Well, typhoon Man-Yi is arriving to Okinawa just in time to cancel my Saturday afternoon flight to Kyoto, where I am supposed to be meeting my friend Cheryl (coming from China) for a final bout of tourism in Asia before I return to grad school and America. After living in "Japan" for a full year, I can honestly say that I haven't seen any of Japan. I live a billion miles away from that place, it feels like it'll be a foreign country! So me and Cheryl plan to tour the famed Kansai area (Kyoto, Nara, Osaka) for 8 days. In the second-most serendipitous travel coincidence of my life (the first being the Pope dying just after I'd bought a 40 euro ticket to Rome and me being there for his funeral), I accidentally planned me and Cheryl's trip to Kyoto during Gion. Gion is like, the first or second most famous festival in all of Japan and occurs in Kyoto. We are catching the last few culminating days of the week-long thing. A curse upon this typhoon if it makes me miss Gion!
Back to my point though: just when I thought I'd escaped a year of living on a tropical island without seeing any real typhoons, Man-Yi pops outta nowhere and is about to plop down right on our heads. This one is supposed to be serious or something. School has been cancelled for tomorrow, and all flights in and out of Okinawa. No reason to be worried, we are living in sturdy concrete buildings with metal bars in the windows, not grass huts here. I will certainly be fine (we've got candles, canned goods, flashlights and all that jazz) but my co-workers claim that there is little chance my Saturday flight will not be cancelled. All I can say is, they better put me on the next one for free! It's get to Kyoto or bust, this is definitely my last shot since I'm only in the country for another 4 weeks!
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Greetings! My name's Brian Kennedy; I'm the Manager of News Operations for NowPublic.com, a citizen-journalism website. We recently won a spot on TIME Magazine's 50 Best Websites; we also-have a content-sharing deal with the Associated Press (we in effect serve as a broker for them, hooking them up with content they want; they pay the contributor, not us).
We're trying to find some people in Okinawa to cover Typhoon Man-Yi -- to take some photos of the storm, write a little about their experiences, etc. You interested? At the least, you'll get a lot of people viewing your stuff (and you can of course add links to your blog, etc.) -- and the AP might even run your photos!
Making an account is easy -- just go to nowpublic.com and follow the steps. If you need any help, or have any questions, just let me know.
Thanks,
Brian Kennedy
Manager of News Operations, NowPublic.com
bkennedy@nowpublic.com
Well, look at this: an opportunity to be a news rep, covering a typhoon even!
GO, JOYCE! Experience a typhoon, AND gion!!! you must have good karma:) Love, Mum
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