Konnichiwa

March 11 - One Year On

The long silence is due in large part to our moving house. The last 1.5  to 2 years has been hectic. We had to decide whether to upgrade to a bigger place (then whether to just renovate or entirely rebuild), run through our finances, check out the various house-builders, check out various locations, fight to buy our current property (located in a popular area), try to get a mortgage, meet with the house-builders almost every single weekend for a few months, sell our old place, move things out of our old house to make it look bigger in the process of selling it, keep the old house spic and span every weekend for a month for viewers (a very tough job on its own with 2 kids), go though paperwork to sell the house, pack and move out, go back to old house to clean up on many, many days, sell the house, unpack at new house ......  And that is just the house bit. We also have full-time jobs and 2 kids. Anyway, I am glad to say the process is largely over (thanks to a friend and my sis/BIL who stayed over on 2 separate weekends which forced us to quickly unpack  - which would otherwise take us another year).

Is it worth it? Absolutely. We are a lot poorer now (lots of expenses involved when moving, esp taxes to government and then real estate agents). And are in bigger debt than before. But we are so loving the new house. Nothing like designing something to fit your lifestyle and taste. We feel so comfortable at home now, it takes great effort to get us out of the house. Whereas previously in our little mouse-hole, we were just raring to leave the house when we get up.

I will later post more on our trip to Tohoku at the end of last year later. At the post Ishinomaki - Part 2, the post started off with a pic of  huge advertisement. That advertisement is on an oil drum and there is big debate going on right now whether to preserve that or get rid of that. That oil drum was brought 300m inland by the tsunami. Some authorities want to preserve it as a reminder of March 11 but the residents say get rid of it "we don't want any reminders"!

I was just watching a documentary last night and it showed a hall in Rikuzentakata. We took photos of that hall but did not then know the history behind it on that day. The hall, which is 1km from the shore, has a very high ceiling - 35m from ground. In the documentary, it said 80-odd people went into the hall as it was a specified evacuation area. But when the tsunami came, the water just rose and rose. At the end of it, there was only a 40cm gap between the water and the ceiling. Only 3 or 4 people survived. I will post a pic of that hall later. Just thinking of people trying to cling on to something for their dear lives and then trying to stay afloat within that 40cm gap, wondering when the gap will actually close up, dodging the debis swirling and the forceful water, seeing the end of your life just right in front of you - it is all so harrowing. 

So our lives have been inconvenienced since March 11, 2011. We spend more time at the supermarkets examining labels, we go to various supermarkets for veges (for some reason, a lot of veges come from the areas near Fukushima), we subscribe to a water service (for Hawaiian water), we had to watch our electricity consumption last summer and it seems that we will have to do it again this summer. But watching those documentaries last night to commemorate the 1st anniversary, I am just thankful that our house is fine and we did not, on a personal basis, lose any family/friends to the disaster.  

To hear the panic of the people as they run to higher ground to escape with the tsunami right behind them. The panic as they searched for loved ones. The wailing when they find out loved ones have died. And all earthly possessions, including homes, are gone. There is so much to despair, for those who are directly affected by the quake/tsunami/nuclear situation. It shows us how fragile our mortality and earthly possessions are, esp for those of us who live in such natural disaster zones. 

There is now a lot of talk of Tokyo having at 70% chance of being hit within the next 4 years. So even as the government is busy cleaning up Tohoku and drawing up recontruction plans, it is also busy planning for the next big quake in Tokyo. On March 11, 2011, 5.15 million people who worked in Tokyo walked home, including myself and Tomo (would that be the entire population of Singapore and more?).  Studies show that if the big one happened in Tokyo, many of us would not even be able to walk home due to fires and collapsed buildings. So the government is now studying having companies store 3 days of food/drinks in buildings. I work in a fairly new building and come this summer, will be moving to a brand new building (supposedly having the latest in quake technology). So I think my workplace is relatively safe. But who knows? 

