the holdup

From the blog Foreign Volunteers Japan, posted June 10 (reprinted from Yomiuri Daily newspaper):

Less than half of the more than 80 billion yen in disaster-relief donations already sent to prefectures affected by the March 11 quake and tsunami has reached the hands of people waiting for urgently needed cash to rebuild their shattered lives.

To be paid, a person needs a disaster victim certificate. To get a certificate, one must undergo an inspection. The problem is that there is not enough staff to handle the issuing of the certificates, which has severely slowed up distribution of the donation money.

Click here to read the full article. (Foreign Volunteers Japan is also a Facebook Group. And here's a link to its Ongoing Volunteer Opportunities page. There are so many organizations out there striving to help fix the unfixable. )

Facts and figures:
Municipalities in Miyagi prefecture have paid out just 28% of the 33.1 billion yen they've received in donations; in Fukushima, the rate is higher: 61% of the 35 billion yen received has been distributed. In Iwate prefecture, 47% of 10.2 billion yen has gone out to victims.

This is interesting: If your house was completely destroyed, you get 350,000 yen. Partial damage, either by tsunami or fire: 180,000 yen.

But there's another issue in all this. It's my understanding from Peace Boat that local governments at least in Miyagi prefecture have yet to determine whether certain areas should be rebuilt. Those residents who receive their compensation and move forward with reconstruction without awaiting official word on this could end up being told to relocate, their streets declared unsafe. How long can people wait? Not just for the money, but to find out the fate of their neighborhoods?

It's a fair question. But rebuilding in the same spot that got swept away with the March 11 tsunami seems, well shortsighted. But it wouldn't be the first time. This Japan Times article looks at several communities that refused to leave low-lying areas despite previous wipe-outs. Yoshihama in Iwate prefecture was an exception -- only four houses were lost and only one person died on March 11, because the town had relocated its homes to higher ground after the devastating tsunami of 1896. For other towns it took a double whammy -- 1896 and again in 1933 -- to convince people to consider moving. According to the article, in those other towns the fishermen were inclined to prioritize convenience over an uncertain threat, and so they returned to resettle again on lower ground close to the sea. Then others would follow the fishermen's lead.

At a party the other night I was talking to someone (who's in a position to know about these things) about the frustrations of assisting with the relief and recovery efforts, and he said that this resistance to leave the coast will not change even now. The fisherman from these small towns on the Tohoku coast simply do not want to live away from where their boats are docked.

Another thing this guy said: without qualification, the Japanese government has failed the people of Tohoku "on every level," in the way they've responded (or not) to the events of three months ago. The best way for somebody to help out is not to go through "proper channels" but to find out what is needed in a particular place (by talking to somebody who's on the ground, officially or not), to acquire those things, and then to drive them up north and hand them out yourself. My friend Lisa, along with her husband and some friends, did exactly that last weekend. Here is a photo of her after one of her supermarket runs:


I was skeptical of these kinds of rogue relief operations but I'm not anymore. I should point out that Lisa knows somebody who'd been living in the area for three months who could direct and guide her. I still think that's important, to have contacts like that. Avoid the red tape, play the gaijin card.

I just wish I had a car. And a license to drive in Japan. And kids who could fend for themselves, or a full time nanny.

Big Blue, we like your style

Watch Peace Boat volunteers from IBM hoist bags of contaminated soil that our crew had just dug out of a small park:



Shot June 3, 2011, in Ishinomaki, Miyagi prefecture

what June looks like

Three months after 3/11, Tokyo still feels different and yet is very much the same. Take the hydrangeas, which always seem to sprout up everywhere this time of year, in the parks, on the side of the road, in pots outside doorways, wherever there is a bit of landscaping or spot of green, like so many mini cheerleader pom-poms.




Have always loved this lumpy stone lantern, which anchors the north end of Ebisu Prime Square, the bricked plaza up the stairs from the Lawson's and the Dexy Diner and the fountain, and right across the street from our building where most weekday afternoons a group of dogs and their owners get together for a playdate.

Go Team 2!

Louisa and me. I was lucky to have her on my team in Ishinomaki last weekend. Those two-hour bus rides out to Peace Boat's base camp passed very quickly when we were seated next to each other.

A few days after we had returned to Tokyo, she emailed this to me: "I'm looking out my window at the incredible clutter of buildings and antennae and water towers, lightning rods, ventilation ductwork, water pipes, air conditioners, all chockablock (great Tokyo landscape). There are four guys out there on assorted roofs, dressed kind of like you in the picture (above)! I love this view and how I can see, on the exteriors of the buildings, how all the innards work. But it was another thing to see the innards inside out, so to speak, banged up and shredded, and to think of them as, well, dead."

Here's all of Team 2 (there were six teams of 7 total) at the end of our second work day, posing in front of the heap of trash bags we had spent the last several hours filling with toxic gutter slime and contaminated soil from somebody's yard (two other teams worked with us on this).
From right to left: The corporate trainer (Miyuki, Japanese), the Japanese translator (Brendan, American), the seasoned Peace Boat volunteer (Kenta, Japanese, assigned to make sure we didn't hurt ourselves, I imagine - see previous post), the construction firm exec (Adrian, Australian), the business school professor and organizer of this whole weekend (Tish, American), the history professor (Louisa, American), the writer (me, American), and the recruiter (Tomoyo, Japanese). Love all you guys.

And here's the whole lot of us:
It looks like Yoshioka-san, Peace Boat's founding director (front row, second from left, with Kenta sitting to his right) is holding up my chin with his thumb.

Click here to see more photos on Flickr.

Teyandei in Nishi-Azabu

Here's a great place to eat, not that expensive, and they get extra points for having a waiter on staff who happened to be standing outside when I arrived, saw that I did not have a lock for my bike, and so went inside to get one for me and then tied my front wheel to a pole himself. It was a combination lock so he had to unlock it upon my departure as well. (He had to come outside anyway to tell our group to hush as we were talking quite loudly and disturbing the neighbors.)

Our set menu consisted of some sesame tofu, a bit of unagi-tamago roll and pickled veg to start, fried yams with lemon and fresh cabbage leaves and a tasty dip, assorted sashimi, pork dumpling soup with a delightfully crunch chili-oil (we think the crispy bits were toasted garlic), onigiri, and for dessert, a slab of lovely vanilla ice cream inside a round of maple-sweetened crusty bread (unexpected, and delicious).

How to get there: if you are traveling along Roppongi dori, away from Shibuya station, turn left down a quiet narrow street (it's actually two one-way roads -- follow the direction of the traffic) a few meters shy of Gaein-nishi-dori (if you get to the big Gonpachi on the opposite corner, across the intersection, you've gone too far).

