Earthquake, Tsunami, Nuclear Explosion

6.35am Thursday 17th March, 2011. "Watch it Di, you better watch the television". Prime Minister Naoto Kan quietly requests that Japanese citizens stay calm. We are neither Japanese nor calm. We have been riding this Japanese roller coaster for almost a week now. Shaking, shock, disbelief, horror, relief, pity, panic, hope, sorrow. Unlike the Tokyo Disney rollercoster, we don't know if this ride will end. Shall we jump off, or shall we hang on? From one hour to the next, the last seven days push us and all those around us to new heights of fear and back down again. Each night, we feel reassured that all is under control. The gentle disposition of government representative; Edano eases us to sleep with reassuring summaries of the day. Everything is under control. We relax and sleep.
But, this morning, with talk of a possible nuclear meltdown 450km away, we have trouble staying calm. The school where we work and learn has turned virtual. We are glued to the television whilst we study and prepare classes for the day. Military helicopters unsuccessfully dump water on the Fukushima nuclear plant, they cannot get too close as radiation levels at the plant are too high. A blue fire truck squirts a dribble of water within 2 metres of reactor three. He huffs and he puffs but he cannot reach the reactor, someone inside is risking his life being so close. Couldn't they see that it was too weak before they got so close? The little blue fire truck was sent to save Japan. It failed. The helicopters could not get any closer. The radiation levels are too high. Those brave Samurais are requested to risk their lives and save a nation. They are the heroes of Japan. They almost certainly will shorten or even lose their lives, this is the honourable thing to do.
This is Japan.

The earthquake wasn't too scary in Nagoya. Upstairs, on the first floor, we swayed more than usual and for much longer than expected. Having practised an earthquake drill only 3 days earlier, we dutifully complied with the normal , "Duck and Cover" routine, fresh in our memory. Sway, sway, creak, creak. Although some nervously laughed at the earthquake in Nagoya. I didn't think it was that much fun at all. I have felt a few minor tremors since coming to Japan, 11 months earlier, but none like this. This seemed wide ranging and extremely long lasting. I would guess, 10 minutes long? Trying to get back to work to meet a deadline, we again, felt the huge aftershock 30 minutes later. What's going on? Ten minutes later my brother sent me a text from Australia. Eh? We really need to get this work done by 5pm, but then a skype call. I'm fine, I'm fine, I write, yes, yes, we felt the quake. We are fine, don't worry! What's happened?  Why is my family ringing me and how did they know about this so quickly?
We are oblivious to events unfolding north from here and we are really trying to finish our work before the weekend. On edge and excitable after the earthquake and aftershocks, we propose some unrealistic developments for the school.

   

We feel sick. After a late night at school, we arrive home to discover that a tsunami has severely impacted on the region of Sendai. The visual images are sent around the world. It is enormous, an absolute catastrophe, many 100s of people have been swept away with little warning. At 8.9 the earthquake was the largest ever recorded in Japan. Cars, boats, houses, buildings are swept inland and out, back and forth again, crashing and consuming everything in their path. A bling, bling sound and flashing lights alert us to the where abouts of the most recent aftershock We experience many aftershocks in Nagoya too. The third catastrophe brings more anguish for this nation, damage at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Will this ever stop. The enormity of the situation is only now coming to light. Catastrophe after catastrophe are playing havoc on everyone in this nation. We are all on edge now. We receive a multitude of messages from our family and friends in Australia. All with the same message, come home. It is difficult to ignore. We cannot understand the full story, what is really happening at the Fukushima power plant? We hear of explosions, radiation leaking, improvement, more explosions. The government informs the people to stay united and to stay calm. We feel no sense of relief from the government. We do not feel calm. We struggle for information and projections. We are told to relax, that we will have  hours or maybe days to get out if we need to. Hours to get out? Hardly a reassuring message. We are torn. The Japanese try to comfort us with stories of Hiroshima, people only 50km from the centre of the explosion were affected. We are too far away. The French are evacuated. We try to stay strong and calm like the Japanese. The Japanese government put a 20-30km exclusion zone on the area, the US government puts a 80km exclusion zone. Why the difference? We get mixed messages from day to day, hour to hour. We cannot make heads or tails of the truth. What can we do? Most Europeans are being pulled out from Japan. We are made an offer to temporarily evacuate. We wait. We do not want to leave this country. Our friends, students and school are the centre of our Japanese life. We do not want our year in Japan to end. We have loved every minute of being here. We have travelled every weekend, danced at Obon, tried every dish on offer and had a lifetime of hot thermal baths. We have religiously studied the Japanese language and embraced every possible Omatsuri that we can understand. We love Japan. We try to get accurate information but feel helpless about finding the truth. Enough is enough. Nuclear reactor 3 which contains plutonium is on fire. Attempts to cool it seem fruitless. Many of our friends and colleagues have gone. We do not see the point in needless risk. We reluctantly book the tickets.