I found this very interesting video titled "Then and Now" about the people in the affected area. If any good came out of the disasters, it is that community ties are strengthening. Do watch it. (By the way, it features the school in Ishinomaki which I posted a pic of in the Ishinomaki post below.)

Then and Now from Paul Johannessen on Vimeo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Trip to Tohoku: Ishinomaki (Part 2)

A fallen advertisement.

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According to Wikipedia, Ishinomaki is the town most badly affected by the tsunami.  It certainly was bad, but I am not sure if it is the most badly affected. I thought Rikuzentakata had it very bad, it was pretty much entirely wiped out. 

We went up a hillside that looks down into town. The right side of a canal/river was completely wiped out whereas the left side was damaged but not wiped out. The picture above was taken on the left side.  The picture below is of the right side.  Only a few buildings left standing.

And here is a close up of the right side.

As you know, many houses were badly damaged after the tsunami. So even if it had not floated away, it was pretty much a goner and uninhabitable. There was a system where if the owner of that house wanted the army/volunteers to help break down the house for disposal, they would put a special marking on the side of the house. When we drove through the tsunami-area, we saw some really battered houses, definitely uninhabitable, but they were not removed although the buildings in the surrounding area have been removed. I am told that for such houses, what it means is that the owner/family of that house entirely perished. There is no one around to put any marking. And without such marking, the government cannot demolish what is left standing. Here is a close-up of a badly damaged house that is still not yet demolished.

The primary school in this town was the most badly affected of all schools in the tsunami. The school was completely destroyed. The kids and teachers were evacuating when they were swept away by a 2nd tsunami wave, killing 75 of the 108 students and 10 of the 13 teachers. Below is a picture of this primary school.

What I thought was really eerie about this school is that its frontage is a graveyard.  Both the right and left of the road leading up to the school was all tombstones. And these tombstones were also badly damaged by the tsunami. See photo below.

The hill I mentioned is behind this school.  When the towns people ran up the only 2 staircases leading up the hill. It caused a bottleneck and not everyone managed to make it up. This is the one of the staircases, below.

How bad was the tsunami here? According to Wikipedia, it reached 10m high and travelled 600 m inland. Approximately 29,000 residents lost their homes.  All pretty heartbreaking stuff.

The earthquake shifted this city southeast and downwards, by as much as 1.2 metres in some areas.  The picture below is of the jetty which used to be above water pre-earthquake. It is now submerged in water due to the earthquake causing the land here to sink.

 

More Earthquake-Related Stuff

 

In the above footage, the car is in Sendai area and about 3km from the sea. It is amazing how fast the water came in and floated the car. As the driver was shooting the footage, he was wondering when would be a good time to leave the car. He finally did it and managed to swim to safety. He is interviewed in the footage. Never mind if you can't understand the Japanese commentary, just watch it for the amazing speed of the water.

In other earthquake news, Tomo and I have been wanting to go the the stricken-areas out of curiosity and also to help.  There is a long weekend coming up in July and the Singapore embassy is organising a group of volunteers to head there. Because of our kids, we both can't go. Probably only Tomo will go.  I have thought about bringing the kids there. Good for them to see what suffering is like. But they will probably just get in the way of the volunteers and also health/sanitation conditions there are quite a concern these days. So best they stay home. Apparently, now that the cold weather is over, that stricken-area is stinking really badly from the rotten fish that were washed inland from the sea as well as from the fishing industry's warehouses that were smashed by the waves. Flies everywhere.

Although I do not personally know of any volunteer who got injured whilst helping, I did read in news reports that bones have been broken and nails stepped on. So it can be quite hazardous for the volunteers too.

A friend did go up during Golden Week to give legal advice. Due to the condition of the accommodation (or lack of it) around the stricken-area, he had to stay about 2 hours away. The 3 most common questions, in order, concerned: (i) debt (loans/mortgages etc), (ii) inheritance and (iii) what the government is doing to help. As for mortgages, if I recall correctly, there is an amnesty/grace period of 6 months. Obviously, this is not enough given the circumstances. Not sure what is being planned when this period expires.