Once you've turned off Roppongi dori, continue along for a few minutes; the road will curve slightly to the left but you're basically staying straight. The restaurant will be on your left-hand side, in a two-story converted private house on the corner. Not much signage, just a small paper lantern and tasteful bamboo decorating the outside. Look for the signpost announcing that you are at 2-20 Nishi Azabu (address is 2-20-1).

I think the Bento.com review sums it up well:

This is a comfortable neighborhood izakaya that serves terrific food. ...with decor that veers toward the traditional end of the scale. Traditional, but never stuffy - the friendly, upbeat staff set the tone, and their enthusiastic shouts and the celebratory sounds from the upstairs party space create a lively auditory backdrop.

tenderfoot

I've seen a lot of dolled-up dogs over the last 3+ years, but nothing that comes close to this.

Check out the kicks:

Here's a closeup of the front legs and paws

Now the hindleg view

This Sunday: Peace Boat info session

Just pulled this straight off the Peace Boat website:

Peace Boat will hold an event on June 12 (Sunday) to report on its activities in Ishinomaki in the three months following the devastating earthquake and tsunami of March 11.

Yamamoto “Jr” Takashi, Peace Boat executive committee member who was one of the first on the scene in Ishinomaki to set the foundations for the relief and recovery efforts, will come to Tokyo from Ishinomaki to report about the situation. Other panelists will include musician SUGIZO who participated as a volunteer in Ishinomaki, Libyan student Adel Suliman who has acted as coordinator of many volunteers in the field, and other international volunteers and coorporate representatives. The second half of the event will be an information session for people considering volunteering in the affected areas in June or July.

Date: June 12, 2011 (Sun)
Part 1: 2 pm – 3:30 pm; Part 2: 4 pm – 6 pm
Venue: JICA Global Plaza
Bookings: Peace Boat Disaster Volunteer Centre
TEL: 03-3363-7967 (10:00-19:00, closed Sundays and public holidays)

Visit the Japanese homepage for full details about this event here.

Note: We are still confirming if English interpretation will be available on the day, please check again later for details.

[Editor's note: If you can not speak Japanese you must go up for an entire week, an the orientation is mandatory. No shorter stints available unless you bring a bilingual friend, according to my friend Kathleen who tried to sign up for three days.]

the comedown

I'm back in my nice Tokyo apartment, feeling like a very lucky human being with my safe, healthy family, modern appliances and a kitchen full of food, electricity and wi-fi and functioning washlets, restaurants and shops and the dry cleaner down the road all open for business, trains and buses and taxis at my disposal. The big city, a world away from the Tohoku disaster zone, is getting on with things. The boys are in school, so the apartment is quiet and I am sitting at my computer and thinking about last weekend, its purpose, how to use it as a jumping off point to do some more volunteer work. The kinds of things I'd like to do, I can't do, because they require running away from home and abandoning the spouse and offspring. Oh to be unattached and between jobs... wait, I don't really want to be that, just sayin'.

This is Kenta, fellow gutter-worker (we took turns shoveling the slimy black stuff and holding a bag open so the other could drop it in -- eeeyewww). You can see the concrete covers resting there like fallen dominos, which the bigger/stronger members of our team removed and placed to the side so we could get into the muck. But to the left are some pieces of plastic and slate and glass covered in all that black gunk that were stuffed into the gutter as well. We had to pry those out with a crowbar (well, Kenta did that while I watched and admired his skills).

This was one of Kenta's last days volunteering with Peace Boat. He had spent the last month camping in a tent on Ishinomaki Senshu University grounds like so many other volunteers. He turned up shortly after quitting his job, which he said he was planning to do anyway, before March 11, to bike around Japan. (He has since postponed that trip). Kenta joined our group as a seasoned hand, and I was lucky to work with him on that second day of our 3-day tour.

On Sunday we did not work, but instead went to see some of the other things Peace Boat has going on in Ishinomaki, and then out to the more severely devastated areas along the coast. And for that, there are no words. Well yes there are words, such as, obliterated and astonishing and incredibly sad. Japan's Self-Defense forces are still looking for bodies in the rubble here. There is no rebuilding happening, and no word about when it might start. In these hardest-hit areas (we were in Miyagi prefecture but the tsunami also destroyed parts of Iwate, to the north, and Fukushima to the south), the local government hasn't decided where it should allow people to rebuild, where it will be safe to rebuild. Survivors are in limbo.

The stench in Ishinomaki's coastal Minato-ku is ghastly -- a lethal combination of sewage, rot and decay, I imagine, more potent than the gutters we cleaned (you had to bend down and get close to that gutter sludge to smell it, while here a face mask isn't enough). At least in the neighborhood where we were working, a few kilometers inland, many of the houses are still standing (if partially structurally damaged) and the roads are clear for vehicles to get through. We saw one car wedged between two small apartment buildings and another stuck in a tree. We saw piles of trash and a couch near a boat in a dirt lot. But there's just no comparison.

Earlier in the day we stopped at the base for a glimpse at part of Peace Boat's takidashi (emergency feeding) operation -- an izakaya in Ishinomaki city where volunteers cook the food that is then picked up by delivery van and taken to nearby evacuation centers, three times a day. Our group gathered in a small upstairs tatami room (sleeping quarters for some of Peace Boat's volunteers) for a look at the area map they had tacked up onto the wall. "Junior" Yamamoto -- Peace Boat founding director Yoshioka-san's right-hand man up there -- pointed out the fishing village we would later be taken through, including Onagawa, which must have been one stunning little coastal town right on the coast surrounded by green forests and beautiful mountains.

Yoshioka-san -- who spent most of the day with us -- told us that once survivors move into temporary housing, which is already starting to happen, they are no longer eligible to receive these hot meals they're providing at the centers because, the thinking goes, they will then have their own kitchens in which to cook for themselves. Trouble is, most don't have cars anymore (as they were all washed away and busted up by the tsunami) so can't get to a supermarket (the few and far between that are actually open and stocked) and anyway they have little funds with which to buy any food, because there are no jobs so there's no income. Doesn't give much incentive to leave the evacuation center. Yoshioka-san said he was thinking of starting up a food-delivery service to the new homes, much like the 'Meals on Wheels' program in the U.S. that brings food to poor house-bound elderly. He just needs the money and the manpower and the vehicles....

It is quite discouraging to see all that is needed up there, the enormity of it all. But also inspiring to see those who are working their tail off to get relief and recovery efforts going. There are Peace Boat volunteers who are living there, without pay, working day after day, week after week, month after month and sleeping on factory warehouse floors or in tents in a field, like my new friend Kenta. Not that our group didn't work hard, but we were in and out in three days and had private cozy hotel rooms and hot showers, electrical outlets in which to plug in our iphones, a 7-Eleven down the street and an izakaya around the corner. (Sendai city proper did not experience the effects of the March 11 quake.) We took the bullet train there and traveled locally by luxury coach. At least we gave the Chisun business hotel in Sendai some solid business. And I'm sure the izakaya that a dozen of us kept open late on Saturday night appreciated our bloated bar bill. So our presence was a not insignificant infusion into the local economy. Oh and we were told that the money we paid to go on the trip included a 15,000 yen donation to Peace Boat, so there's that as well.

