escapades

Final memories of Japan…. for now.

I’m in Narita airport, 1.5 hrs out of Tokyo, sitting amongst a lot of Chinese tourists heading for home. In a few hours, I’ll be hopping on a plane to Hong Kong and so will be beginning the end of our big trip – a month sooner than we had planned. No surprises as to why we are returning home, with Japan suffering its biggest disaster since WWII and trying to contain a nuclear meltdown at the same time. In fact, with the press focusing so much on the Fukushima nuclear power plant’s current situation, you’d be forgiven for thinking they’d sorted out the clean up from the tsunami already. The earthquake and subsequent tsunami definitely feels like yesterday’s news – and yet the latest numbers indicate that around 15,000 people will have died from last Friday’s earthquake and tsunami, a whole week ago. It does already feel like an age ago.

We had a strange week in Utsunomiya, glued to the NHK television reports, BBC website and The Age website (which has been the catalyst for much of our own personal panic and that of our friends and family). All these sources have been useful in some way but have also been in conflict on many occasions, causing all of us in Utsunomiya to wonder what the hell is going on and who to believe. Clearly, the local newspapers and authorities are trying to calm everyone down and the international press is looking to sell a headline, so the gap between both reports has at times been a chasm. The BBC website has actually provided some of the best material and updates for all of us, much more impartial reporting. I’ll continue to check it as things progress this month. The PTA luncheon on Saturday was cancelled but our Green Class parents/family party continued on the Sunday, allowing Kim and I to share a lunch with my students and their families – lots of pizza and pasta and noise – but a nice couple of hours spent with some of my cuties and being thanked by their families. Yuka and I received Starbucks Sakura (cherry blossom) themed drink holders (like a little thermos) as a thankyou gift, which is ‘super kawaii’ (super cute) and a lovely memento of Japan. We headed back home Sunday afternoon and waited to hear whether school would be returning on Monday.

It did. Nothing was cancelled and the principal was determined to have life continue on as normal. And on the Monday that seemed appropriate – the nuclear threat was there but it seemed they were still cooling things down relatively successfully and the subsequent aftershocks were finally calming down. However during that day and the following Tuesday, things changed. The news coming from Fukushima was not improving and they were starting to get higher radiation level readings even down our way – 30 times higher than normal. None of this is a big threat to your health, according to WHO and the other authorities, but it was not being sure of whether things would worsen or get better that was a major problem. On Monday night, Kim and I had the discussion that if the evacuation radius increased by 10km or more, then we should probably pack our bags and go. The evacuation radius around the second plant increased to 20km and the ‘please stay indoors at all costs’ radius increased to 30km on Tuesday. Kids started being pulled out of school when this news came through (we were already down a fair few students from the start of the week) and the after school English classes were cancelled on Tuesday, due to the elementary schools in the area shutting down. Things were not looking promising. We were told to stay indoors and that the kids were not allowed outside to play. Suddenly, trying to maintain any semblance of normality with a school routine was disappearing. Some parents even complained that the kids had been outside in the morning (before the news came through that radiation was increasing). Wendy, Janet and I rode home early that afternoon to avoid rain (which was also apparently not great for our health with its higher radiation levels too). The place felt like a ghost town. Expressways had barely any traffic and the roads were quiet. Couple this with a smokey sky, a red burning sunset and wearing our facemasks and it definitely felt ominous and creepy. Most people were indoors. The wind had changed, no longer in our favour – in more ways than one. One of the other foreign teachers had already left for Gifu that night with his family and would perhaps return later in the week.

Tuesday night was extremely difficult for me personally. Kim and I discussed what to do and he had got out the bags to start packing. We decided we should go. Flights were moved forward to the following Friday. Accommodation in Tokyo was booked for Thursday night. Extra items were boxed up. We began cleaning the apartment. I felt ill as I would have to tell work the following day that I was leaving and that day would be my final one. The phonecalls, Skype chats and messages that night were difficult, but despite the pain of knowing I’d be leaving school and the kids early, having made a decision felt better. We had begun to get frozen with fear. Aftershocks were still continuing too. I did not sleep well.

