A Day at the Zoo

We went to the zoo today with the neighbors. It was a beautiful day but a bit chilly. Enjoy the pix. Enjoy the pictures - click on them and a bigger version opens up.

All that was between us and the tiger and the polar bear was a piece of glass! The kids were a bit scared!

Lots of monkeys!

An interesting translation.

And lots of other fun too!

Funny face!

The new school and the new Costco

We went to Kansai last weekend to get away from all the anxiety in Tokyo. Had to come back on Tuesday as Yuki had to work. But we did have time while we were down there to check out the new Costco that is being built (where Yuki will work after we move) and Jeff's new school.

We also checked out and pretty much decided on an apartment pretty close to the new school.

When Jeff was in Bangkok he was pretty busy but here is the only picture he took while he was there.

March 24 update

Good morning,

After the car was down from the parkade we headed to Kansai and spent the long weekend at JiJi and Baba's and Michan's house. The car was scratched up a bit and dented on the back bumper from shaking up against the car parked behind it. Probably about 500+ dollars damage that is not covered by insurance as it was caused by an earthquake.

Yuki was told to be at work on Tuesday so we headed back to Tokyo Monday night.

In terms of daily life in Tokyo things are still abnormal however one improvement is that Yuki has been able to get gasoline without waiting in line too much. Many food stuffs (rice, yogurt, milk, eggs, etc) are harder to find than usual and when you do find them there are limits on purchases (one liter of milk per person etc). Bottled water is now somewhat impossible to find as there has been a public announcement made that high levels of iodine are present in Tokyo tap water. We have a fair bit on hand and should be OK but it takes a while for the iodine to dissipate so who knows how long this will drag on (the reactor site is still emitting relatively high levels of radiation).

We will keep the gas tank at least half full so if we have to leave again we can.

I am technically on holidays but for the time being I too have been coming in to work just to try and get my daily life somewhat back to normal and to keep me from watching too much of the overly dramatic media reports of the situation.

Thanks for all of your concern.

I will update the blog if there are any major changes.

Update

Things in Tokyo are still pretty stressful. There is a lot of panic type behaviour related to contiued strong aftershocks and the increased levels of detected radiation as a result of the power generator situation in Fukushima (about 240km away from us here in Tokyo). The authorities tell us that the radiation levels are not of concern but it does not sound like the nuclear reactor situation is going to get better any time soon as the measures being used right now seem to be very last ditch efforts to desperately prevent further meltdown (dumping water by helicopter to cool the reactors).

Many embassies (not including Canada nor the US) have suggested that citizens leave Tokyo/Japan and some embassies/companies have started moving their people/staff to other parts of Japan or overseas. The Japanese government is calling for people to remain calm but the government and the power company have been criticized about the lack of sharing of information regarding the incident and this may be why foreign organizations are taking more drastic measures. The media stories are often contradictory (I have found CNN to be delivering particularly questionable 'news'). I recommend anyone wanting to stay up to date use NHK (Japan's equivalent of CBC) to get current information. The NHK online site with live streaming in English is available at http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/index.html

Things are probably safe for now in Tokyo but who knows what will happen from here. If things deteriorate significantly with the nuclear situation, a mass exodos of the 30+ million people living in the areas around Tokyo is not something that I want to be around for. As you can see from the picture, our car was lowered from the roof of Costco today. Yuki does not have to be at work right now and I am off using up my remaining holidays so tonight we will most likely head to the Kansai area to get away from the local stress and spend some time with Yuki's family.

Thank you all for the emails of concern. We will take the computer with us and continue to keep in touch.

Earthquake update

Hi everyone.
Thank you all for the inquiries into how we are doing. We are all fine. Jeff was actually away for the earthquake as he was in Bangkok giving a workshop. It was a bit stressful fr him being away and hearing of the earthquake. He is now happy to be at home with family.
The house was a bit shaken up (a few things fell over and some broke) but that is about it. The biggest inconvenience for us right now is that we have no car. The car is still in the parking garage at Costco as the ramp to the parkade fell over and Yuki therefore had to leave the car at work. Below are some pictures of the Costco ramp.

Everything seemed much more real for Jeff after he arrived at Narita and he saw some of the international rescue teams that had arrived at the airport. This is a shot of the team from Taiwan.

The trains are own today to try and conserve power and put less stress on the nuclear power plants in Fukushima so not much is going on. Also the fires at the oil refineries in Chiba have caused gasoline shortages (the stations that do have gas are lined up for kilometers). Our neighborhood gasoline station emailed us to tell us that they will be out of gas by this afternoon. Rotating power outages are scheduled for the next few days until things stabilize. I was at the supermarket early this morning to stock up on some essentials - the place was packed at 750 in the morning and many essential items (drinks, bread, rice, etc) were selling out (I waited in line over half an hour to pay!).

With the trains down, transportation systems were a mess this morning as people who were told to come in to work tried to get there. Here is the scene in front of my little local station - lines for non-existent cabs and big waits for buses (my bike works fine though!).

There are still lots of aftershocks (a big one of about 6.2 this morning) so things are still pretty tense. While feeling inconvenienced but relatively very lucky, we are making the best of our situation; spending time with the neighbors etc. Here is a picture of Sumire and the neighbor girl at the park this afternoon.

We will try to keep you posted promptly of any changes.

(We just had some more shaking as I am finishing up this blog post!)