Now, back in Australia, we are told that 10 000 people are confirmed dead. 18,000 people are missing. 250,000 people are homeless, many of them mourning the loss of their loved ones. People are traumatized and still worried about the risk from radiation. Others to the north still wait for basic supplies, food, water, kerosene heaters. What is their future? Back in our Nagoya neighbourhood of Higashiyama Koen, children have drawn SOS is in the playground. The stress on the children all over Japan must be extreme. Fukushima Nuclear power plant is still at risk and unstable. Radiation is found in the water at Tokyo, some vegetables and soil is contaminated. We still have mixed advice from differing governing bodies. Catastrophe after catastrophe after catastrophe.  How can Japan ever recover from this? How can we help Japan? Perhaps the sakura, the Japanese cherry blossom, due any day now will help. Did 17th Century Japanese poet; Basho experience something similar?  His haiku eloquently describes this situation. "Come see real flowers of this painful world."  The delicate sakura will ease their pain, as another chapter in Japan's volatile history is being written. Hopefully this chapter will end soon.

Winter to Spring

.....and within a matter of days, winter turns to spring. Skies are brighter than before. We eagerly await the arrival of the sakura, the cherry blossom bud-burst is forecast for March 25th. We, 130 million of us are ready to sit under the trees and bbq precooked prawns and yakitori (chicken on sticks) with our friends and family. Hanami (cherry blossom watching) as it is known, prepares us for the new Japanese fiscal and educational year. Kampai!

Fuji san

Hakuba Station

Valentine's Day-Nagoya

roadside tree-Camellia

plum blossom

Heiwa Park

KOREA

Cautioned by recent political unrest, we ventured on a Japanese style holiday to neighbouring Seoul, South Korea. Only weeks earlier, a provocative act by North Korea left four South Koreans dead, victims of the North flexing their muscles and firing off a bomb to a quiet seaside village in South Korea. Of course, we were abhored and worried by this event. In March 2010, the North also bombed a South Korean sea ship. Unrest seems to be building. We have learned a lot about the region. Japan's occupation of Korea, the Korean war, China watching, it's influence and control. We speculate and discuss the current events with our Korean friends. Will it be OK to travel to Korea at this time? It becomes apparent that the people of the South live with continuous aggravation from the North. Four tunnels have been found, dug through the demilitarized zone since the war. (The DMZ is about 4 kilometres wide. It is almost 60 year since the war. Due to lack of human impact is now a haven for wildlife). One Korean friends' house is only 5 minutes drive to the DMZ. She can see North Korea from her home. It is difficult for us to imagine a life like that, living a normal life so close to another world, a place that possesses a threat to one's own safety on any given day. We briefly considered cancelling our trip to Korea, why would we venture to an unsafe part of the world?

We were encouraged by a special Japanese 7.30 report style broadcast. It was a very timely and reassuring message. It was clearly stated that now is not a good time for anymore attacks from the North on the South. There will be pressure from China on the North to refrain from attacks. This is due to the Chinese Premier; Wen Jiabao imminent visit to see the USA President; Barack Obama. Local commentary suggests that the Chinese do not want any local unrest whilst they negotiate their own wishes with the Americans.