Wednesday was hard. One of the hardest and emotional days I have experienced in a long time. Telling my colleagues and my boss was tough, but they were reasonable and understood. The principal and vice-principal seemed shocked. It is very much the Japanese way to stay and confront everything, no matter how hard it is and how dangerous for you personally. It is no lie to say that I felt like a coward, leaving behind my colleagues and the kids I had taught. But, as was wisely put to me, not even I can stop radiation and perhaps leaving would help, by at least being two less mouths to feed. Particularly when people were panic-buying at such a rate (gasoline was selling out and food was being whipped off the shelves as it was being replaced – supplies weren’t short, people were just being crazy). Megumi helped us with the paperwork of leaving – cutting off services to the apartment, etc. She was such an immense support, both logistically and emotionally. I shall miss her so very much. At the end of the day, my co-teacher Yuka explained to the kids I was heading home early. They were super surprised (at least the ones that were left as I had over a third of my kids absent now – the school had about half its students attending), but were keen to give me lots of big hugs at the end of the day. I managed to hold it together as they lined up for goodbyes, but saying goodbye to some was particularly hard. Having so many away, whilst wanting to say goodbye to them, was a kind of blessing for my emotional stress. Two of my gorgeous girls, Reika and Ayu, went in for the big snuggle and I was grateful for that.

My goodbye to the principal was fast, as he was on the phone, and I headed outside to my bike to find Yuka, my co-teacher, standing next to it, sobbing. Lots of hugging and reassuring words later, I rode off to the local shopping centre to meet Kim and cancel my mobile plan. My goodbye to Megumi came Thursday morning after we shut down the bank account. That was a really hard one too. And then all that was left was to tidy the apartment and catch a sombre train to Tokyo.

We managed to visit Harajuku and Omotesando one last night, but found it shutting down early due to black outs and brown outs (where they just reduce the electricity usage, not shut it off completely). It was so strange to see Tokyo so dark that night and so quiet in areas that are usually busy. But in others, it still felt bustling and normal, perhaps with a few more face masks being worn. That night in our hotel we felt one last big aftershock, with the hotel swaying quite a lot and the lamps swinging from the ceiling. A reminder of why we were heading home.

The news regarding the power plant has been better today, with electrical lines being laid down. I hope that things continue to improve and that the cooling of the reactors keeps happening. I feel so overwhelmed with sadness sometimes when I think about the coastal towns up north and the images of the tsunami destroying everything in its path. But I am relieved to be sitting here at Narita airport with Kim, leaving behind the rumbles and radiation threats. Even if the whole reactor does blow up and meltdown and go through the worst case scenario, Utsunomiya will probably be fine. All the experts are saying it isn’t another Chernobyl. But, for us, the anxiety of being asked to come in to work when things weren’t normal, and not being allowed the time to process what was happening or have our concerns addressed, was becoming rapidly tiring. If things improve now and it ends up that we left early, we will have missed the cherry blossoms and our extended Japanese holiday, which is sad. But if things get worse, panic increases, blackouts continue with trains running at sporadic times, and people all want to leave in a hurry, then we did not want to get caught out in that rush. It has been such a hard decision and I flipflop between guilt for leaving and perhaps panicking, but also buoyed by the fact that many people (foreign and locals) are also heading south or west and are feeling just as unsure about what is to come. The fact that so many parents were pulling kids out of school made me feel that it wasn’t just a ‘foreigners’ panic’. And in honesty, I am not sure I could have enjoyed a holiday in Kyoto and Osaka, knowing what was happening back in Miyagi, Sendai and Fukushima. The final straws for us were hearing some airlines were no longer flying into Tokyo and that the Australian government also recommended Aussies head home, to take pressure off services. It cemented our belief we were doing the right thing.

So…. onto Hong Kong and Singapore for a week’s break, and home by next Friday. It feels strange and I know I will need time to process things. I am still feeling unbalanced by the shakes and tremors, feeling aftershocks when none are happening. I hope things improve here. I know the people will continue to push through it stoically and efficiently (I sure will miss Japanese efficiency). In the meantime, I hope I can find somewhere that serves some delicious dim sum in Hong Kong. The cherry blossoms will bloom again next year and the next, and I still intend to see them at their best. In fact, I am more determined than ever. We will be back. Perhaps we’ll have our own little Reika or Ayu in tow with us next time….

Earthquake and tsunami - our relatively minor experience

I am trying to write some of our experiences down, partly for myself as a way of recording a vitally important event in our lives and partly for friends and family who would like to know what has happened in our area. We are super lucky to be living inland and to be living on the flat land, not in the mountains, not with snow or mud as a threat. Apart from the initial quakes and the subsequent tremors, we have not been all that greatly affected. My heart breaks when I see what was happening only 150km north of our home, in Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, in Sendai, and in Nagano, west of our prefecture.