Since I've been back I've been thinking what else I could possibly do, from Tokyo and during school hours. Lots of people on our trip said they hoped to return to Ishinomaki with a whole bus load of colleagues, which is good, because fewer folks are heading up there these days that did in the weeks immediately following the catastrophe. Numbers peaked during Golden Week, when there were three national holidays in a row (so volunteers needed only take two vacation days in order to spend 8 straight days pitching in). But there's been a dramatic drop since then, and student volunteers are not expected until the summer holidays (late July-August).

But Tohoku needs more than just day laborers clearing debris out of public parks and people's yards and taking toxic slime out of street gutters. They also need people to help with the big-picture stuff, like getting the fishing industry back on its feet, and local businesses up and running again. Question is how, where, who, how. They need international corporations with expertise and resources. How to make those connections and get that stuff going? I'm out of my depth here but maybe there's a small role for me to play, if only to write something that someone else reads and then decides to take action. So I am looking at ways to do that.

ok, a tiny dent

I am on the bus heading back to the hotel in Sendai at the end of day two volunteering for Peace Boat in Ishinomaki. Thinking we did a good job. My team shoveled a lot of inky black sludge today, some of the nastiest shit I have ever seen, a malodorous blend of what looked like motor oil and smelled like fertilizer (probably run off from nearby factories that had been destroyed), with regular old dirt and the random item mixed in- squares of kitchen floor tile, a ceramic cup, a door handle. This toxic stew is clogging street gutters all over town. It took a dozen of us 5 or 6 hours to dig out a 100-yard or so section running in front of a single two story house (standing) and detached garage (gutted). There was a sidelined Harley and busted piano at one end, field of debris at the other.

When the the last bag had been wheelbarrowed out to the collection heap, when the guys had put the last concrete cover plate down over what had become a slowly moving river of filth, it felt like a triumph. It was watery and it was flowing. Maybe a miniscule achievement in the grand scheme of things, but it was something.

in Sendai

We're all checked in at the Chisun Hotel in Sendai. I am in a single room with bath and mini fridge and electric kettle so in the morning I will be able to drink the instant coffee that I brought from home. I am happy about this.

Got to know the members of my team during the 2-hr shinkansen trip up from Tokyo. A couple of them said they felt apprehensive, not about their personal safety, but about how much they will really get to do. There is concern that they won't do enough, that their contribution won't be meaningful.

We've each been given rubber work gloves and cotton liners, and face masks to keep us from breathing in dust, but it's supposed to rain tomorrow so maybe that won't be an issue. We're to report to the lobby at 6 am. We will go to Ishinomaki by bus- about an hour away. At 7:30 am we will join other Peace Boat volunteers for the morning exercises, and then, I presume, we'll get our assignments.

I should get to sleep but I am too keyed up.

making a dent

Many people I know here in Tokyo have a strong urge to jump in the car and drive up to the devastated areas with a carload of kitchen appliances or donated bicycles or other items that can help displaced persons restart their lives. Some have already done so. I say go for it -- as long as you've made contact with somebody who's there and knows what's needed and can guide you and help you stay safe. With 200 km of northeast coastline destroyed and 27,000 dead or missing, I imagine the relief orgs could use all the help they can get. The March 11 tsunami submerged 443 square km of coastal areas (!), sweeping across cities, villages, farmland. A half million people displaced! It's said to be the worst humanitarian disaster since WWII.*

Not having a car of my own, or much ability to read/write/speak or understand Japanese, I lack the means to go rogue -- I also don't have the guts. (Oh, and I've got two young children to look after, besides.) The only way for me to physically help out is to go with a group, for a limited time, under the supervision of an organization already working in the affected areas. Which is what I'm doing this weekend while Terry stays home with the kids. I'll be traveling up to Sendai then on to Ishinomaki, in Miyagi prefecture (one of the worst affected areas) along with 40 or so other volunteers, mainly young professionals who responded to a call from the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ). Each of us attended the required orientation and paid 88,000 yen to cover train fare, bus transport, hotel stay, meals, insurance, supplies and a donation. (For 35,000 yen you could sleep on a factory warehouse floor; for 115,000 yen, you sleep at the Westin.)

ACCJ has arranged for us to work under the supervision of Peace Boat, an NGO working with the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. They've brought 2,000 volunteers into the area to date -- all of whom, it's worth mentioning, returned unharmed, according to Yoshioka Tatsuya, the founding director. (This guy made one helluva presentation at the orientation last week, which I'll recount in more detail later. For now I'll just say that during the safety briefing/warning portion of that evening, after somebody shared that there had been some 120 volunteers deaths reported -- folks falling off a roof or being hit on the head by falling debris, that sort of thing -- Yoshioka-san reassured us that none of these unlucky souls had been working for Peace Boat.)

The ACCJ contingent has been grouped into teams of six, each with a bilingual leader; we are to wear waterproof jackets and pants and knee-high rubber boots (I got all three at D2 for less than 6,000 yen) and hardhats (provided); towels to help sop up the sweat, and a bandanna on hand should anybody need a tourniquet (to quote the packing list).

We will be cleaning up people's homes and shoveling mud. This is the manual labor phase of the recovery -- soon efforts will turn toward resuscitating businesses and local governments. Yoshioka-san told us at the orientation that by wiping dirt off someone's family photo album, or scrubbing a kitchen floor, or making a living room inhabitable again, we will help restore some hope and dignity to those who lost both on 3/11. I want to believe him. I'm just one person, and I'm probably not strong enough to carry one end of a rolled-up, ruined tatami mat out to the trash heap, but I can do other things, and so I am going to go and do what I can do. Wish me luck.

An article about the ACCJ program ran today in The Japan Times. Click here to read it.

*Source: Peace Boat report entitled 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Emergency Relief Operation

Wonky

I discovered this website when somebody who calls himself Goemon commented on my "Super Cool Biz" post and included a link about chilled undergarments:

Tofugu. It's fun, it's light, it's a mixed bag of observations about Japanese culture, plus jokey advice on learning the language. While digging around in the archives, I came upon this little gem, about a Holographic Vocaloid Rock Star (filed under In Japan/Characters). Particularly handy: Japanese Cheatsheet for Travelers.

I love the Tofugu name and the logo and -- what do you call that? a brand icon? -- the blowfish (i.e. fugu) shaped like a soy protein square (the tofu). So very kawaii. I want to be a brand too. I want a cutesy cartoon character to represent my blog. Better come up with a better name for it then, huh. Somebody out there with a marketing background: help!

