Saturday, October 10, 2009

台風明け晴れ


Typhoon 18 roared across Japan on Wednesday. I hope there were no problems at your house.

I realized after living here for seven years, that always after a typhoon passes, we are left with beautiful sunny weather (sometimes it's still a little windy, but nevertheless sunny). It seems that if you endure something bad or nasty, things will get better afterward. So I like the Japanese phrase 台風明け晴れ to describe any situation like this - It's always fine after a typhoon.

With the nice weather, I could get in some great riding. Today I went to the team ride in Owariashi via Jokoji.
It was 11 degrees at Jokoji park at 7:00 am. After lunch, my son and I rode along the Utsutsu River cycling track to the
Sakashita natto factory. So a total distance of about 80km today for me, and 12km for my five-year old son.

Before it gets too cold, I hope you can get out and enjoy the nice weather.

3 comments:

  1. Hello、Mark!
    It's Naomi、
    台風明けに晴れることを「台風一過」と言います。
    Have you heard it?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the comment. I made up 台風明け晴れ myself a few years ago because I didn't know if there was an appropriate Japanese phrase.

    Actually, these days I have noticed that many young people don't seem to use or understand 四字熟語 or ことわざ, and give me strange 'what-are-you-talking-about' looks when I use them in a conversation.

    Just yesterday I used 顔が広い to say someone knew many people, but the person I was talking to just stared at me with a question mark on his face. A few years ago at a junior high school, I used 後の祭り while trying to encourage a student who never studied to do the worksheet I gave him. He turned to the Japanese teacher and asked, "Is there a 祭り soon?" The teacher and I couldn't stop laughing.

    So, I try to avoid using them with younger people (anyone under 30) and save them for conversations with older people. And maybe I should use 台風一過 next time, just in case.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I had a wrong idea, 台風一家 instead of 台風一過 when I was a child.
    I imagined that all typoon family members had gone somewhere, so it was beautiful day.

    ReplyDelete