Fire! Fire!

(If you read the title in a Beavis or Butthead voice it is entirely due to your own corruption, not mine).

Today was Culture Day, a national holiday. I'm not sure if there are actually more holidays here or not, but as my dad remarked "The Japanese sure love their holidays". Well, I suppose they must play sometimes too, given how much they work. Tom and I used the time off to do some research for the running trail he will be leading for the Wednesday night hash on his birthday, November 16th. As we headed out the door though, we smelled smoke and became more aware of the fact that we'd been hearing sirens for a few minutes...awfully close by. He stood in the doorway and the two of us stared as a sheet of black ash the size of my head floated down between my building and the next. "Must be a fire somewhere, huh?" one of us stated the obvious. We walked to the side of the building (no hallways here, once you walk out of my apartment door, you're outside. We could see some people standing on their rooftop looking at something, but we couldn't see the something. We took the elevator up to the top of the building and were greeted with the sight of billowing smoke about a block away. I went back to my apartment and took my comfortor off the veranda before it started to smell. The smoke was wafting past my window now.

When we exited onto the street, the couple that owns the restaurant in my building was standing outside. The woman saw us and exclaimed, "Kaji da! There's a fire!". A person with even an elementary grasp of Japan's space shortage and history with wooden buildings and subsequent city destorying fires can appreciate the excitement with which I heard this phrase. My first Japanese fire! Tom and I looked at each other and without really pausing, headed straight for it. There were more firetrucks arriving every moment, all with sirens blaring and announcements being made. Mysteriously, there was no one responsible for crowd control. We kept expecting to be turned around, but we walked right up and between the mass of firetrucks parked up and down my closed off streets. Long adventure story short, a house burned. We didn't get too much closer, but by the time we (and most of the fire engines) arrived, it had already collapsed. The other houses on the block are probably all smoke damaged. Yet as we walked away there were still more fire engines arriving, still no crowd control. As we reached the train station, we spoted a fire helicopter. Hum... this is probably one of the side affects of too much government spending on lowering the unemployment rate (thank you macro paper!).

So, after all that excitement, we wandered all over the place and covered a lot of interesting territory. I intended to post some photos, but the blogger photo posting tool is all screwed up again, so that will have to wait. Sorry! (Edited: Fixed!) Here's some photos I took during my walk yesterday. The first is at Todai: Tokyo University...one of the only pretty spots we could find on the campus. The next is at a temple we walked through. I'll post later when Blogger's not so buggy.



Finally, I am happy to say that I am ON FIRE as I write the opening of My Novel. I have over 5,000 words and am mid-way through my second chapter. According to Those Who Figure This Stuff Out, I must shoot for 1,667 words a day. For today, my goal was a total of 5001. I'm at 5,300 something and still have an hour before I sleep. I kind of hoped to get further ahead today since I wasn't working, but decided that I should also bank some hours with my boyfriend before he thinks I'm choosing my laptop over him (that will probably come later this month). Anyway, just wanted you all to know that its going well and so far, I'm enjoying this project more than I expected to. Awesome!