Cooler than Cool Biz: Super Cool Biz

Sandra Barron's latest piece in Japan Pulse gives the lowdown on local setsuden (energy-saving) measures that, she writes, are at once an attempt to stave off power reductions and a taste of what they would entail.

One example: employees of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government's Ministry of Environment will be permitted to wear jeans (without rips or holes), T-shirts (solid colors only) and Hawaiian shirts to work as part of its own campaign, which kicks off June 1 and aims to reduce peak usage during summer by 15%. Hopefully private companies to follow its lead (Tokyo and the rest of the Kanto region is serviced by TEPCO).

"Where last year the most that a hot-under-the-collar salaryman could get away with was ditching the coat and tie, this year he can lose the collar altogether," Barron writes.

I hope for my husband's sake that his employer is similarly inspired to at least allow the T-shirts, if not the cabana-wear. He can always try the Tsumetai backpack, from AnzenYouhin.jp, as seen in TimeOutTokyo (yes those are ice packs and I believe they're meant to be positioned between your shoulder blades):

There's also a USB necktie cooler from Thanko -- an awful looking tie with fan hidden behind the knot. Only 3,000 yen!

Who wants to grow one on MY balcony?

A woman checks the growth of goya and "togan" winter melons on a green curtain at her home in Kasugai, Aichi Prefecture. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Japan's largest daily newspaper reported today that nonprofit groups and local governments, in order to encourage more businesses and households to conserve energy, are distributing free vine seeds and plants for growing natural sun shades for windows and exterior walls. These 'green curtains' are not a new concept, but recent events (earthquake, tsunami, nuclear disaster, power shortages) appear to have heightened interest. (It gets beastly hot here in the summer, and it has become, shall we say, unfashionable to blast the aircon.)

As a testament to the effectiveness of the practice, toilet manufacturer TOTO Ltd. reports that its own swath of "goya" (bitter gourd), "hechima" (sponge cucumber) and morning glories planted outside its Oita plant helped reduce indoor temperatures by an average 2 degrees and at times as much as 5 degrees last year. Not bad, I say -- not bad at all.

Read the Asahi Shimbun article online here.

Elementary schoolchildren in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, harvest gourds and goya from a green curtain covering their school last fall. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)


Foreign ministers from Latin American countries study a green curtain covering a wall at the ward office building in Tokyo's Suginami Ward in September 2010. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

first impressions

On Jan. 12, 2008, I sent the following in an email to myself, probably intending to post it on this blog, but apparently never got around to it. (I came across it while attempting to clear out my gmail inbox -- which is currently holding more than 8,600 messages, the oldest one dated March 13, 2006...!)

Napping

In T's office it is acceptable to nap at your desk. It's okay to nap
anywhere, really. Taxi drivers nap in their cars; I've seem some
people asleep on the bus and on the subway. As long as you remain
sitting up or standing, it is socially acceptable to snooze.

combini, open for business

無断転載・複製を禁じます。

Take a look at this 7-Eleven operating in Minami Sanriku, a former charming resort town on a coastline of wooded islands and mountainous inlets (wikipedia) in Miyagi Prefecture that was obliterated by the recent earthquake-tsunami. (ABC News reported shortly after 3/11 that 10,000 of the town's 17,000-plus residents were lost and 95% of the town's buildings were destroyed.)

Some folks I follow on Twitter (TokyoReporter, SandraJapandra) were tweeting/retweeting about this on May 12, but I'm not sure of the date of the photograph. Click here to get to the page where a short video clip is posted on the Asahi Shimbun (Japan's largest daily newspaper)'s website. The article is in Japanese but the footage speaks for itself. Our neighbor, who recently spent a week in Ishinomaki clearing debris, shoveling mud and so on, told us he saw several vendors setting up shop out of the backs of tiny trucks, selling sustenance to the teams of volunteers. I will be posting more about his experience soon.

Update, 18 May: I had my husband ask someone in his office to translate the article for me and here's the gist: The 7-Eleven store's clerk, after making sure his family and employees' families were OK, decided to reopen using cardboard signs and a refrigeration truck. He has promised to rebuild there.

Quick!

The 'My Japan' exhibition ends Saturday!

It's a charitable fundraiser going on at Studio Lily, a lovely little photo gallery right in my neighborhood.

Address:
3-5-25 Hiroo, Shibuya-ku
(it's down a sidestreet off Komzawa dori, not far from Roppongi dori or Niseki dori)

Time Out Tokyo wrote a little item about it this week and provides a map to help you find the place.

Read more about the project on the official website here, or on the My Japan Facebook page.

If you buy a mounted print of one of these fabulous photos, all proceeds go straight to JEN, an NGO working to help clean up some of the hardest hit areas up north. (According to the organization's blog, volunteers are concentrating efforts in Ishinomaki at the moment, removing sludge and clearing debris, among other arduous tasks.)

The "Top 50 Voted by You" album is also on Facebook. Click here to view.

I ordered this one, by E K Snowden
The image is also posted on the My Japan website, along with several others that didn't make the top 50 but are still well worth a look. Go to http://myjapan.withtank.com/photos/
(my pick, above, is on the Outdoor/Nature2 page)

As I said, lots of great stuff. Like this one by Alfie Goodrich, part of his Shibuya in the Snow series, posted here on Japanorama.co.uk

This shot is the star of the studio show.

retail therapy

I have been meaning to buy a gas burner for our table so that we can have proper shabu shabu (boiled meats and veg) at home for the longest time. Better late than never...

Tonight we ate our first dinner cooked using our new portable flame. Drop sliced pork into the pot of broth, fish it out a minute later, dip in ponzu or sesame sauce and eat. Yum. (I flavored the water with a little soy sauce... no dashi in the house... surely there are other better ideas out there... must research.)

All directions for hooking up the gas canister were in Japanese, yet somehow I managed not to blow up the joint.

I have my friend Katy H. to thank for this. It was she who suggested this week that we go to Kappabashi, a.k.a. Kitchenware Town, which is chock full of restaurant-supply stores selling everything and anything to cook and eat with. I've been there a few times before but always on a different mission. Giant lacquered salad bowl, check. Pack of 100 paper placemats, check. Random assortment of tiny plates from sales basket outside the pottery shop, check. Fake gyoza fridge magnet from the plastic food sample store, check...

This time I would also be investing in another fancy knife from Kamata.

The friendly salesman oiled it for me before taking my money.
My pick: 4th from the right. Pretty bad-ass, no?

Katy bought this paper lantern (adorned with the three characters that spell out the phrase eigyo chu, as in, we're open for business, come in and we'll give you a menu). I told her to hang it next to her side of the bed. (Naw she di-int...)

"Kappa" sprite (Japanese mythical sea creature) for which the 'hood is named.

high alert

I tell everybody who asks that life is "pretty much back to normal" here in Tokyo, except for the fact that I am almost constantly wondering when the earth is going to start shaking again and with how much force, and will it be enough to topple the fish tank?

