Quick Update

I just wanted to give everyone a quick update. Brad and I decided yesterday that we are ready to come home so we have a flight for Monday and will be back in Colorado Monday night. We are so excited to get home! Right now we're just trying to use the last of our energy/motivation to get everything packed and taken care of so we can get out of here. While nothing significant happened today, it still seems to be a little unstable so I feel like once we are on the plane I will be able to relax a little bit.

I'll give you a full update a soon as I can! Thanks again for thinking of us through this difficult situation! I'm really sad that we have to leave Japan like this, but all we have is good memories despite this past week.

the big IF

I haven't been sleeping well. It seems like I wake up to some tremor or another every morning. This morning I actually slept through one but Brad didn't. And I woke up soon after and then we just didn't go back to sleep. So I'm tired, and it's getting more wearing than I thought it would be. This whole day it seems there is good news and bad news. We kept with our media timeout today and it definitely helped. I wasn't as anxious today as I was yesterday. It probably helped that we had regular classes today to keep me busy too. Although my teacher was doing some sort of demonstration today where he kind of knelt down in front of his desk like he was getting under it and my stomach flipped and I almost dove under the first desk I saw. That would have been a little embarrassing. :)

We are getting all of our information from the US Embassy in Tokyo. Because the media is completely sensationalizing everything and none of it is really relevant to us. Again, all we need to know is if we're safe right now, and if something bad happens, what do we need to do? Unfortunately those answers are hard to come by and it seems like they are keeping up to date on everything that we might need to know at the embassy website. (We are also registered with the US Embassy here to receive alerts and so they know we are here/where we are in case anything happens.)

Brad has continued to bike to work (25km each way) until he was finally able to take the train home last night, although it wasn't very convenient since not every line is working, and there aren't very many trains working. He tried to use the trains this morning but we had a scheduled power outage so he ended up taking a bus, and fortunately got a ride home from a coworker tonight. His commute is still a guessing game but luckily he only has 3 more days of school left. We have also been lucky in that it hasn't rained, although it has gotten colder.

I talked to some of my teachers today who are worried about the gas situation. Brad also passed a lot of cars waiting in lines at the gas station today. People wait for hours, and are lined up for miles just to get a little bit of gasoline. My teacher said the price is 150 yen per liter ($2 a liter). Now does $4 a gallon seem so much?

They have been giving schedules for mandatory power outages since this problem began but this morning was the first time they actually shut the power off. It was out from about 6:45 am to 9:45 am. I'm hoping they don't shut off the power like they have planned tomorrow from 4pm to 10pm because otherwise we're having a cold and dark dinner!  But we went to the grocery store tonight and things actually seem to be looking up there. They still don't have everything yet, and people are definitely still panic buying but we were able to get some bread and eggs! It still seems like they're running low on the bread, eggs, water, rice, and cup of noodles. Unfortunately because people are panicking around here it seems that it's making it harder on the people up north who really need the food.

Some people looking at the limited train schedule for the night, while a station employee waits to give directions. 

The usually full cup o' noodle aisle at the grocery store. 

OUR "PLAN":

This is our big "if" situation now. If this hadn't have happened, we would be moving out of our apartment on April 2nd with Brad's family. If the situation stays the same as it is now, we will be ready to leave sometime next week. We have already sold most of our furniture, but we still haven't started packing most of our stuff. People are picking up our things this weekend. If the situation gets better, meaning they get the nuclear reactor under control, there isn't any radiation leakage and the public transportation gets better then it would be nice to continue with our trip. If the situation gets worse, and with no regrets whatsoever, we will drop everything and leave.

I really hope that doesn't happen.

For many reasons...but this is a really sad way to see Japan and have it be one of your last memories of an all around great year.

I really want to thank all of you for your emails, calls and messages. It is really comforting to get all of the messages and helps make this whole mess a little easier. I hope you don't feel like I'm neglecting you by not returning an email to you. I'm trying! But I'm also kind of busy/preoccupied. At the very latest we will be back on Colorado soil in less than 2 and a half weeks, and we are so excited to see all of you!

Media Timeout

I'm constantly checking my phone all day and the TV at work is always on. I feel like I'm on information overload. Obviously I want to stay on top of the news because the situation could get really bad, really fast but I feel so on the edge that a false alarm about the radiation almost made me lose it at work today. It's really frustrating because I can't understand what's going on in the news and the English news that I look up on my phone is not as fast to update or isn't very relevant for people living in Japan. (i.e. when the power outages will occur, which train lines are running, which prefectures are being affected by the radiation...)

