~8.9 earthquake 2 & 39 days after~

Written March 13, 2011 -- Tokyo, 2 days after the quake:

Hi everyone, I hope you know by now I'm safe & sound -- although it was a very scary situation in Tokyo on Friday afternoon, there is little damage to the city, trains and communication is back to normal. In fact, there is no sense of panic (in Tokyo at least), people are strolling around getting coffee, kids are playing on swings, and there are plenty of food supplies and water to go around.

While there was a tragic loss of life further north where the Tsunami hit, compared to the last "big one" in 1995 the casualty rate is 1% [edit-from-future: more like 25%]. Also, 8.9 is the strength of the quake at the epicenter, so based on how deep down and far away the citizens of Japan were at the time, take that number with a grain of salt. While it is true that the cooling system of one nuclear reactor is offline, the government is working with international support to deal with the situation. That reactor is 240km from Tokyo, the wind there blows out to sea normally, and all the nearby citizens have been evacuated and given equipment to protect themselves in the worst case. So in my humble opinion I think the world media has taken this disaster and run a little too far with it, but I'll let you know in another week or so =p

Here are some pictures from the past 3 days to give you a sense of what is going on here:

Office area about 2 hours after

Walking home after the quake, seeing the street TV

People spent the night in a small sub-section of Shinjuku station

The next day (Saturday morning) trying to leave Ueno station (the trains hadn't run all night)

Volunteering in Ueno park March 13. This day we served 890 homeless people.

The only building I spotted from my balcony that looked like the quake hit it bad.

Cracks in the wall outside my apartment.

Cracks inside my apartment.

Trying to do some grocery shopping that night (March 12th)

Everything's gone..

...

...

Evening one day after the quake (Tokyo, March 12th 2011)

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Written April 21, 2011 -- Tokyo, 39 days after the quake:

Then the the day after I wrote the paragraph above the #3 reactor blew up, and my friend from work Sebastian w

oke me up with the news in the morning. I turned on the TV, and decided to cash in a week of vacation right then, so I grabbed my Passport a credit card and a spare change of clothes and went to the closest airport and took the first plane west, winding up in Taiwan that very evening. Here are some pictures from that:

I decided to take a 1/2 day tour of Taipei

Lung Shan temple (inside and outside the temple)

Guards who never move but have live ammunition at a war memorial (video)

I went to Taipei 101 (maybe the 3rd tallest building in the world? not sure, 508 meters)

View from the top! (it was a little cloudy)

Then I went to Hong Kong to visit Wes.

Cube of crushed cans in a back alley in Hong Kong

A very colorful menu -- I highlighted my favorites ;)

Pretty fish for sale.

For the Schultz's ;)

Back in Tokyo; they're so cute when they're sleeping! Check out this crazy video of a children's television show that enthralled me.

I notice all the water is gone... >.>

..... <.<

It was stressful being at home and listening to this handy earthquake prediction alarm going off every few hours due to the aftershocks so...

... so I did the next logical thing. I went to Akihabara (electronics district) and built a new computer with my good friend 荒木さん. These kind women agreed to pose for a pic with me (they were promoting the new mobile RPG video game Wanderes from Ys 7)

PC before being assembled...

...and after!

Close up: i7 Quad-core intel SandyBridge with hyper-threading; 8 gB Ram (DDR3); 160 gB SolidState HD, 1 tB HD; Radeon 5810 graphics card; USB 3.0 and HDMI out; wireless mouse and keyboard =)

Me with co-workers Dave & Rob at Nash, a local Cowgirl-themed favorite bar for pinball and drinks after work.

Sakura season came! Here is a video of some friends of mine viewing the Sakura and afterwards at an Izakaiya (an Izakaiya is a place to eat and drink typical Japanese food like fried meats and pickled vegetables and tons of other stuff)

The pretty Sakura's in Ueno park (video)

More co-workers in front of our office on our way to lunch.

Tokyo life is so hectic that they decided to actually add an hour to the day so we can party more. Note that Happy Hour ends at 1AM; clubs usually go til 7AM. A video from this club in Daikonyama (circa 3AM).

It`s been quite a while now since the big earthquake and it`s immediate fallout, but I still tear up when I read about what the living conditions must be like up North. If you can, try reading this blog: http://jkts-english.blogspot.com/2011/04/1-to-affected-areas.html

A lot has happened since my initial reaction; the nuclear plant didn`t blow up but will take about 8 months to get to a safe "cool-down" state; many many people have lost their lives due to the Tsunami, and there are still aftershocks every day. I`ve had four nightmares (that I can remember) in the last month where I died in my dreams: 3 times it was in an earthquake, and 1 time it was in a plane crash.

Will post more soon, although my new computer is fancy as hell it doesn't have a MicroSD slot =0