It is now a little more than 3 months since the earthquake/tsunami. Although many Japanese have been complaining that the debris is still not completely cleared, I think great progress has been made and it is certainly an achievement given the physical scale of the disaster. The other problem hindering the clean up is the lack of space to dump the debris.  This website has got great pictures showing the current stated of the disaster area, with some before and after pics. Do check it out. 

 

A Train Suicide

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It has been a little busy here since April, mainly because of the new school year with all the various meetings, observation days and outings. I will update the blog on that later.

Since a week or two back, it has also been getting hectic in the office. But Kai is due (overdue, actually) for his polio vaccine and I only have today or next Monday left to do it at the government health centre. Like all things here in Japan, schedules are not convenient for the working mum. The vaccine is only available between 1.30pm and 2.30pm, on Mondays in May (or October) only. So I decided to do a quick run back home, fetch Kai from school, get the vaccine over with, put him in English school and quickly head back to the office.

That plan was working perfectly - I managed to leave the office on time. Was on the express train, surfing the iPad.  2 more express stops to go. The seat before me became available but I continued standing as I would be getting off soon. Then the train stopped. The way it would for an earthquake. No screeching of brakes.  I looked up from my iPad.  Almost immediately, an announcement came on and announced that there had been a "human accident" at [name of station]. Euphemism for suicide in Japan.  I was not sure exactly where we were. The old lady in front of me asked her male companion - that's the station we passed right? Yes, he replied.  I was a bit relieved - good, if we passed that station, it means my train will probably be able to continue forward in a couple of minutes.  Can't miss that 1 hour vaccination window I have.  But it still did not feel quite right. If it is a station we only passed not too long ago, and the suicide happened with another train behind us, it would be a local train that stops every stop. And as far as I know, the target is express trains, not local trains. I looked as far back the train as I could and see that the last carriage is still in the station.  Maybe it could be my train? But there was no horn blasting or screeching of brakes on my train.  I was still unsure. Then the loud and clear sirens from ambulance/fire engines could be heard.  Hmm, probably my train then ... All this while, no more announcements are made.  

The next thing I heard was the sound of walking on the gravel that is placed along the tracks. I look down and see station officers walking down the track. OK, probably my train, otherwise why would the officers be walking on the tracks.  Nothing for a couple of minutes more.  Then I heard the gravel sound again as the officers made their way back. I casually glanced down as they walked past my window. Oh my God, one officer was holding a body part!!! It was not tiny, like a finger. It was the size of a small chicken. I felt sick and started shaking a little. I knew this is going to take some time more. I called Tomo to tell the school not to let Kai out (I was supposed to meet him at a junction near his school).  What was that body part? It is too lumpy to be a hand. Does not look like a skull and probably not the contents from a skull. Maybe a foot? And what amazed me was that the officer just held it cupped in his hands.  Damn, the train is getting stuffy.

Some time later, some station officer thought to open the door of the last carriage that was still in the station.  Most people quickly left the train without taking a look at the going-ons.  Some stayed on the train but just stared blankly ahead or were reading something.  I was surprised at how uncurious most people were. Maybe there were seasoned Tokyoites who have experienced this before? Am I the only nutty person around who wanted to see how a train suicide is handled?

I moved towards the back carriage but was undecided to leave or stay. If I leave, I was not sure how to proceed from there. I am not familiar with this station or its surrounds.  And I heard that trains move again in 1.5 hours after a suicide, so with the long Qs outside for the buses/taxis, I may as well just stay till this train can move again. In any event, there was no way I could make it to the health centre within the 1 hour window now.

I decided to hang around till this train moved, bolstered in bit by my curiousity.

