Abandoned Kansai

Some of you might have heard about Typhoon #21 a.k.a. Jebi – the fourth natural disaster to hit Kansai in little more than three months; not including the usual summer heat and humidity that tend to make this time of the year a real nuisance, also much worse than in the past few years. Jebi came with a paid day off for me as JR (Japan Railways) announced on Monday that they planned to shut down all services at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, which made it more than likely that other train companies / modes of transportation would follow. Unfortunately this day off also came with a more than ten hour long daytime blackout – no AC, no water, no internet. As a result I wasn’t able to write an article this week… and the work that didn’t get done I have to catch up with. Will there be an article this week? I can’t say for sure yet. Maybe tomorrow, maybe on Friday – maybe I’ll have to skip it and return to the regular schedule next Tuesday.
Other than being uncomfortable for eleven hours I luckily wasn’t affected very much by Jebi, but according to the latest media reports nine people lost their lives – my condolences to their families and friends.
Also: Hey, America! Stop sitting on your thumbs and finally put some real effort into getting Puerto Rico back on its feet! Japan is a filthy rich country and most of the damages done yesterday won’t last more than a couple of days, but come on guys… it’s been almost a year since Hurricane Maria!
(Oh, and whoever at The Economist thought that Osaka is the third most livable city in the world… think again!)