Typhoon Bolaven

One week after we arrived on Okinawa, we had our first typhoon experience. We were a little nervous since we didn't really know what to expect and everyone was talking about how this was going to be one of the worst storms in 13 years. We were still in TLF, so we tried to prepare as best we could. We bought water, food, games, candles, flashlights, and some "typhoon treats", as we called them. When I went to the grocery store, the line was half way around the entire store. It was crazy! I think I stood in line for a half an hour. But once the typhoon hit though, it was pretty uneventful. 

 We watched a lot of movies.

 Played round after round after round of Hi-Ho Cherry-O.

 And did a lot of looking out the window. The worst part of the typhoon was at night and luckily our kids slept through the whole thing. 

 We had some chicken noodle soup along with more Hi-Ho Cherry-O. Justin was eating some toast with it and we decided it looked like the state of Idaho. We were easily amused after being cooped up in that dumb hotel room for hours and hours.

 After they gave the "All Clear", we decided to drive over to the library parking lot so we could use their wireless internet and let our families know that we were ok. This was half of the parking lot! Completely flooded.

The next day it was if nothing had happened. There were some branches down here and there and maybe a few other things wrong, but it is so amazing to us how this island is built for these typhoons. Those ugly concrete buildings definitely serve a purpose! A storm like that would have done some serious damage in the states and here it wasn't considered "that bad". Suzy called me the next day to invite us to a little mini zoo. We were so glad to be out of that hotel room, that it didn't matter where she was going. 

 The animals in this little zoo live a very sad life. They were all in these little concrete cages. We were wondering what they did with them during the typhoon, hoping they didn't get left outside. 

 The kids loved it. What is it with kids and animals? Even though this "zoo" was super teeny, they were all smiles.

 We headed into the smaller exhibits and I had to laugh at this humidifier. As if 100% humidity wasn't enough!

 A lot of things in Japan are really random. Take this big dinosaur/turtle/I'm not sure what it is, for example. And to make it even weirder, I've seen this at a store too. 

To top off the randomness of this little "zoo", at the end, you walk into a bakery and buy gigantic cream puffs. So random, but so good! We ate the whole thing.