Typhoon problems, ATM issues

Well its Typhoon season here in Hachioji. Which means a bunch of rain and wind. No umbrella is safe. It started raining really lightly in the morning when I woke up for class, then about half way through my second class it started getting crazy. Then then announced that all classes after 1:00 have been canceled. Lucky for the people who have later in the day classes. Doesn't really matter to me because my last class ends at 12:30. They canceled because the main part of the storm was going to hit us around 2:00 and it would be unsafe for people coming to and leaving the school. So a bunch of us walk home, umbrellas inverting every 5 minutes from sudden gusts of wind. I get back to the dorm around 2:00 and am told the entire dorm building is kind of on lock down. No one is allowed to leave without permission, and keep our electricity use to a minimum just in case there is a power surge. The storming continues until about 7:00. There wasn't much to do at the dorms. Today would have been a good day to have the Wii hooked up for everyone to play but oh well. So I did my homework just in case tomorrows classes weren't canceled, and then napped until dinner. Now the storming has calmed down around 9:00 but it is expected to be happening again tomorrow which we are all looking forward to.

Other than that a couple other things have happened. The biggest issue I have been having here is keeping my cash flow up. Before coming here I heard from people and read that I wouldn't have to worry about having cash on me to much because everywhere will accept credit cards. All lies. about 90% of food stores and restaurants do not take any credit cards, American or Japanese. It is about the same percentage for most other places unless it is a huge electronic store like Yodobashi Camera. So I have to have cash wherever I go if I want to buy anything. This isn't so much the problem I have. The issue I have is actually getting my hands on cash. I have my ATM card from America activated for international use, but unfortunately in all of Hachioji there are 2 ATM's that I can actually use. One on campus of Soka University, and one in down town in a post office near the train station. Then when I am out traveling around Japan, like to Tokyo Game Show or Akihabara I have to go hunting for a post office if I don't have cash on me. But! also when I find the ATM it is not always a guarantee that I can get cash out. It is weird, sometimes I can take out like 25000 yen at a time, and other times on completely different days and times it will not let me withdraw as large an amount, and I have to do like 3 or 4 smaller transactions which ends up costing me a bunch extra because my bank charges me per transaction/ATM withdrawal. It is weird and seems to be completely random. I may buy an international phone card and call the banks from the international phone booth on campus to see if they know why its happening.

Other than those two things I haven't done much else. We plan on making another trip to Akihabara this weekend to check out everything we weren't able to see the first time, weather permitting of course. I plan on going back to the Kyudo club tomorrow night also weather permitting. So we will see what happens.