Monday 14th March 2011
I wasn't sure I would find much to write about today, but as you will see I managed my usual verbose entry.
Rhiannon's school have decided to close for the entire week, something she is extremely happy about. Apparently all the other international schools are closed for two weeks and our school was the last to make this decision.
I'm in two minds about this development. Mostly I am extremely happy about having my daughter safe at home with me so if anything happened, we'd be together. This is most important, I've come to realise. However, she is Hard Work to keep entertained, especially with all our belongings out of the house in a shipping container. Today we had a lazy day and I allowed her to watch way too much TV. The dog isn't doing so well. She's unsettled and nervous still, and doesn't calm down properly until everyone is home, including our wandering cat.
I can't stop thinking about how lucky we've been in all this, and how dreadful it must be in the devasated areas further north. By a bizarre stroke of luck or an incredible set of coincidences, my entire family was at home together when the earthquake struck on Friday. So many families have been separated; with many thousands separated forever.
Perhaps because we were all together when it happened, Rhiannon doesn't appear to be traumatised too much by it. I should imagine that if she had been at school on Friday she would be in one hell of a state by now.
In fact, I believe it is this trauma that has caused many of our fellow expat families to make a rapid exodus from Japan. I've been astounded by how suddenly and quickly they have left, leaving brief messages on Facebook saying things like "we're catching a plane tomorrow to go to X, Y or Z". Some have said that their children are so panicked by all the aftershocks that it is better to get to a more stable country as soon as possible.
And we've certainly had a lot of aftershocks, with a couple of big ones today which sent us trotting outside again. I've given up trying to work out what magnitude each one is now. As you can see, the map is so full of markers, and it updates quite slowly and sporadically, that it's just not possible to discover which one was "that one". When I phoned Mum this evening for my daily update, her first words were "I hear you've had another big quake". My response... "Have we?" I don't know all of what the British media are reporting, but from what I have seen it's mostly sensationalised and not all accurate, that's for sure! Yes, as I mentioned, we had two substantial ones today, but the whole day has been pretty rock and roll. As was yesterday... and the day before that. I'm beginning to feel quite queasy from the motion.
Of course, the extremely scary situation with the Fukushima nuclear plant is also contributing to the panic and the urge to get as far away from it as soon as possible is strong. Our information indicates that there is nothing to worry about - yet. We're monitoring the situation on a minute by minute basis, though.
For us, it's not so straightforward to just up and go. We're due to leave Japan for good on 11th April anyway. So if Rhiannon and I left now, we'd still have to come back before moving on. That's a lot of travelling. It's much too far to go back to the UK. And I can't think of anywhere else closer we could afford to go for a "holiday" as we've only just come back from one which was rather expensive. And of course, we'd have to leave Tim and the pets behind. Neither of which is conducive to keeping stress levels down.
At the forefront of my mind today was the extremely disturbing information from somewhere that there is a 70% likelihood of another huge quake before Thursday. I was doing OK until I heard this, then every aftershock set my already ragged nerves even further on edge. I've since heard this has now dropped to only a 40% chance. Whether this is true or not - I mean how can this figure be proven or even decided upon? What precedence has been used to predict that?
On the food front - there are quite major shortages here in Tokyo. Even the restuarants are limiting their offerings. I did manage to get some milk today, so I'm OK for my numerous cups of tea and Rhiannon's daily intake. But there is no meat or bread to be found. Tim went out on a hunter/gatherer trip early this evening and came back with vegetables and some unknown frozen nugget-type things. I will have to get inventive!
He also tried to get petrol. It's being rationed now, but he was unlucky as all the petrol stations closed early for a change.
So it looks like life here may get quite difficult in the coming days / weeks, but I've managed the "hard life" before and will do it again.