Ever wondered why when there is a suicide on 1 track, they close down the whole station and the other track going in the opposite direction is not passable too? Because, the whole station is swarmed with policemen, station officers, fire/rescue people and others. No less than 20 to 30 men in various uniforms, milling about doing what they are supposed to do.  The ubiquitous blue tarp (ever present in a "crime" scene in Japan) comes up.  Before I knew it, the blue tarp came right up on the side of my carriage. Stretched across to the other track too. A fire/rescue team photograher comes right below me and starts snapping away. Er, I think the body is below me. 2 thoughts cross my mind: (i) is it a body? Or did the person survive? Probably not, judging from the size of the body part; and (ii) do I dare to look at the body as they retrieve it? I am terrified, but curious also. I decide to do a compromise - I will do a quick peek and then turn away.

And so they pulled the person from beneath me. It was a body. It was wrapped up already. In blue tarp. These fire/rescue people must have gone through quite a bit of training on how to wrap the body whilst still under the squeezy confines of a train.  They put the blue-tarped body on the stretcher. Put come clear plastic over it. Then a blanket. What happened next was a bit of a surprise. They carried the stretcher across the other track and placed it on the other platform. And then with that, the body was pretty much abandoned as the officers now went off to do whatever they had to do. The body was just lying there unattended for the longest time. It was so insignificant. I just felt really sorry for the deceased.

(These guys bending down from the fire/rescue department were wrapping the body in blue tarp. They retrieved the body. The big blue tarp being held up is to keep away prying eyes.)

With the drama below me finished, I checked out what else was going on. There was a team that was back-tracking the tracks. Starting from below me in the last carriage, slowly moving backwards - combing the train tracks for more body parts. This time round, most of the parts were smaller and some were just bits. Someone held a clear trash bag (but obviously they are not going to throw this just yet) and all bits were thrown into the bag. There was quite a lot of bits. Towards the end, about a quarter of the bag was filled with the bits.

(This team was picking up body parts)

Just then, a middle-aged man who just came into my carriage asked me if the person survived. I gestured to the stretcher visible in the window behind him. He turned around, saw the body, and gave me an "oh no, how dreadful" look. 

At this stage, someone asked the train officer how long more before the train would start moving again. He said at least one hour. But he also gave some bus routes. I decided to try the bus.  It did not make much difference in the end. All in all, when a suicide happens, it takes close to 2 hours for the train to re-start.

I finally reached Kai's school. I brought him straight from school to his English school 50 meters away.  So all in all, I was out of the office for 3.5 hours, did not make it for the vaccination, and moved Kai 50 meters. But I got some photos and a better understanding of what is done when there is a suicide.

And no, I did not take photos of the body. I did think twice about it though.

Halloween @Tokyo Disneyland

I know, we were crazy.  What were we thinking?  To go to Tokyo Disneyland on the 2nd day of the 3-day weekend - during the popular Halloween month?

If I had it my way, we would have gone on a weekday.  But Tomo being a sarariman (salary man)  with the accompanying sarariman mentality (i.e. one can never take leave!  Only females take leave), I have long given up arguing or even hoping on this.

We were expecting crowds.  But we figured, with our kids so young, we probably would not be going in to most of the rides anyway.  We were there largely to soak in the Disney atmosphere and just to give the kids some excitement.  They have never been to Tokyo Disneyland before.  They liked the one in Hong Kong - their first.  And have been asking to go back.  So they were quite incredulous when I finally told them there is no need to fly all the way to HK again, when there is actually a Disneyland in our backyard.  Which we can go to by car in less then 1 hour.

We left the house at 8am thinking that we would be there before 9am.  We never factored in the traffic jam.  We were travelling from the West of Tokyo to the East of Tokyo.  Somewhere around Shibuya (which is Westish of Tokyo) , traffic on the Shuto expressway slowed down.  By the time we got near Tokyo Tower, it was a dead jam that just inched very slowly and often came to a standstill.  We thought it was caused by an accident, but later discovered that it was caused by the crowd going to Tokyo Disneyland!!!   We decided not to turn off the expressway where everyone going to Disneyland was turning off.  We bypassed that exit, left the expressway at the next exit (the expressway was TOTALLY EMPTY after the Disneyland exit) and u-turned back using the local roads.  We saw an airport limousine (lucky us) and figured that the driver is probably using the back streets to get to the Disney hotels.  So we followed him.  That was a very good move. (Credit to be given where it is due - it was Tomo's idea.)  Had we followed the Disney crowd, I think I can safely say we would have been in the jam for at least another 2 hours as we lined up to exit the highway and followed the line to enter the Disney car parks.  