People are definitely on edge now. We had our graduation ceremony today (which I will have to write about in another post) and teachers had little yellow "disaster" flags for people to follow to safe areas in case an earthquake hit. For decorations they had covered 4 out of the 6 doors leading out of the gym with these sheets. You could still duck under them if you needed to but it definitely would have been bad in case they needed to be used. They still made sure to mark where the doors were and pointed them out to everybody along with where to go in case we had another earthquake though. They were supposed to turn off the power in the middle of the ceremony the luckily they held off the power outages for another day.

It didn't rain today but it's still on the forecast for the next couple days. It's also supposed to get cooler which is really bad for the people up north who still don't have power. I didn't go to the grocery store today but  I saw that McDonald's was only serving a limited menu and more restaurants were closed than normal. It said on facebook that the government had assured people that the food supply wasn't running out in the Tokyo area so hopefully that stops people from panic buying. We're trying to finish all the food we have piled up anyways because we're leaving soon but it's really hard to do that when you know you don't have enough to last 2 weeks.

So anyway, things still seem kind of dicey with the reactor but I figure if something really bad happens I'll know about it. But I get more worked up about things if I'm constantly monitoring things so I'm putting myself on a news media timeout. And now I just need to stay busy...and hopefully get a good nights sleep.

Acid Rain Tomorrow?

Hi there. Nothing too much has changed in the past couple of days. The trains weren't running today so Brad had to ride his bike 25km to and from work. There was also a small earthquake this morning. Brad felt it more than me. We had the TV on at work all day today and they would sound an earthquake warning every once in a while. It's kind of unnerving, and to be honest with you, we've felt so many little earthquakes in the past few days that sometimes I'm not sure if it's real, or if I'm just dizzy and imagining it.

Tomorrow is our "graduation" ceremony. I put that in parentheses because they're really just going on to high school but they make a bigger deal about middle school graduation because it's the end of your compulsory education. All the students have been practicing for the ceremony for the past couple of weeks. (I'll bring my camera tomorrow but I'm not sure if I'll be able to get any pictures. They're kind of weird about it.) We were in the gym for about 2 hours practicing this morning and the teachers were going around the gym checking for cracks in the walls. I think there are cracks on every column but our school is 30 years old and kind of shabby anyway so I'm hoping they were already there. But still, I was bored so all I could think of was "Was that another after shock? Are the lights swinging? Where will I go if I feel a big one coming?" People were definitely more on edge today. Anyway, I hope that we're able to have the ceremony tomorrow as planned.

I guess there was another explosion at the power plant and the evacuation area seems to be getting bigger. I checked on google maps and it looks like we're 150 miles from the plant--except that apparently the aircraft carrier, Ronald Reagan detected radiation at 100 miles out to sea. I hope nothing more happens with that. It is supposed to rain tomorrow and there is a chance of rain the rest of the week. I think the thing that I'm most worried about now is the possibility of acid rain because the only way for me to get to school is by bike and I usually get a little wet whenever it's rainy. And if the trains are down I definitely don't want Brad riding 25km in the rain. So we'll see what happens...

I went to the store again today because I saw someone that I work with had posted on facebook that the only thing he could find at the grocery store was potato chips...I don't know where he was looking. I went to the store by us and they are still out of eggs, bread, and almost out of instant noodles but that's about it. I didn't look for water because they say it's still safe to drink out of the tap. We did get some non perishable food though because they are planning on doing mandatory power outages. We were supposed to have one today but so far they haven't cut the power. We put a couple of 2L of water in the freezer to stick in the fridge during the day in case they do cut the power.

So that is all the updates I have. I continue to be amazed and saddened by the pictures that are on TV and hope that we don't have any more earthquakes or aftershocks so people can pick up their lives a little bit.

UPDATE: I guess the radiation that was detected 100 miles out in the ocean was from a smoke cloud that drifted out there, it wasn't emanating from the plant. Also Brad just checked and I guess acid rain is more of a long term thing so we probably won't get that tomorrow. We are still unsure as to whether or not radiation can be carried in rain though... But still, let's hope it doesn't rain tomorrow!

Update on the Earthquake

It is now just past noon on Sunday, almost 48 hours since the earthquake. Later on Friday night, we walked to the convenience store down the street and to check out the train station nearby. They had completely closed the station, which was really weird to see. On the way back to our place we noticed an awning over a mom and pop fruit stand was twisted and falling and there was a crack in the side of the building but that is the extent of the damage that we've seen around us. 

We talked to friends that live and work in Tokyo and they were part of the many people who were stranded away from home when the trains shut down. One friend had to walk home 25K (about 15 miles), another waited for a bus for 3 hours and after it never came decided to walk about 15K home (about 9 miles). He said that people and businesses were handing out free snacks, hot tea etc and that it was incredible to see all the people walking, trying to find their way home. 