I think about these things almost constantly as I walk the city streets, taking kids to/from school and running errands and going about my usual business. It's spring, we're all healthy, life is relatively good where we are, radiation scares have subsided (at least they're off the front page) and yet I can't help feeling like some giant thing is about to happen. Any moment. That nobody can control, or even predict with any accuracy. It's a strange way to live. I wouldn't say I'm on 'high alert' but I am hyper-aware. Conscious of the peace and quiet. It all seems so, I dunno, misleading. I'll think, hey, listen to that hush and calm here in the supermarket or on the sidewalk outside the coffee shop (have I mentioned how relatively subdued Tokyo as a city was even before 3/11? no shouting or honking horns, the hustle and bustle almost on mute). I'll be walking here, or headed there, on a bus with the boys or in a yoga class (failing yet again to manage "crow" but doing one heck of a headstand) or puttering around the house or taking the recycling out and I just think, any time now...

The other day, as I approached the four-way pedestrian bridge that is Shibuya-bashi, the intersection of Komozawa and Meiji streets near Ebisu station and down the hill from our building, I thought about the freaky bounce of those elevated walkways whenever my kids scamper across them (an engineering marvel, really) and then wondered what it would take to make them snap.

Experts say there's an 87% percent chance that a quake of magnitude-8.0 or higher will hit the Tokai region (in Central Honshu west of Tokyo) sometime in the next 30 years. So I'm not talking the crazy talk. Not really.

Shibuya-bashi pedestrian bridge in Ebisu/Hiroo, Shibuya-ku, on a beautiful spring day in May

for serious collectors

Astronaut Barbie, available now at Kiddyland

Many thanks to Tara for sharing this little treasure..

something fun to follow on Twitter

@TokyoFashion
Harajuku, Japan

Daily Japanese fashion news and Tokyo street fashion pictures from Harajuku, Shibuya, Shinjuku, and other areas.

http://TokyoFashion.com

sample tweet:

Photo: Lady Gaga Girls of Harajuku - 4 Japanese Little Monsters I met in Tokyo yesterday! http://flic.kr/p/9EJwzs
4 May

Quakebook

Buy it today!

All proceeds - every penny of the $9.99 you pay for this digital collection of stories about the events of 3/11 in Japan goes to the Japanese Red Cross and its relief efforts. To get my copy, all I did was go to Amazon.com, where I could get the free Kindle iPhone app and then the ebook itself. If you already have a Kindle, you're ahead of the game. (There's a Kindle app for every other kind of smart device, it seems.) Easy peasy.

Here is the link to the Quakebook website. Apparently it soon will be available in paperback too.

2:46: Aftershocks

I haven't read through the whole thing yet, but would like to draw your attention to these two pieces in particular: "Beautiful"
and "Leaving" ...

The Village

Japan's original nuclear trouble:
Culture of collusion

Long before the tsunami, protection of interests undermined plant safety

BY NORIMITSU ONISHI AND KEN BELSON
The International Herald Tribune
April 27, 2011

Given the fierce insularity of the Japanese nuclear industry, it was perhaps fitting that an outsider exposed the most serious safety cover-up in the history of Japanese nuclear power. It took place at Fukushima Daiichi, the plant that Japan has been struggling to get under control since the tsunami last month.

In 2000, Kei Sugaoka, a Japanese-American nuclear inspector who had done work for General Electric at Daiichi, told the main Japanese nuclear regulator about a cracked steam dryer that he believed was being covered up. If exposed, the revelations could have forced the operator, Tokyo Electric Power, to do what utilities least want to do: undertake costly repairs.

What happened next was an example, critics have since said, of the collusive ties that bind the nation's nuclear power companies, regulators and politicians.

Despite a new law shielding whistle-blowers, the regulator, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, divulged Mr. Sugaoka's identity to Tokyo Electric, effectively blackballing him from the industry. Instead of immediately deploying its own investigators to Daiichi, the agency instructed the company to inspect its own reactors. Regulators allowed the company to keep operating its reactors for the next two years even though, as an investigation ultimately revealed, its executives had actually covered up other, far more serious problems, including cracks in the shrouds that cover reactor cores.

Investigators may take months or years to decide to what extent safety problems or weak regulation contributed to the disaster at Daiichi, the worst of its kind since Chernobyl. But as troubles at the plant and fears over radiation continue to rattle the nation, the Japanese are increasingly raising the possibility that a culture of complicity made the plant especially vulnerable to the natural disaster that struck the country on March 11.

Already, many Japanese and Western experts argue that inconsistent, nonexistent or unenforced regulations played a role in the accident - especially the low sea walls that failed to protect the plant against the tsunami and the decision to place backup diesel generators for powering the reactors' cooling system at ground level, which made them highly vulnerable to flooding.

A 10-year extension for the oldest of Daiichi's reactors suggests that the regulatory system was allowed to remain lax by politicians, bureaucrats and industry executives single-mindedly focused on expanding nuclear power. Regulators approved the extension beyond the reactor's 40-year statutory limit just weeks before the tsunami despite warnings about its safety and subsequent admissions by Tokyo Electric that it had failed to carry out proper inspections of critical equipment.

The mild punishment meted out for past safety infractions has reinforced the belief that nuclear power's main players are more interested in protecting their interests than improving safety. ...

...In Japan, the opaque network of connections between the nuclear industry and government officials is now popularly referred to as ''the nuclear power village'' - an expression connoting the collusive interests that underlie the nuclear establishment's push to expand the industry, despite the discovery of active fault lines under plants, new projections about the size of tsunamis and a long history of cover-ups of safety problems.

As in any Japanese village, the likeminded - nuclear industry officials, bureaucrats, politicians and scientists - have prospered by rewarding one another with construction projects, lucrative positions and political, financial and regulatory support. The few who are openly skeptical of nuclear power's safety become village outcasts, losing out on promotions and backing.

Until recently, it had been considered political suicide to even discuss the need to reform an industry that appeared less concerned with safety than maximizing profits, said Kusuo Oshima, one of the few lawmakers in the governing Democratic Party who have long been critical of the nuclear industry.

''Everyone considered that a taboo, so nobody wanted to touch it,'' said Mr. Oshima, adding that he could speak freely because he received financial backing from Rissho Kosei-Kai, one of Japan's largest lay Buddhist movements, not from a nuclear-affiliated group.

''It's all about money,'' he added.

Click here to read the rest of this article on nytimes.com (you have to be a subscriber to read the archives) or here to read it on the Herald-Tribune site.

