It’s hard to believe its been a week since the 9.0 earthquake struck just east of Sendai and unleashed a devastating tsunami that has killed thousands of people and caused turmoil and deep suffering here in Japan. The death toll has risen to lofty numbers and is still climbing while rescuers and those up north still assess the damage and help those who have survived.
Further south here, people are still following the progress of the rescues and the attempt to cool the Fukushima nuclear reactors very closely. At the same time many are trying to return to a normal life or as normal as can be considering the circumstances. Kids have returned to school, people are heading back to work as trains and buses in the worlds largest transit hub return to full efficiency. While the nuclear reactors still weigh on everyone’s minds, the consensus seems to be that the Kanto area (Tokyo and surrounding areas) are far enough out of reach to be directly affected. So people strive for some normalcy even though this tragedy is still clear in everyone’s minds.
Here in Chiba, people are freely going outside, kids are playing in the park, we still walk our dog twice day. The tremblors are becoming less and less frequent (I finally got an extended nights sleep last night) and their strength seems to be decreasing (keeping our fingers crossed). There certainly are still reminders of this disaster with the constant news on TV, the huge lineups for gas stations (there is still a major shortage here due to the oil refinery fire in Chiba) resulting in lines of 50+ cars just to get into each gas station, and continuing shortages on the shelves of supermarkets especially for things like fish and mean, bread and yes instant noodles.
Speaking of instant noodles. I wanted to give a special thanks to Duffer19, forum member, customer and friend, who saw my post showing empty shelves at the supermarket and went out of his way to ship a box of instant noodles to me from Hong Kong. It was quite a surprise when the noodles above showed up at my door. Thanks R! People still continue to email me best wishes and support which is simply fantastic. Thank you all.
Rolling black outs are still occurring in areas around Tokyo including Chiba in order to divert electricity north to homes without power especially with a sudden cold spell mid week. As for talk of Tokyo becoming a ghost town, I have to say that is very much an exaggeration. Tokyo is one of the world’s biggest cities and it would be very difficult for the 30 million people in and around Tokyo’s surrounding areas to simply “disappear”. It seems to me that news outlets overseas always seem to report the worst and frankly scare people like my mother who is in Toronto into calling me non stop every single day to check if my water is contaminated and if I am taking iodine pills. I am constantly reassuring her that things are fine and we are trying our best to get back to normal. Even the Canadian embassy who I receive daily updates from are showing no indication of wanting to evacuate its citizens to outside of Japan. They are however transporting people from the damaged areas to Tokyo.
We went out for lunch yesterday and the restaurant we went to was packed resulting in a 20 minute wait. I guess its better to stay at home and eat to actually avoid the crowds (^_^). Here at TSG, we are in full operations and almost every brand is back to full functionality except Taylormade Japan which resumes next week. I actually received boxes of demos this morning from Royal Collection, Three Luck Sky Dream Jump and Mizuno who sent me a pair of the new R shoes which I will write up a review for right after this post. It’ll be nice to start doing some golf related posts again and luckily Chris (Tourspecgolfer) has been doing such a superb job with his posts that the blog has been continually updated.
So thank you everyone again for your support and Japan will persevere and recover from this terrible disaster.
It’s good to hear from you T! Hopefully this is the start of more peaceful nights of sleep for you.
The EMS evidently still works great as the box was only sent the morning of the 17th. Please note all the ramen are all JDM and not forged in China like the Fourteen. ^_^
Thanks R, you are a great friend. Good choice of JDM ramen!
Thanks M, I certainly hope so. It’s been a very exhausting week.
I’m amazed you haven’t left yet! All the foreigners are leaving in droves, so why aren’t you? Don’t you have a place to go in Canada? Aren’t you scared about being irradiated, or that supplies will be short for the next 6 months or more? Fukushima prefecture will be shut for a while, especially the radius area of the fallout. They will have to do further tests to see if the half-life of the radiation is as estimated and not worse. No food, water, plants, or any organic material can be taken from the fallout area for how long? They really haven’t said.
I mean they’ve emptied out the American bases in Kanagawa, the only ones left are the essential crew who can operate the equipment and keep an eye on weapons supplies, Non-essential personnel and families have all left, they’re in California or Korea, wherever they went. That’s how paranoid the Americans are. I suppose they know a bit about nuke fallout, since they did all that testing in Nevada back in the day with actual bombs, whose smoke fell on Salt Lake City for years and all those leukemia cases in SLC were all because of the fallout smoke. I’m amazed the media has not done a history lesson about nukes for the younger generation who don’t know anything about it!
You’re fearless, my friend, I’m amazed you’re still there.
Thanks G for the concerns, but I don’t really see anything amazing about it at all. You say all the foreigners are leaving town? I haven’t noticed. My neighborhood is filled with foreigners and every single one is still here. The Canadian embassy hasn’t even asked any Canadians to leave. They simply have moved people out of the north to – Tokyo. I could easily go back to Toronto if I wanted, but I don’t.
You said it yourself in your comment “that’s paranoid the Americans are”. It’s not a question of being fearless. Its about assessing the situation and making a decision based on the situation, which in the Kanto area is under control. If you consider southern Japan its completely unaffected and its not like agriculture and industry do not happen anywhere else but in Fukushima. So I think we are okay.
Thanks for caring though. (^_^) Haven’t seen you around as often over the last month. Been busy?
Well, OK, just watch for those winds, they’re heading in your direction on Monday.
Yeah I’ve been busy, playing a LOT of bad golf LOL working out my winter kinks
Yes the radiation in tokyo has occasionally spiked to the level of eating 8 banana’s in one day! Since then it’s reduced to the same level as eating only 2 banana’s.
haha well at least you are playing. There are tee times available everywhere here but I think more than anything people feel guilty going out so no one is.
I ate one banana yesterday. I think I am okay. (^_^)
Well, the reports are in from Kanagawa, that the Americans have LEFT. They have LEFT their bases, at Yokota and Tokosuka, COMPLETELY EMPTY. Even their minimum personnel have all left, they’ve gone to Korea or California or wherever. They’ve even left their stuff there, to be looked after by JDSF! Also they are saying that the major embassies in Tokyo are EMPTY. British, French, American, Canadian, Egyptian, and a few others, have all scuppered out of there in a flash, out of the country or down to Osaka.
Shoot, the nuke thing is a horrible disaster, but heck, it might just be the perfect deterrent to keep the “foreigners” out from ever coming! How funny is that!? LOL
Way to “defend” Japan and look after it, you silly Yanks!
Sorry I mean to type JSDF lol
And Yokosuka, lol
Bud, why are you still there? LEVEL 7, dude! The area has been expanded! TEPCO nor the government really knows exactly how to deal with it, they’re all working off major guesswork! Get the heck out of there, man!