We went to bed at about midnight on Friday night just feeling exhausted after everything that had happened that day. We were still feeling aftershocks every 15-20 minutes. I woke up a few times during the night because our futon was "swaying" back and forth. At around 4am I woke up the earthquake alarm and someone coming on the PA system to warn us about it. I thought it was just a strong aftershock, but it was actually a separate earthquake that happened around Niigata (where we went skiing last February). Needless to say, I couldn't fall back asleep for a while so it was kind of a rough night. 

Yesterday we were still feeling aftershocks but since we are leaving in 3 weeks to come home, we had plans to say some last good-byes to some people. So we walked around and found out the trains were working again (although there were a lot less of them running). So we went on an adventure into western Tokyo...I have to say that little earthquakes are an interesting thing. You can definitely feel them when you're sitting or lying still, but for some reason you can't feel them standing up (if they're small). So it was kind of nice not feeling some of the aftershocks yesterday since we were standing up most of the day. The only damage we noticed the whole day was some roof tiles falling off of a roof. 

We had dinner in Akishima and noticed that there was a looong line of people waiting to get into the gas station. And when we went into the grocery store there were some bare shelves, but there was still plenty of food and drinks and it wasn't terribly crowded either. After that we headed to Nishi-Ogikubo where we stopped into a convenience store which again, had less food than normal but still had plenty of food. Every convenience store that we went into (about 3 or 4) were like that. But most restaurants and retail places were open already yesterday.

I have been reading on various news sources that there is damage to buildings in Tokyo, and that people are stocking up on food, water, and gas but I think the pictures that you see on the news are much worse than anything that is around Tokyo. I have not seen any major damage to the outside of buildings, even though I'm sure offices and homes were quite messy after the earthquake. I'm guessing most of the injuries that happened in Tokyo were caused by things falling off of shelves.  And because of the nuclear plants having trouble I have heard that they might turn off power to some places at certain times but so far we haven't experienced that. I guess I just want to reiterate that Japan is a bigger country than a lot of people expect, and they were amazingly well prepared for it. Nobody could have guessed an earthquake this big would hit but considering that the whole east coast isn't a pile of rubble says something to the way Tokyo has been built and the people's knowledge of how to react when an earthquake does occur. Unfortunately tsunamis are another story and that's where most of this devastation has come from. 

Thank you all for keeping us in your thoughts during this time and I will try and keep you updated on things happening around here. Hopefully we don't have any more big aftershocks and they get the nuclear plants under control. Here's a link from CNN for ways you can help, if you want to.

UPDATE: Here's a map that shows where we live in relation to everything that is going on in Japan.
Click here. 

Earthquake in Japan

So today something scary happened. There was an earthquake...and numerous aftershocks. I just want to update everyone on our story and what we've experienced. Brad and I live in Higashimatsuyama which is in Saitama prefecture north of Tokyo (not near the ocean so we don't have to worry about a tsunami). The big earthquake happened at 2:45, which was during cleaning time at our school.  I was putting paper in the copy room, talking to another teacher when it hit. At first I didn't think anything of it because I have felt numerous earthquakes since moving here a year ago. However instead of going away after a couple of seconds like I'm used to it kept going and kept getting stronger. After a second my teacher started yelling at me and the other students in the room and ran over to the PA system to tell people to get under cover. So I sat under a desk and watched as papers and things fell off the shelves and desks around me. It finally stopped in which case I got out of my desk and immediately went to my phone to try and get a hold of Brad. Then the teachers started crowding into the teachers room to talk about what the plan was with the students. Luckily classes were already finished for the day but there was supposed to be club activities after school. Soon after that we felt our first after shock.

Other people, including Brad told me that they evacuated their school during each aftershock but nobody at my school moved. The students were in the process of leaving when the first aftershock hit so maybe that's why we didn't evacuate. I'm not sure though.

Like I said before I immediately grabbed my phone after the first earthquake hit to try and get in touch with Brad. I sent him a text and then went onto facebook where I saw that he had posted something about the earthquake and knew he was ok. I stayed at work until 4pm and then biked home like I usually do. Brad rides his bike and takes the train for his commute and usually get's home at around 5:20. I had initially seen his post on facebook but he hadn't responded to any of my texts/emails/fb messages etc (ok, I'll admit it, I was getting worried) which isn't like him at all. He didn't end up getting home until almost 6pm because he had to ride his bike home since the trains stopped working. Apparently the cellphone service was more spotty than I originally thought because I still haven't received any of the texts Brad tried to send me.

Now we are sitting at home watching the news, which is incredible. I have basically watched it since it happened and saw the tsunamis hit live. I can't believe some of the damage that happened in Tokyo. After seeing all that I realize how lucky Brad and I are. While the earthquake was definitely really strong and scary, we definitely escaped the brunt of the damage. The only thing that happened at our apartment was some things falling off of shelves, but nothing broke.