1 month, 2 days later

Yoyogi Koen, Wed., April 13, 2011, 3pm

Can't think of a better way to get reacquainted with this city than to wander into our favorite city park and come upon this man making things out of balloons -- and not just swords and puppies, but Donald Duck (see above, small child at right) and Snoopy as The Flying Ace (click to watch youtube vid). The kids were entertained for more than an hour, along with a handful of other observers, including two young couples and their tiny dogs (my friend thought the guy on the far right, below, was holding a baby).

On this, our first full day back in town, I learned that local govt officials really had canceled city-sponsored hanami. Which didn't stop drunken student gatherings in Yoyogi but apparently did affect Ueno Park, where in past years we'd seen lots of food vendors set up their takoyaki and yakisoba grills, corn-on-the-cob and chocolate-dipped banana stands, and where prime viewing areas would be roped off for lucky groups with reservations. According to AFP, this year was the first time since official celebrations began at the end of World War II -- and possibly the first time in four centuries -- that the city didn't make its usual preparations for the season. "As an expression of our condolences to disaster victims, and of self-restraint, we have decided to cancel the festivities," Masahiro Kayano, who heads the Ueno district's tourism federation, was quoted saying in this April 1 article.

Terry had told me about this general mood of self-restraint -- jishuku in Japanese -- on March 29, when he was in Tokyo and I was still in New York (I know the date because I took notes in iPhone Notes). He said the unofficial consensus was that it was inappropriate to party. Nobody was going out or celebrating or making noise, and the karaoke clubs and izakayas were empty; people were heading home straight after work to hunker down with the family and think about what's important. "It's very somber, very post 9/11," he told me. His office lights were left off during the day (which he considered an improvement over the fluorescent lighting). The AFP article (mentioned above) notes that on TV, many commercials had given way to public service announcements; companies had delayed product launches, and many neon lights have been switched off amid a national power shortage.

Now, one month and two days after the earthquake-tsunami one-two punch that left some 28,000 dead or missing, and subsequent 'nuclear accident,' the city still seems quiet, subdued, but not dramatically so, I don't think. Terry agrees that the jishuku seems to have lifted, somewhat. There is milk and eggs and bread in the shops. Some vending machines have bottled water, some don't. The international schools are back in session (except those on a scheduled spring break, like ours) and the trains and buses are running. There were a dozen expats drinking coffee at Segafredo in Hiroo.

But the National Azabu supermarket parking lot, usually full of black SUVs, was deserted. And I had no trouble getting Conor in to see the very popular pediatrician Dr. Che on Thursday. The doctor, a Korean-American, told me his sister in New York had begged him to leave Japan until he finally sent her a detailed analysis of exactly how much -- or, I should say, how little -- radiation had been released out of the Fukushima plant. "Now she says maybe my brother knows what he's talking about."

health/safety risks "low" in Tokyo

Today a travel "alert" was issued by the U.S. State Dept. to replace the travel "warning" of March 31, 2011. Here it is (I tried to put all the important bits in bold)

The assessment of technical and subject matter experts across U.S. govt agencies is that while the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi plant remains serious and dynamic, the health and safety risks to areas beyond the 50 mile evacuation zone, and particularly to Tokyo, Nagoya (Aichi Prefecture), Yokohama (Kanagawa Prefecture) nearby U.S. military facilities and the prefectures of Akita, Aomori, Chiba, Gunma, Iwate, Nagano, Niigata, Saitama, Shizuoka, Tochigi, and Yamanashi, and those portions of Fukushima, Ibaraki, Miyagi and Yamagata prefectures which are outside a 50 mile radius of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are low and do not pose significant risks to U.S. citizens.

This analysis takes into consideration both various age groups and the classification of the severity of the situation at Fukushima Daiichi as a Level 7 event by the Government of Japan, which reflects what has transpired since the initial incident and the potential long-term effects in the area surrounding the plant.

This assessment reflects inputs from our national laboratories as well as the unanimous opinion of the U.S. scientific experts on the ground in Japan.... Based on the much reduced rate of heat generation in the reactor fuel after one month of cooling and the corresponding decay of short-lived radioactive isotopes, even in the event of an unexpected disruption at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, harmful exposures to people beyond the 50 mile evacuation zone are highly unlikely, and there would be a significant amount of time to best assess any steps that might have to be taken.

The situation at the plant is dramatically different today than it was on March 16, when we saw significant ongoing releases of radioactivity, the loss of effective means to cool the reactor cores and spent fuel, the absence of outside power or fresh water supply for emergency management, and considerable uncertainty about the condition of the site. Today, while the situation remains serious, and there is still a possibility of unanticipated developments, cooling efforts are ongoing and successful, power, water supply, and back-up services have been partially or fully restored, and planning has begun to control radioactive contamination and mitigate future dangers. Our coordination with the Japanese is regular and productive, and we have a greatly increased capacity to measure and analyze risks.

The Department of State has lifted Voluntary Authorized Departure, allowing dependents of the U.S. government employees to return to Japan.

We continue to recommend that U.S. citizens avoid travel within the 50-mile radius of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant. U.S. citizens who are still within this radius should evacuate or shelter in place.

Japan is one of the most seismically active places in the world. Tokyo and areas to the Northeast continue to experience strong aftershocks related to the March 11 earthquake. Aftershocks following an earthquake of this magnitude can be expected to continue for more than a year. Identifying potential hazards ahead of time and advance planning can reduce the dangers of serious injury or loss of life from an earthquake. See the Embassy Website for detailed information on earthquake safety:
http://japan.usembassy.gov .

Springtime in the 'hood

Walking the back way through Ebisu Prime Square around 12:45pm today, on our way to Meiji dori and the 06 Toei bus that will take us to Shibuya, where we are to meet Terry for lunch

Goodbye New York...

Hellooooo Tokyo!

The boys and I are back home in Hiroo. Haven't left the apartment yet- boys are catching up on their "home learning" (big piles of assignments we put aside while they were attending school in the States) while I putter around and enjoy being in my own home, in my own kitchen, where I can make any old mess I want and leave it sitting there until I decide to clean it up. Or not. No disapproving neatniks in sight.

The best part is, I am finally after 27 days, sleeping in my own bed! With my husband!

It's a beautiful spring day, clear skies and sunny, so we'll be meeting Terry for lunch near Shibuya station, maybe ramen in Dogenzaka...then I will take the boys to the park near the supermarket.

We definitely need some hanami, and stat. Terry says it had been assumed that the usual partying under the trees would not take place this year, out of deference to the tsunami evacuees and devastated areas in the northeast, and in keeping with the city's post 3/11 somber vibe, but on Sunday the revelers were out in force. "Yoyogi was packed today," my neighbor Nancy told me via FB. "It felt like Tokyo had its heartbeat back finally, lots of people laughing and having a good time and in the shops buying. Let's hope it continues."
Terry in Yoyogi Park, Sunday, April 10, 2011

'let's not beat ourselves up'

the New York mag piece (cited in previous post) got so many comments!

