I have tried out a new kind of sock. They say it is cooler than a regular sock. I am not sure about this........ 

A few days after a big earthquake occured in Tokyo, a large Typhoon came to the big mikan! 

6:00 pm 

Typhoon time! 

July 27, 2005 

July 27, 2005 

If someone says to me........"Chuck, what do you like most about Japan?"....... I don't know what to reply. There are many, many things that I like about Japan . I have a snowball's chance in hell of selecting just one little thing and then saying......"Yes this is what I like most about Japan! " However, if someone asks me what I dislike the most about Japan I can without a moment's hesitation answer the question with just one word: earthquakes. Last Saturday Tokyo had the biggest earthquake it has had since 1992. This was no 1923 style" Big One" (The 1923 quake killed over 150,000 people in Tokyo.) Nonetheless ,this was one scary earthquake. I was at home (which is on the thirteenth floor) listening to the radio program "Car Talk" when it occured. The room I was in was suddenly transformed into this ship that was smack dab in the middle of the worst sea storm ever. The floor was going up and down and in every which way. I tell you......if this thing had continued a little longer I would have suffered from "seasickness"! It is a miracle that no one died because of this quake. There was not much damage either. The two big airports here were closed briefly and many trains stopped running for between one and three hours. In front of Shinjuku station people waiting for taxis formed a 200 meter long line. People had to be rescued from 50 stopped elevators. One of my students told me that his apartment's elevator was kaput for 20 hours. He lives on the fifteenth floor of this building, so during this 20 hour period he had to walk up and down 15 flights of stairs 4 times! I told him it was a good way to stay in shape..........