Tomorrow, Monday, is the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, so all of the students will come to school and there will be a school assembly, a ceremony, classes about the importance of peace, and so forth. Tuesday, the city's Young Teachers Association (not sure what else to call it) will be having a cookout/river swimming party. so that should be fun.

From Wednesday to Friday, I was asked (well, politely ordered, really) to attend an English camp for high schoolers in Yufuin, about 90 minutes away. Looks like I'll be a group leader, assisting kids with general activities and encouraging them to use English. Well, I'm not a high school teacher, and I don't work for the prefecture, so I'm not sure how I was lumped into this, but Yufuin is actually a famous resort area so it could be really nice.

Also, I have slowly been working on putting up more pictures of my travels and everyday life, and you can see them on my Flickr page at http://www.flickr.com/photos/87219385@N00/ . Not all of them have captions as of yet, but I will work on it.

PS. I recently read a book about the testing and dropping of the atomic bombs called Shockwave: Countdown to Hiroshima by Stephen Walker. I bought it thinking that I would finish it by the anniversary of the bomb, but I tore through it like nobody's business, and finished it weeks ago. It's a really gripping account of the bomb program from the Trinity test to the aftermath of Hiroshima. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone that wants to learn more about this important chapter of history.