Take this one, for instance, posted by JugglingTam:
"Nice article and completely on point. I was 1 week away from moving to Tokyo when the earthquake hit. My life was packed, the decision was decided, and then this happened. I decided to go despite all of the protests from friends and family... mostly because I had made a ready decision a long time ago to make the career change. Now that I am here and realize that the media is fairly sensationalized and that Tokyo life has moved on, I am relieved that I made the decision I did. I wouldn't say I feel pride for coming or scorn toward those who left or are leaving, but I feel that I want to help others realize that the conditions here are safe. On the other hand, though I do occasionally roll my eyes at the fact that people are delaying or canceling trips, I can't help but agree that all the pressure from friends and family is almost impossible to handle, as well as the 24/7 scares from the news. Whatever your decision is, I think it's justified and we (including myself) should accept it and move on."

Tam
http://tamdoesjapan.wordpress.com/

And this one, from American Tokyoite:
"Please try to imagine the courage of the Japanese people. Their calmness. Their fortitude. Not only the folks trying to get the reactors under control at Fukushima, but also the thousands who have lost a family member or a home, the ruined farmers, the millions of Tokyoites shivering in the cold without complaint because they want to do what little they can to help.

No hysteria, no panic, no looting.... Instead, cohesion. Kindness. Support.

Now look at the foreigners, particularly the relatively new "expats," many who live in luxurious apartments in essentially earthquake-undamaged, radiation-free Tokyo, where there is electricity and plenty of food, pushing each other out of the way as they scramble to flee the country. [Blogger's note: Harsh! and totally unfair characterization given all the agonizing...]

We long-time Japan residents have Japanese friends, Japanese spouses, even Japanese children. We care what people think. We try hard to project an image as responsible parents, coworkers and neighbors. It has taken decades to build what we have.

So again, look upon the quiet strength of the Japanese people. Then turn to the frantic flight of the foreigners. Can you blame us for not wanting to be associated with them? "

And from 34Watts:
"Agree with (previous poster) in that while it's easy to simplify what's going on here as unique to Japanese culture or a foreigner issue, there was a similar exodus of transient Americans (and probably foreigners too) leaving NYC after 9/11. The backlash towards those who fled the NYC then was less extreme, but there was certainly a renewed pride among those who chose not to leave the city. At any rate, there is no shame in re-evaluating one's choices after a brutal reminder of mortality."


Many of my Facebook friends also commented when I posted the link there. Here's the transcript:

The Departed: Exodus of Expats Draws Scorn in Japan
nymag.com

Is leaving Japan for safer ground an act of betrayal?

(CHM) Ooh LIKE! Shall we discuss while on the secrecy of Facebook?!
(MB) Well, where do I start.....I don't really like to idea of "foreigners" sometimes myself, (in my opinion) they're sometimes loud and bawdy and I've met some that are proud that they've lived here for 15 years and still don't speak a word of Japanese, to a Japanese person leaving when things get "tough" must only serve to compound this cultural division further, however, we'll never fit in, not in a million years...so, I think its a personal decision that you make for your family at the time and no one should judge that.
(Me) Carole! be sure to read the comments posted below the article too- some are a bit nutty/angry/hostile...
(Me)‎@MB yes I agree everybody's situation is different. I am trying not to be too defensive- not just about our leaving, but also about our plans to go back
(MB) Don't be defensive at all M..., if anyone has completely embraced this city and its culture you have....xxx
(KE) we went "home" to protect our children...less use of electricity and food items, and many city guys stayed and held the fort...lets not beat ourselves up about this...
(KP) You linked to a blog some time ago that gave a foretaste of this discussion, the wall growing between those who left and those who stayed. I looked forward to watching the discussion grow but now it is already leaving a bad taste. Only home a few days and some comments I've heard are rubbing in the wrong places. There is so much to discuss. I just hope the fallout doesn't get uglier than necessary.
(KP) I was the only Gaijin at Nissin and National Azabu. Very empty stores. Man it felt weird. The cashiers at Starbucks Roppongi gave a very very warm welcome. Will those that need our patronage be the first to welcome us back?
(LH)Awesome! I get to witness yet another pissing match among American expats. The dialogue is always the same. The name-calling. The arrogance and self-righteousness. The shame-blame-guilt game...
(AL) I am simply a simple expat living in Japan for financial means. I don't try to be a hero and have no guilt of leaving Japan now or later.
(KW) for some reason this term 'flyjin' annoys me enormously. I want to slap anyone who uses it in anger! However I do think any of you coming to HK for sanctuary may have been somewhat misguided! 'cough cough' the air here is dreadful! I don't think there is anything to discuss. Whether you stayed or left is surely ones own business, desu ne?

This Flyjin has no regrets

My grandfather died yesterday. So, really, it's lucky that I am here in New York with the boys, because now I can help commemorate the life of a man who lived for 93 years (72 of them in Brooklyn), a barber by trade who gave my son Conor his first haircut back in 2001.

Here they are in the basement of the old house in Bay Ridge...

'Flyjin' shame

To now abandon Japan for a former, safer home—to take the escape hatch not available to Japanese friends—would be a betrayal, both of your hosts and of the expat identity you’d carefully cultivated. -Paige Ferrari, New York magazine, 3/24/11

This is how I felt leaving Japan with my two boys on March 16. (We are still in the U.S. but plan to return next week.) But my own decision to go after the quake-tsunami, in the midst of a "nuclear emergency," was made significantly easier by a few very simple facts: that I have young children, and that their school had closed. Oh, and the fact that my husband's employer was offering to pay for the plane tickets.

Call these excuses, justifications, rationalizations, whatever. Or tell me I'm foolish for feeling guilty at all (Hi, Mom). But whatever you do, read this piece, it's really well-written.

The Departed: An Exodus of Expats Draws Scorn in Japan
By Paige Ferrari

Before I left Japan three months ago and returned to New York to take a new job, I had dinner with a fellow American expat at a ramen-counter restaurant in Tokyo’s Shibuya district. As we sat side by side eating our noodles, I sought assurance that my impending move wouldn’t constitute desertion—a strange anxiety, maybe, but one an expat feels acutely.

In the wake of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, expats in Tokyo confronted that same insecurity as they wrestled with a far more fraught stay-or-go dilemma: to tough it out or join the great, and greatly maligned, foreigner exodus. Complicating the calculus was the fact that the decision wasn’t simply a matter of self-preservation, the way it seemed to be from thousands of miles away. To judge from foreign-news segments in the days after the disaster, all of Japan was a radioactive hell¬scape, one aftershock from even graver calamity, and families watching those broadcasts understandably urged their loved ones to get out, now. But life in Tokyo offered a less alarming perspective: The lights were slightly dimmed and the trains out of whack, but the karaoke bars remained open, as did the pachinko parlors. And with city radiation levels reportedly below what you’d be exposed to on a long flight home, there were reasons to bet against catastrophe.