Comforted by this and our Korean friends advice we pack our bags and head for the airport.

Seoul is absolutely freezing, -11C, but still sunny! We cannot walk around town as anticipated, instead hailing taxis from one corner to the next, they are cheap and convenient. The Koreans are lively and happy, the city is filled with colour, interesting design within complicated patterns, lively street life and spirited conversations. We eat kimchi and many other spicy foods, a first since leaving Australia. We are so close to Japan but feel that we are on the other side of the world. How can two nations be so close and yet so different?

Happy New Year!

The year of the Rabbit, 2011, arrived in Nagoya with our first floury of snow. Before New Year, thousands of people crammed our local streets to get to the nearby, Heiwa Park Cemetery. By January 1, all the individual graves were adorned with posies of pine branches and flowers. Every single grave had been visited by their family. Tradition is an enormous part of Japanese life. No wonder this place is so crowded all the time. I actually think the Japanese like being surrounded by others. It is just what you do here, tradition, tradition, tradition. Get in the car and sit in a traffic jam. Go to where everyone else is going. Queue in an orderly fashion to take a peak at a special Buddha, maybe rub his shoulder for good luck. During autumn like everyone else, we got in the car, drove to the nearby prefecture of Gifu to look at the Autumn leaves. Are we becoming Japanese? We spent weekend after weekend in ridiculously slow going traffic jams. Was there an accident? No, just everyone in Japan driving around trying to get back home, merging traffic, slowing and stopping. At least we can watch the TV in our car when we stop:)

All the workplaces build up to new year with "Forget the Year" celebrations. Every man, (women stay at home and clean, wash and cook meals - another tradition)  has a number of evening events to attend.  Before New Year there is a scurry of emptying out unwanted goods, many of them perfectly functional. Every house and workplace is decorated with pine and twine decorations. We think about doing it too, but are cautioned that all decorations must be removed by January 10th and burned or some awful bad luck might happen. OK, the pressure, what if we forget to take it off the door? How will we burn it?

New Years Eve (unlike Australian culture) is a reflective evening, a time to be with your close family. At midnight, families visit their Shinto Shrine or Buddist Temple to ring the bell, 108 times I think it was, all for good luck. Before dawn, they wake back up again to greet the New Year. It is a tradition to climb to the peak of a mountain to see the first sunrise of the New Year. We joined our friends to climb such a  mountain. The sun rose at 7am.We climbed to the top, stood and waited to see the sunrise. It was pretty unremarkable, a little cloudy, but again we were not alone, at least 200 people stood with us and hoped for a spectacular visual event. We cooked Omachi with the locals in the fire. Omachi is a rice cake that is as hard as a rock until it is roasted. It is a tradition to do this too. Careful though, 1000 people choke on Omachi every year.

We welcome the year, 2011, the year of the Rabbit.
Happy New Year!!

Christmas in Japan

Samui desu yo. It is cold. But not cold enough for us, we head to Hokkaido for a guaranteed White Christmas. Christmas is not a public holiday here in Japan, we could be excused to miss the whole occasion if it wasn't for a skiing Santa and kitsch Christmas carols being aired at our Japanese hotel. Christmas is celebrated as a present giving event but it is really only a party, unlike New Year's Day which is one of the biggest family occasions of the Japanese calender. At time of writing people are celebrating the end of the year with, "forget the year" parties and women "spring clean" the house, throwing out as much as possible to make way for a new year and new things. We did manage to put on a Christmas lunch on the 19th December with our friends who are practising hindus. They were great company and helped bring a little family to our Christmas luncheon. We found a turkey leg, bright red inside with a curious flavourless taste, not much better than a plastic toy.(I think it said turkey on the packet) We were very proud of our Christmas cake though,  it took many supermarkets to find the right ingredients. It is difficult to locate sultanas around here. The cook at the kids school informed me that he has been requested not to use them when making scone like cakes. Squishy sultanas embedded in flour is not a local delicacy. So with 8 packets of the little squished flies, 100g per packet, somehow, we produced a great big Australian Christmas cake. We packed it in our luggage and took it to the airport, got on the plane with a 25kilo bag full of Christmas cake, smiled a lot to avoid excess baggage and away we went for our skiing holiday of a lifetime.

