I'm just after getting a couple of hours sleep.. Was watching the news and when I heard the nuclear situation was much safer than initially feared I relaxed a little and fell asleep. Tired now. My body clock is all over the place. Seeing the constant stream of footage on the news of what has happened in Northern Japan in very sad.. I can assure you that Tokyo is nowhere near like this thankfully.. Yes, we got rattled pretty violently yesterday but thankfully we escaped the same severity of the earthquake and the subsequent tsunami's experienced in the North.
Tokyo appeared to get back to some bit of "normality" today... Nippori was a lot quieter than usual though and the atmosphere was strange.. people not really saying anything and a lot of frightened/worried faces.. There is this little store in Nippori where hot food is sold on stalls... I used to go to this place frequently but I stopped going about three weeks ago... So it is all women who work there except for one guy who seems to be the boss... About three weeks ago I had queued up for some food and when it was my turn to order the guy blanked me and served two women who were standing behind me in the queue... I knew he did this on purpose and I just walked away and never went back... Today, as I was walking around I took some photographs of Nippori for some memories and also to shown people at home.. As I was walking down the street I was taking photos of some very nice little stores and I stopped at this food stall to take a photograph as well because it's a novel little store... However, the guy that I'm referring to stormed out from behind the stall and shouted "no photographs"... I nodded and said "okay" politely and put my camera away (in some shock!)... he then shouted "go away..!"... I was shocked (as were other bystanders) but said nothing and walked away... But for me this is not typical Japanese people and it was the first time that I experienced this.. I could call him several things but then again you never know what is going on in peoples minds... Then again that is the second time he was "rude" to me...! Anyway that's a little bit of frustration vented..
Woooowww.... Big tremor again just now... about 10 second long and the strongest today I think.. Hadn't one of those in about four hours. I see the news channels are on to it straight away.. Must finish tidying and packing up the rest of my stuff.. Hopefully everything will go okay for the next few hours and that I can start making my way to Narita tomorrow morning
So glad you are coming home Diarmaid. Go to the airport well ahead of time and relax there. Have a safe journey home see you early next week. A. Cathy
ReplyDeleteHere is a link below to monitor the earthquakes:
ReplyDeletehttp://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_all.html
Thanks Cathy. See you all soon hopefully :)
As you can imagine Diarmuid its all we are thinking and talking about here at home. Cant wait for you to get on that plane. Travel safely,take care, everyones love and prayers are with you. mary x
ReplyDeleteAunt Phil and Kit following all the news and thinking of you and keeping up todate about you.
ReplyDeletePlease keep posting. Ignore that guy's reaction as not everyone like foreigners. I do have a lot of experience on this matter! ;-) Now especially when the temperature "of the air" is way too high people are nervous and obviously may overreact. The most important is not the fact that guy is angry and even not the fact you are frustrated after such accident. The most important you are both alive. Forgive him and think about you getting safe back home. Stay cool! ...and yes, thank you for your reports.
ReplyDelete