Whilst Kim was at home alone, I was on hall duty Friday afternoon - which means we are looking after around 30-40 kids who stay for awhile after school finishes. We generally play outside with them, help them get changed, then read stories and do origami in the Sunnyside hall. I was on duty with two other Japanese teachers, plus a Japanese student-teacher, who was leading storytime. We have had many tremors since arriving in Japan, so when the initial shaking started, it didn’t seem that bad. Shizuka, the student teacher, hopped off her chair and knelt down with the kids and we started to herd them together into one group. After a short while - perhaps 20-30 secs, we all started to get seriously worried. The tremor grew and became quite big shakes from side to side. Two other Japanese teachers ran into the hall, one to join the kids on the floor and another to hold back the piano on the side of the wall. My co-teacher Yuka was crouching over the kids and Ayaka, who was also on duty, started frantically opening the hall sliding doors and went to hold back some stacked furniture in the corner of the room. I took their lead and leaned up against some stackled trestle tables that were near the kids, to ensure they didn’t come crashing down. The power went out and James, another teacher, appeared in the hall doorway, bracing himself on either side. From the local teachers’ faces, I knew this was a big one and pretty serious. I remember looking out of one of the hall windows and seeing the trees and scenery moving from side to side, and realising that it was just as much us moving side to side as the garden moving too. It lasted 2-3 minutes. Dust and a few random objects on the rafters started dropping down (balls and toys that had been lost up there). The kids were asked to put their bags over their heads and huddle tightly together. All of us were calling out “Daijoobu” and “Ii yo!” which basically translates to “You’re alright” and “It’s ok”. Some kids thought the whole thing was a hoot and others were already crying.

Once the major tremor stopped, we all got up and started sending the kids outside, youngest first. The other kids who were in after-school English classes were already evacuating from other classrooms and waiting for us. The vice-principal ran over from Yashio kinder across the road to check on us all. Mothers were already arriving in the carpark to pick up their kids. We lined up and tried to account for the kids in our classes who we knew were staying behind. I went down the Green Class line, checking on all my kids. We all felt rather nauseous from the shaking and most of us were a pale shade of whit or yellow. One of my beautiful boys, Senato, was just standing at the end of the Green class line, silently crying. I picked him up and gave him a big cuddle, as much for me as for him, both of us needing reassurance. We tried to sing “You are my sunshine” together, as we’d been re-learning that in class this month. He tried but was quite in shock. Most of the teachers had at least one child in their arms, calming them down.

Mobile networks were down. Most of us were trying to ring people at home. I was trying to message Kim. I thought one message had got through but he never received it until Saturday night!

After 25 minutes outside and many children being picked up, we headed back in to the hall. No sooner had we sat down when the first big aftershocks happened. We turned the kids back around, and marched them back outside again. At this point we decided none of them were going back inside - the risk was too great with more aftershocks happening every few minutes. The local teachers were seeming very grim so we decided to sing some songs, grouping the kids together in a big circle, surrounded by a mixture of teachers and mums. We sang ‘5 Little Monkeys’ and ’B-I-N-G-O’ amongst others and tried to play some games. Eventually the majority of Sunnyside children were picked up and the aftershocks calmed down a little. Some other after-school English class kids were arriving but we couldn’t go back in to the school just yet, so we embarked on a hilarious teacher-student game of dodgeball. It was one of the most fun, stress-releasing moments of the week. I learned to play the G chord on James’ guitar and made up some terrible songs about my bicycle crashing over and ‘Emily-sensei not being able to ride home’…. I even tried to play on the swings, but soon realised my stomach wasn’t quite ready for more movement so soon after my quake nausea. We even managed to go back inside in small shifts to clean up the classrooms, pick up stuff that had fallen and shut up the school for the week.

I rode my bicycle home (it survived despite crashing over in the quake) with one of the new teachers (from Christchurch, no less!). The traffic on the roads was crazy, banking back for a long way from each traffic light. The power was still out in places and the trains were not running. Kim was awaiting my arrival, having experienced the whole thing at home on his own. It was once I was home and watching the telelvision and checking my emails that it all hit me and I realised how big this quake had been and how many people had been affected. There was a small Emily-sized meltdown at about 7pm that evening, as the adrenalin wore off. There was some small amounts of tidying up to do, with things falling off shelves. It was a lucky thing that we have not been here long or had bought much furniture! One of the more humourous things was seeing the newsreaders all in hard hats. Made logical sense with aftershocks happening so frequently and still being relatively big, but there’d be a ringing bell in the tv studio and they’d all reach for their branded hard hats, put them on their heads, and continue reading the news as the desk shook around them. Very bizarre.