And another great idea from Tomo?  To buy the tickets in advance.  He called me as I was on my way to ballet class a few days earlier and told me to get the ticket from the Disney store, which is next to my ballet school.  As it turned out, by the time we arrived at Disneyland, they have stopped selling entrance tickets for crowd control reasons.  There were hundreds of people milling around the entrance hoping to get in later.  Disneyland actually stopped charging for the car parks as many people had parked their cars only to find that they could not enter Disneyland (and Disneysea too).  Very decent of Disneyland.  Looking at the license plates of the cars, more than half of the cars were not from the Kanto (Tokyo) area.  There were from as far away as Osaka, Niigata, Gunma.  Poor guys if they have driven all the way here but can't enter Disneyland.

I felt a little guilty as we flashed our tickets and waltzed our way in, with hundreds of people behind us waiting and longing to go in.

We did not do very much.  I queued up 40 minutes just to buy 1 pop corn bucket. And another 40 minutes to buy another pop corn bucket.  Different pop corn stands sold different pop corn flavours/buckets and Kai/Taiga wanted different ones. 

Kai wanted to ride the Buzz Lightyear ride.  He kept asking to do this the moment he heard that we were going to Disneyland.  So we went to grab a fast pass (at noon), but they were out of fast passes for the rest of the day already!  And the queue was more than 3 hours.  We hoped he would forget, but he kept asking.  Finally, after the Electric Parade at night, we made a mad dash for this ride (thinking that it would be empty as most would be watching the parade).  90 mins queue.  Kai really wanted to ride.  So we went for it.  Surprisingly, now that the  kids are a little older, the 90 mins did not feel as long as I thought it would.  

One thing which the kids enjoyed - which quite surprised us - was the Mickey Mouse Revue.  Nobody wanted to see this, so it was easy to get in.  But it was well done and even Tomo and I enjoyed it.   

Another thing that pleasantly surprised me was that even though the park closes at 10pm, they continued to allow people to queue at the rides up to 10 pm.  So for the Buzz Lightyear ride, where the queue was going for 2.5 hours, they were telling people at 10pm that they could queue but by the time they come out (at 12.30), the park would be closed.   I think most other places in Japan would in that case stop the queue at 7.30pm.   

In all, despite the crowds, we had a pretty good time.  Even after the park closed and we were outside at the entrance/exit area, the boys were still on a high and wanted to dance/play to the Disney music blaring.  So we sat down on a park bench and the boys had a grand time running and dancing around.  Till we were the last to leave and the guards were starting to look at us.

The drive home?  50 mins from door to door.

Here are some pics.

There is Taiga - 2 pumpkins high!

(I used to like the Smurfs.  3 apples high!)

 

Taiga loves his hats ....

With the 2 popcorn buckets.

  

Do you see the ghost on the ride?

Kai, his latest toy and the castle.  He begged Daddy for the toy and mummy caved in.


Saying goodbye to the ghost on our way out of Disneyland.

Nikko - Part 1

During the Marine Day long weekend, we went to Nikko.

I was going through a crazily hectic period in the office, so the whole planning was done by Tomo.  I remember being exhausted.  I was  in deep sleep at the front passenger seat the moment I set foot in the car. 

When I woke up, I found myself staring at ...

 

.... the Chrysler Building ....

.... camels .... pyramids .....

Honey - look at our kids, they are gigantic!  What vitamins have you been giving them?

Look!  Our kids are taller than the trees below Eiffel Tower!

   

Oh, we are at the miniature world.  But of course, Plaza Hotel (the old one) does not exist anymore.