Ice was floating in the sea before Sapporo airport. It set the scene for our week of negative temperatures. What was even more surprising was watching two F18 aeroplanes landing on the same runway as us. Wow! Have you ever seen an F18 land? It is all about the rear tyres. These military planes looked like they were performing at the Paris airshow, pointy nose tip in the sky at a 45 degree angle, running down the tarmac for most of its' length. Incredible first time sight!

Niseko was as beautiful as expected. The air was always crisp and snow fell almost non-stop.The snow was the driest snow ever seen. Powder. Now I get it. Powder is different to snow, slush, rocks and roots. This was seroius skiing at its' best. The illusive Mount Yotei revealed himself rarely. A huge Fuji-san look alike just across the valley. Arriving by bus on the 21st of December, we had a clear view of the full moon, the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere and a partial lunar eclipse. Spooky!

We had a feast of Japanese cuisine for a week, 12 hours of skiing a day with plenty of breaks, much of it by artificial light and a sulphourous onsen if we chose. Bliss!



NEKO

CATS

Just back from my morning walk around the neighbourhood through Heiwa Park (peace park) and the eucalyptus plantation (the eucalyptus are being grown for the koalas at the zoo). I am still trying to understand the significance of the humble cat to the Japanese. It can be difficult to have a pet in Japan, people live so closely together and most apartment blocks do not allow them. Dogs seem to be trained not to bark, even the smallest terrier. Most dogs are tiny, special breeding produces miniature dogs. In Japan there are miniature dachshunds, corgis, chihuahuas and tiny terriers of all varieties. Many dogs, some would describe as nothing more than a football. On my walk, I pass a grown man in his suit with three cats around his feet. One is a kitten. The kitten sits on his leather shoes. The man feeds the stray cats as if they were his own. He looks at me as I pass by. What is he thinking?  I guess I should say, "aren't they cute", "kawai desu ne". Does he come down here to this park to feed these cats everyday? As a Melbournian I can hear 774's Dr. Hugh say they should be destroyed, but this man, feeding these semi-tame, wild cats treats them as his own. He is feeding them commercial cat food and they are living here in the peace park. There are cats like these all over Japan. Another 300 metres along, a well dressed lady gets out of her brand new Toyota and produces bread crumbs for another group of cats, some with deformed stumpy tails. Six plump, wild cats scurry over for breakfast.

When we first arrived in Japan these cats seemed deplorable. They still seem deplorable, but now at the least we have an understanding that they provide a soothing comfort to many in Japan who come to feed them and treat them as their own. In Asian culture the cat is more than just a wild pet living in the park, but their true significance is still something that we do not understand. If you can help us to understand the significance of the cat, please post a message or send an email. Why are there cats waving their left hand, some their right? Why are there art exhibitions devoted to the cat? Why is there a street in Tokanome, a pottery district near Nagoya completely themed on cat art?



FUJI APPLES

It is apple season now, the end of autumn. Japanese apples are so different to those we have in Australia. They are enormous, way too large for a bento box or western lunch box. One fuji apple can feed a whole family. These apples are so sweet and drip apple juice like a tap. We were kindly taken to this apple orchard, a secret location, somewhere near Iida just into Nagano prefecture. The children were instructed to climb to the top of the oldest trees to pick the sweetest apples. Some trunks were 50cm in diameter. We cannot help but compare these apples to the ones we know in Australia, how we would love to have a tree so plentiful and apples so large. Something tells us that these apples have been growing here for 100s of years, maybe even longer.

With the snowcapped mountains in the distance we are in awe of this country's beauty. The valleys are so packed to the brim with small buildings, people living in small apartments all over Japan. Rural Japan seems just like the cities. Yet to escape these crammed living situation just look up. On a clear day a beautiful rugged mountain is almost always in sight.