Friday night was a sleepless one, with aftershocks and tremors occurring every 20-30 minutes throughout the entire night. We perhaps got 2 hours of relatively undisturbed sleep, before the next major quake at 4am occurred. This one had its epicentre in Nagano/Niigata areas, on the west of us this time, rather than north-east near Sendai. Whilst not as big, experiencing it at night in the dark was quite terrifying and I can only imagine what it would have been like in Nagano, with the landslides and avalanches that followed. I didn’t really get back to sleep after that and got up shortly after 6.30am to make myself some breakfast. One of the most interesting things that happened with the aftershocks was that my Japanese-made mobile phone buzzed with an alarm noise for a few seconds, just before every major aftershock over the weekend. It seems the mobile networks have been utilised to help warn locals of new tremors and aftershocks as they are about to occur. Something which could be useful for things like bushfires or floods back home perhaps….?

We were meant to have a PTA luncheon on the Saturday but nobody was sure what was happening. I got dressed in case it was still on but was later contacted and told it had been cancelled as the power in Kaminokawa (our school’s suburb) was still out and restaurants were not running. The trains were still down too. Instead, we watched a lot of tv, chatted online and through Skype to people back home, and ended up inviting a couple of colleagues over for some scones and frisbee. The sun was shining and all of us needed a mental break. The frisbee was great as being outside meant we did not notice the aftershocks and tremors and spent two hours in relative normality. Saturday night saw us get a much better sleep, although the aftershocks that did occur were quite big. Kim visited our local Kamashin supermarket, which was in crazy mode - people with multiple trollies, buying water, instant noodles, perishable foods, torches, batteries…. panic evident.

Saturday afternoon saw the Fukushima Nuclear power plant have an explosion which meant the external covers/walls of one of its reactors blew off and the evacuation radius increased from 10km to 20km. Locals have been evacuated. This power plant is 140km north of us, so shouldn’t pose a threat. That has been the latest thing on the news throughout Saturday night and Sunday morning, with containment being high on the list of things to do! They are rapidly trying to cool the reactor and appear to be taking all the necessary precautions to ensure nobody is ill. We are likely to lose our electric power at times today. We will keep monitoring that whole situation to make sure all is alright.

In the meantime, we have our end-of-year Green Class party today at lunchtime, which is still going ahead! So I’ll be spending part of today with my kids and their families. I think it could be quite a surreal moment in amongst the tragedy occurring elsewhere. I think school will go ahead tomorrow, but not entirely sure as yet - things like school lunches and the canteen might be struggling if there are power problems and food shortages. The worst affected areas were on the north-east coast, up near Sendai, Fukushima and in Miyagi prefecture. They are estimating at least 1300 dead, but could be as high as 1700. The footage of the tsunami is devastating, terrifying and really moving. Our experiences are so mild compared to much of northern Japan, so we have been so very lucky. But it is a strange feeling to be here whilst this country goes through a national disaster and recovers from its biggest earthquake ever.

We had planned to move out of our apartment on the 27th March (2 weeks time) and train to Kyoto and the Kansai region to the west. We are not sure what will be happening with trains and shinkansen. I think that connection will be one of the first fixed due to its importance in transport for the entire country, but the priorities are obviously focused on getting people out and rescuing northerners wherever possible. I am not sure what this means for our cherry-blossom viewing holiday before coming home. We will keep you posted. Thanks to everybody who has been in touch with us and sent love and thoughts. It means so much to be so cared for and to have friends and family who are concerned about us and this incredible place. As I wrote this, I have sat through three aftershocks already, so it will continue today no doubt. But the tsunami warnings have finally been downgraded overnight and the intensity and frequency of tremors are reducing. I remain optimistic that this country will pick itself up and plough on this week and the heavy feeling in my stomach, that inflames everytime the ground trembles, will start to subside too.

Our first snowfall in Utsunomiya…. and some other local pics.

 More from Nozawa Onsen…

 Nozawa Onsen ski trip!