Typhoon Roke is appoaching

(images from the web)

My work today was canceled.

Due to the approaching typhoon, we had a heavy rainfall yesterday and much sooner than we expected two main rivers running across the city were observed to be in a danger of overflowing.

In fact at the upper streams, the water flowed over to the nearby residential areas and fields. The city claimed an evacuation advisory to almost half of a city population. I don't know how many people had actually left for the evacuation facilities, though.

The main roads downtown were covered with heavy rainfall in a short period of time and some of the underground shopping arcades and the subway stations were flooded. The transportation systems were paralyzed in the midst of the evening rush hours. My son was stuck in a traffic jam on a bridge when he drove back into downtown Nagoya.

My area was safe except the fact the typhoon is getting much closer no later than this noon. The rain and the wind are getting worse as the typhoon is approaching. No evacuation instruction is claimed here at this moment but only an evacuation advisory for people at a certain area of the city.

My husband called me from India to check if I am all right. He convinced me that our place is basically safe from flooding. I glue to the TV anyway. It's raining hard and the wind is threatening. Our little pond in the garden will be flooded soon or later. Gee, it is so relieving my son is off today. We’ll stay safe.

It's good to learn something you don't know

(click for a larger image)

Hello! I was away from blogging for a while because I was just too busy with this and that. Luckily enough, now we are the midst of the three-day-holidays over the weekend in our country. I've found myself a bit relaxed and I'm enjoying spending time just for what I abandoned for these weeks.

Today, I took a subway and attended the talk meeting.

A researcher from Vietnam studying at University of Nagoya gave a presentation on her country especially from a standpoint of preservation of genetic resources from an unfair trade work. That was so informative. She also introduced us a general history. Every picture she showed us was unfortunately what we already had seen over and over for 30 some years as the sad evidence of the Vietnam War. Despite the fact that the war was over more than 35 years ago, people are suffering from the fatal damages even now genetically over generations.

Vietnam is a very rich country with forests and water. The land is blessed with wild plants. People have been using it as medicine in the form of traditional knowledge. Now they are forced into an unfair reality that they don't get enough benefits from them. This is a global problem of ABS(Access to genetic resources and Benefit Sharing.)and I'm now really interested in this country not only as a very beautiful travel destination but also as a nation seeking for national development being free from unfair treatment from overseas countries.

It's always good to learn something you don't know.