Leaving meant abandoning that reality in favor of the apocalyptic narrative from abroad—to take the outsider’s view after wanting so badly to prove yourself an insider (another expat fixation). For Tokyo expats, many of whom take pride in rejecting the conventions of their old lives, it also meant suddenly, openly, opportunistically trading on their nonnative status. Foreigners in Japan are sometimes given a “gaijin pass” upon trampling one of the country’s social codes, but if you want to fit in, that’s not a privilege you exploit. To now abandon Japan for a former, safer home—to take the escape hatch not available to Japanese friends—would be a betrayal, both of your hosts and of the expat identity you’d carefully cultivated.

Over the past two weeks, the same social-networking sites invaluable in confirming acquaintances’ safety following the disaster have doubled as a scorecard for tracking how expats were resolving that conflict. Among those who stayed put, status updates carry a whiff of back-patting, as if, once the Fukushima Dai-Ichi reactors cool, the government will begin distributing awards for loyalty. Expats who announce their departure, meanwhile, are now “flyjin,” a freshly coined pejorative for fleeing foreigners. (“Maybe it’s good if those people don’t come back,” a Japanese finance worker told a friend. “Then maybe some of the homegrown talent can finally rise through the ranks instead of being condescended to by Brian or Jean-Philippe.”)

With the nuclear situation still uncertain, those now watching from abroad hope for the best while ramping up their defenses. “Running away is not what I do,” wrote an American friend I’d made in Tokyo, “and yet, here I am, on my boyfriend’s dad’s computer in L.A.” In other cases, guilt is mixed with counter-resentment. Another friend, who’d kept his movements off social networks, spoke candidly via Skype after arriving back in his home country. “You know this whole going-down-with-the-ship thing?” he said, leaning into the screen and eyeing me as if facing an accuser. “I am not the fucking captain.”

why the news is making me crazy

Articles like this one (below) convince people who are not in Japan that it is dangerous to be in Japan. Anywhere in Japan. Not just in the evacuated zone around Fukushima where the nuclear reactors are, not just in the areas east of Sendai devastated by the tsunami, but anywhere in the whole country. In the minds of many Westerners, Tokyo is Japan, and so Tokyo must be dangerous too.

It's tough to talk to people who think this way. If I say I am going back soon, they look at me gravely and say, but think about the children.

I am thinking about the children! About how they need to get back to some semblance of normal life, about how they need their dad, and for our family of four to be under the same roof. Of course nobody knows what could happen up there in Fukushima (140 miles away from Tokyo), because the situation remains serious and won't be under control for several weeks or even months, probably. But staying away isn't a good option either.

Japan Struggles to Plug Leak as Radioactive Water Seeps Into the Sea
By Ken Belson and Hiroko Tabuchi
April 2, 2011

TOKYO — Highly radioactive water is leaking directly into the sea from a damaged pit near a crippled reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, Japanese safety officials said Saturday. The leak was the latest setback in the increasingly difficult bid to regain control of the plant.

Although higher than normal levels of radiation have been detected in the ocean water near the plant in recent days, this is the first time the source of any leaks was found.

Because the government did not report the levels of radioactive materials in the waters near the stricken plant on Saturday, it was difficult to judge how dangerous the levels of radiation were for fish or for humans who might come in contact with it. The government has already set up an evacuation zone for 19 miles around the plant, and fishing in the area has been suspended since the earthquake and tsunami...

click here to read more (you'll need a digital subscription I think)

Unbelievable

(Copied from the April 2 New York Times)

The town of Taro's sea wall was one of Japan's tallest and longest. It was called Japan's Great Wall of China by the government and news media. It consisted of a 34-ft. high inner wall reinforced by an outer wall, stretched 1.5 miles across the bay, and had a surface so wide that people cycled, jogged and strolled along it.

So unshakable was this town's faith in its sea wall and its ability to save residents from any tsunami that some rushed toward it when the 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck off Honshu's northeast coast on March 11. But then the tsunami caused by the quake tore right through the outer part and surged over the inner part -- sweeping away those who had climbed on its top and then taking most of the town.

Japan now has to decide whether to rebuild this infrastructure that failed to hold up when it was needed the most -- the so-called Great Walls that provided towns like Taro with a dangerously false sense of security -- or skip the coastline engineering and focus on education and evacuation drills. Maybe it's just not worth turning beautiful seaside communities into "garrison-like towns with limited views."

"For us, the sea wall was a source of pride, an asset, something that we believed in," Eiko Araya, 58, the principal of Taro No. 3 Elementary School told the Times. "We felt protected, that's why our feeling of loss is even greater now."

Read the whole story here. (You may need to be a paying subscriber to the NYTs online to access it)

What's in the Water

You can read all about what's in Tokyo's Tap Water on this web page, aptly named
Tokyo Tap Water Information, brought to you by Metropolis magazine. Most info comes from the Ministry of education, culture, sport, science and technology Japan (MEXT), which has its own website for reporting the same data.

Roentgens and Sieverts

Terry just sent me the link to a Tokyo Radiation Levels page on Metropolis magazine's website. It looks like a very handy way for anybody following this dicey situation to keep things in perspective.

The gist:

"Due to concerns about radiation in Tokyo from a number of our readers, Metropolis will publish daily radiation levels (sometimes multiple times daily if relevant). This is a log of background radiation levels in Tokyo from March 15 2011. Measurements will be taken daily at different times. Levels are measured in micro-Roentgens and micro-Sieverts using using a Polimaster PM1703M Scintillator and S.E International Radalert 100 Geiger counter respectively."

The disclaimer:
"We are not qualified experts in the field of nuclear science and nuclear medicine. Metropolis owns a Geiger counter and we are just giving a daily reading of exactly what we see on the screen of the Geiger counter. Geiger counter readings are taken outside, in an open area after the device has had 2 minutes to get an average reading of the background radiation level."

I like the "what does this compare to?" section, and the "what do the units mean?"

Bottom line: Levels detected over the last several days are "safe"

Pandas!

Yep, the Ueno Park Zoo has pandas once again.

Check out this BBC News story about the exhibit's opening day.

The much-anticipated arrival of "Shin Shin" and "Ri Ri" finally happened in late February -- just in time for the big earthquake-tsunami. According to Japan Probe, these pandas were living in Sichuan, in the China Giant Panda Protection and Research Center there, when the May 12, 2008 quake devastated that area. (Now that's unlucky.)

When the March 11 quake hit here, the pandas ran around in their cages and took two hours to calm down, NHK reported. They're better now, zookeepers say.

Fun fact from the Probe: these pandas are not a "friendship gift" from China. Japan will pay $950,000 a year (about 90 million yen) to "lease" the animals.