1. Tokyo earthquake: magnitude 5.6 and I didn't even feel it.
2. Bear attacks in Shirakawago: we were told that the day before we had arrived at the village a bear had attacked a couple of tourists, biting the ear off one and putting both in hospital - both tourists that is, not the tourist and the bear, or the tourist and his ear, or...
Bear haunt
3. Mount Ontake eruption: we didn't even know about this until about three days later. I'd caught a snippet of news, when we were in Hiroshima, showing a mobile-phone video of an erupting volcano but I had no idea of where it was. The mountain is about 80 kilometers south-east of Takayama. We left the day before the eruption, though I doubt we would have seen anything if we'd stayed another day anyway.
4. Typhoon Phanfone: this typhoon had worked its way up the Asian coast from the South China Sea, so by the time it swung past Korea towards the main island of Japan it had pretty much petered out into a rain depression. We knew something was coming, as I can read a weather map. We just had no idea of what it actually was. We only got some rain overnight in Takayama, and by the time we got to Hiroshima the weather was clear and sunny.
There was actually another typhoon (Vongfong) heading towards Japan as we were flying out but we were long gone before it hit land.
5. There'd been an outbreak of dengue fever in Tokyo before we left home and I had packed insect repellant as a precaution. And then completely forgot to use it. We seem to have made it through okay.
Not a bad list for a 16-day trip.
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