Our friend Chris, works in Koenji which is in the middle of Tokyo. We talked with him around 7pm and he said that he was handing out fliers at a train station when it hit and he said it was like the loudest thunder he had ever heard. He said he started running right away because he thought it was a train that was going to crash through the station. Right now he is stranded in the part of Tokyo where he works. The trains aren't working and everyone is depending on taxi's and buses to get home. He posted a picture on fb of his office and it looks like someone went through and overturned everything.

It has now been about 5 hours since the earthquake and we are still feeling pretty significant aftershocks every 15 minutes or so. I have to say that earthquakes can be kind of fun to feel but when you're not sure of how strong they're going to become or what the damage might be it is definitely not fun.

Anyway, we're doing good. Lucky that we aren't hurt and nothing of ours was damaged. And I hope these stupid aftershocks stop soon.

Fukaya 10K

As you know, I've been running most of my life. My brother and I would ride our bikes while my parents ran when we were younger, I ran my first 5K when I was 8 years old and then competed in track and cross country in high school. I tried cross country in college, but got burnt out. I filled the void that running left with teaching cycling classes and personal training in college but didn't really start running again until I was told that I was teaching a marathon training class my last semester of college so I figured I would train for a half marathon along with some of the people who were taking the class. I loved the half marathon but still didn't stick with running on a regular basis after that. I've learned that I need a partner, and a little structure to stick with running and after nearly 9 years together I think the running bug has bit Brad--and I have a running partner!

Some teachers from Brad's elementary school like to run and asked if he would like to run a relay race in January and a 10K in February with them. He said yes and I asked if I could join and so we started training last November.

On a side note: it's hard not to be somewhat healthy in Japan. You're forced to walk a lot and the food, while not quite as good, is probably a little healthier than the US. (Except I'm writing this after Brad and I ate McDonalds for dinner... ) I don't believe I have lost or gained weight this year, except that I do not have access to a gym here so I'm sure I've probably lost a little bit of muscle. Brad on the other hand has lost some weight. So much so that he can't even wear his wedding ring anymore because if he makes a big gesture with his hands it will fly off and might hit someone on the face. It also almost got lost on the soccer field during a pick up game one time.

Anyway, despite the fact that I thought I was in decent shape from all the walking that we do here and the 20 minute bike ride to and from school everyday, I was surprised how difficult it was to get back into running. It was hard! But we made it! The 10K was 2 weekends ago and it was so much fun! We did pretty well and are already looking forward to our next race.

This was the first time the line for the bathroom was longer for men than for women. F

This guy ran the 10k with barefeet and in a bath towel. 

Happy to be finished!

Brad beat me and finished in 50:22 and I finished in 50:43. I came in 15th out of 103 women though! We're already planning on running the Cherry Creek Sneak on May 1st and the Boulder Bolder on our anniversary (May 30th). Let us know if you want to run any of them with us!

Tokyo Sky Tree

A few weekends ago we went with our friend Ringo and her friend Juri to visit Sky Tree. Sky Tree is a tower that is currently under construction but is on track to become the tallest tower in the world when it's finished later this year. And already it is a popular site to visit around Tokyo. I asked some of my 13 and 14 year old students where Brad and I should take his family when they come to visit (specifically mentioning Brad's 15 year old step-sister Lauren) and of all the places in Tokyo, Sky Tree was at the top. And I have to say that I do not understand why. It was definitely a cool site to see, and already it's amazing to see how tall it is, but if I had one day to see Tokyo I would definitely recommend something else. But regardless, we had a lot of fun talking with Ringo and her friend, taking pictures and walking around Asakusa.

Juri, Ringo, and me outside of Sky Tree

Brad and Sky Tree

Sky Tree--you really did have to look straight up to see the top. To get the whole tower in the picture we had to take the picture as low to the ground as possible. (I had to write that last sentence a couple of times so no one could leave a "that's what she said" comment--but who am I kidding, no one comments anyway! lol Thanks Mom!) 

That's a random building, the Sky Tree Tower, and the Asahi Beer buildings. The gold building is supposed to look like a foamy glass of beer and who knows what the other building is supposed to look like. I can tell you what me and lots of other people think the gold thing looks like though... :)

Ringo, Brad, and Juri on the train. By the way, that is Ringo's first Starbuck's drink ever! I didn't think that was possible over the age of 2!

Then we went to take Purikura pictures. They're basically like high tech photo booths and are extremely popular here. Before you take the pictures you pick the backgrounds that you want, then you take the pictures and afterwards you have about 3 minutes to add writing and other photo shop-esque things to it. (Girls get all decked out specifically to take these pictures here.) Only girls or guys accompanied by a girl are allowed to use the purikura booths but it was fun. I have to say that I'm not the best at posing for pictures but they turned our pretty well, and is definitely a fun keepsake!