It Rained. A Lot.

I know it's the middle of July but here in Japan it is monsoon season so in the middle of hot humid weeks you get a day where it absolutely pours. This has happened many times since I got here but today was probably the most extreme example. It actually started raining last night while we were at a festival. Nobody had brought an umbrella because it was such a nice night so we had to duck into a grocery store and buy some. I'm a bad Oregonian getting an umbrella but I didn't have an umbrella and this is worse than anything we get in Oregon. Anyway, after running home and having my shoes fill with water from all the rain, we went home to sleep to the sound of rain...and woke up to thunder and lightening.

So my housemates were going to an elementary school today but I was free (it's a long story) so I was thinking of walking part of the way down the mountain to Ojiya after I took a shower. Before Lion boy left and took the internet with him, I sent a text to the guy who drives us if he could pick me up if he got the chance and that I may walk part way like I did the day before. He arrived right after I took a shower which is a good thing because when I finally got back to the main guest house I got a text that he had sent a while ago saying it was too dangerous to walk because the rain made landslides likely. The other thing in that text is that there was a "don't go outside" warning. Apparently every five years they get massive storms and this is one of them. I knew it was a storm but I live in Oregon we get rain and storms how bad can some rain be?

It wasn't raining too hard when we got to town so I grabbed my umbrella and headed to the grocery store less than a ten minute's walk away. While there, I run into the head of the program's daughter and talk to her for a bit and run into another lady that I believe is an English teacher and also lives across the street from the main house. She spoke to me in a combination of English and Japanese so that was kinda cool. Anyway, eventually I got my stuff and started walking home. When I was getting close to the convenience store where I switch main streets it starts pouring. Like more rain at once than I have ever seen in America. There is a lot of water on the roads and it is flowing into the really deep ditch gutter things they have along the sides of all the roads here. Despite my umbrella and the ditches, my shoes still start to fill with water.

When I pass the convenience store, I notice a small ditch has overflowed. As I stop to take a picture, I notice water shooting out of the grates down the street. I take some pictures of that and continue walking.

The road starts to fill with water and I'm fascinated by it. A guy is standing in his garage so I comment on the rain and continue walking down the street. However, by the time I get to the side street the main house is on, the main street and the side street are partially underwater. I stood there for a while seeing if it would go down then try to go down the street where it isn't flooded but water is shooting out of the grates there too and the road is flooding fast. My shoes are already filled with water so I just pick a place where the water isn't too deep and wade across the road and hop onto a raised curb. The water is close to 12in/30cm deep. I have to wade back to the house and then send a message to everyone telling them the roads are flooded and Corgimama comes running downstairs because she realized I was outside when there was a "don't be outside" warning. I took off my completely soaked shoes and socks and got scolded by Corgimama before going inside for a bit then wandering out onto the porch to take more pictures.

Both streets were completely underwater for a while, a voluntary evacuation was issued in some places, and water flooded the lower floors of some houses. The roads are completely dry now but that was a really interesting experience.