One GOOD thing about late night typhoons is that all the office workers get sent home early, leaving the later trains nice and empty - albeit soggy.

So yes, another typhoon. Ho Hum. A stinking, record shattering summer, a rocking typhoon season, the wettest October ever.... wonder what winter holds for us? Maybe that film The day After isn't such a fantasy after all. Yeah, who gives a shit about the Kyoto protocol eh.

More pictures inside.

I pretty much live, breathe, eat, drink and (mostly) work in Shibuya. So it was no surprise to realise that the reason Hachiko floods so badly in big rains is not because of poor plumbing, but actually all the crap clogging up the drains. Shibuya is a seedy environmental nightmare of sparkley packaging. It's always dirty and smelly. Despite all that, I still love it. Go figure.

Anyway, the city workers in their macs and wellies spend most of their typhoon time moving from drain to drain, clearing them of debri (ciggy butts, plastic crap and muddy dust).

Jo took some great photos of last weeks huge typhoon, so it is to her that I owe my inspiration for tonights piccies, although mine are rather ordinary.

Unfortunately by the time I came out of my 9.15 private lesson tonight, the rain was already easing so these photos were really about an hour too late to capture the chaos of torrential typhoon rain. Hopefully tomorrow we'll see the sun again.

TV Cameraman & lighting guy looking in vain for some typhoon drama. If you look closely you'll see the camera guy is looking straight at the camera.

The tireless drain scourers

A Hachiko restaurant guards against flooding by piling up sandbags

Photographers (the three guys to the left - one squatting) with mighty big lenses which you can't really see

Cleaning a drain