As Typhoon Jebi approaches the downtown area, everyone else wants to get out of it.
Osaka is one of the biggest cities in Japan, and its people are known for their unabashed passion for commerce, comedy, and cuisine. Put all those factors together, and you can expect the city center to bustling at just about any time of day or night, as people make their way to and from their offices or favorite places to eat and drink, laughing and chatting all the way.
▼ A typical day in Osaka’s Umeda neighborhood
But while downtown Osaka is normally full of life, these images from Tuesday morning and afternoon, primarily taken in the city’s Umeda district, show an eerily empty ghost town.
With the powerful Typhoon Jebi advancing on Osaka, the city cleared out early, as the approach of a powerful storm is one of the few things that can motivate Japanese bosses to let employees go home early. A number of shopping complexes and department stores shut down for the day, closing their shutters and turning their pedestrian-accessible passageways into lonely steel-sided corridors.
Roads and train stations too were also vacuums of humanity, with the majority of commuters heading home early to take cover against the approaching typhoon.
Looking at the photos, it seems like the only people choosing to stick around the area were news crews, appreciating what might be their last moments of dryness before having to venture outside for on-location reports.
The storm is expected to make its way out of Osaka sometime during the night, with the forecast calling for partly cloudy conditions on Wednesday and clear skies on Thursday. After that, though, showers are coming again, so hopefully Osaka will at least get to enjoy a few beautiful sunsets during its respite from the rain.
Source: Hachima Kiko
Featured image: Twitter/@OceanBlue327
Insert image: Wikipedia/Mc681
