Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Doctor, My Eyes

I suppose one would have to be under a rock, passed out from a week or more of binge drinking Benadryl and Draino not to have heard about the total solar eclipse happening across Asia today. The region of totality was a few hundred kilometers south, down off the coast of Kagoshima (is there anything not awesome about that place?), but we in Kusu got a 89% eclipse nonetheless and it was awesome!

I'm notoriously cheap when it comes to these temporary fascinations in life, so I didn't spring for the 500-yen polarized specs like all the other suckers did here, I just came up with two alternative free solutions: First, use a pool of dirty, low-albedo rainwater on the ground to reflect the image into my eyes; use the polarized faceplate of my cell phone to reflect the image into my eyes. Money saved is peanut or sesame tofu (mmm...)bought, that's what I always say.

The event stretched from about 10:15AM to 11:30AM local time, but the best bits were around 10:45-50. I arranged to meet Maia at the bridge in the middle of town for a couple of Eclipse Happy Hour beers and sushi. Besides, who in their right mind would work through something like this? I never thought I'd ever see an eclipse in my life and I'd be a colossal fool not to seize the opportunity.

Now, with motivation and execution well out of the way, oddly enough I don't have volumes to say on the event. It was noticeably darker—which I suppose you'd expect when only 11% of the sun's light is reaching you—and I imagined that's what life in winter near the Arctic Circle must be like day in and day out. Again with the Arctic feeling, it was also way, way colder than it had been just an hour earlier when, in the office, I was sweating in a short-sleeve. Even if the 89% occultation lasted for only a handful of minutes I still count this as another notch on my belt of rare and spectacular natural phenomena that I've experienced in Japan, right alongside the eruption of Sakurajima, earthquakes and typhoons. As I've lived through them all it just proves to me that Mother Nature will never be the death of me, instead that honor will most likely go to a banana peel and an unfortunately placed formica countertop.

--Matt

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe you've heard about this, but Higuma-san told me yesterday: You know how some people paid hundreds of dollars for the Eclipse Tourist Package to those islands off Kagoshima? Well, apparently it rained there yesterday.

Good to know that we spent no money and saw WAY more than they did!!

Unknown said...

Hey Matt: You may remember that Dad and I were in France back in August 1999 for a total eclipse as well. In fact we took a train at the god-awful hour of 4 a.m. in order to get as close as we could to the center of maximum darkness. Well, we did accomplish our goad, BUT, like the unhappy purchasers or the Kagoshim Eclipse Tourist Package - it was overcast and drizzly the entire time! I think we saw about 5 minutes of semi-obscured sun, about 95% covered, but enough to verify that indeed an astronomical wonder was occuring. Eerily quiet and twilightish. On the other hand, our friends Lena & Wilson stayed behind in Paris and like you, were able to get up at a reasonable hour, have breakfast, amble over to the Tuileres Gardens and watch the spectacular event in clear skies...rats.