So one day I went for a walk...

It is 11pm and it is the first time I have been dry in 12 hours. Today was one heck of a day, so let's start at the beginning. Yesterday I checked on to a hotel south of Nagoya in Anjo. It was the first day since leaving my new friend Mandy's place, and the cold I fought for my entire stay with her wasn't entirely gone.  I was careful to confirm the checkout time for the morning. The clerk slowly thought about the right words in English and kindly informed me that checkout was at 10am. Making my way to my room I found myself in a smoking room, so it didn't smell great, and the mattress was mostly springs and not really padded. But I was too tired to care.  I read the information on the table and confirmed the 10am checkout time.  A few few hours later I would tuck in for the night.  I paused for a moment, considering when I wanted to get going the next morning and set my alarm for... 10 fucking am. I slept marginally above poorly, and woke up with my alarm....

It is just after midnight and my attempt to fall asleep early for a long walk tomorrow have been upended. As I lay in my bunk, slowly drifting off, I felt suddenly as though I were laying below a bridge and a freight train was rolling overhead.  It was the first of countless rolls of thunder, intensely loud and reverberating in my head. Roused by the storm I could not help but look, so I dressed and slipped out of my bunk to head downstairs.  The hostel was darkened for the night, with a small group in the common room enjoying a conversation.  I silently passed them by, unlocked the front door and found a covered spot to admire the spectacle. The sky had opened up suddenly, and with a ferocity that spoke of a some long standing grudge between it and the earth.  Sheets of lightning crashed across the sky one after the next, followed by seemingly unending rumbles of thunder. It made the rain seem less like scattered droplets falling at random and more like powerf...