Still on the road...

After more than a week on the road, we are still on the road. We will leave Hong Kong for Beijing tomorrow at about 1:00.  We do not particularly like Hong Kong, but I'm sad to leave as my best friend from Tokyo is here with her family.  There is something nice about being around other people who are temporary (or maybe more than temporary) refugees. We heard the news about Tokyo's water supply with sinking hearts.  It's not really clear yet what we'll do after our China tour is over.  Fulbright said that those of us in Tokyo can postpone the Fulbright and come back later (and they'll pay two tickets back to the U.S.) but in that event you don't get paid anymore.  And, it would be hard to come back for a semester somewhere down the road.  We are all really tired.  I felt sorry for myself in a small apartment in Tokyo but I feel even more sorry for myself with all of us trapped in one hotel room.  And no school for Sam.  We are all worn quite thin with each other and are ready to resume normal life.  Even as I write that, though, I can't help but thinking of all the people in Japan who are real refugees and who will have a much harder time putting their lives back in order.

On the road again...

We have temporarily landed in Hong Kong after a very long travel. We had a layover in Korea yesterday and then arrived here today.

A funny thing. Some of you will remember the original Japan post about Sam and the toto at the airport. We have a Korea follow up.  Graham went to the bathroom and pushed the wrong button on the Korea toto at the hotel. It started spraying water everywhere--like twelve feet to the bed!!! So, we quickly shut the glass door and thought about what to do. Finally we sent in the Pash family security forces. Sid stripped naked and went in to try and shut off the water cannon. I am happy to report that he was successful and the only casualty was his pride. :)

On a more serious note, we have kept up with the story at Fukashima. We are so touched by those workers who have voluntarily stayed at the plant, risking their own lives. We have friends still out of touch as the evacuation area increases.  I have read much about Tokyo. We were there yesterday.  It was nice to be "home," even if only for a little while. While in Kyoto we were all homesick for our city.  When we first got to Tokyo, it was almost like nothing had happened. Tokyo Station was crowded like always, cabs were running, people were eating at the little restaurants and we could smell them as we exited the station (the food, not the people).  Not too much was shaken up at our apartment--I think that Abe-san has so much stuff that it's really tough for any of it to actually move!  But, about 6:45 (18:45) there was a pretty strong aftershock that shook the bed and apartment.  Our landlady came to check on us. It was scary. But, it is so touching.  Our friends that we met up with while we were there looked haggard and exhausted. Even after only a couple days of the aftershocks we were tired and worn out. They had a week of them.  But, nobody showed concern for themselves. Instead they wished us to be safe and tried to make us feel good about our decision to leave Tokyo for the time being.  (I want to point out that we weren't really fleeing. We had the China trip planned for March 24th but just moved it up a bit. The boys' school is canceled and we couldn't see sitting through the aftershocks for no reason). 

On the train from Kyoto to Tokyo we met an Italian married to a Japanese woman. He talked about how strong and hard working the Japanese are and how the country will be okay. I hope he is right. 

Being in China now I have to say I miss the nice manners and friendliness of Japan. 

Moving again

We are leaving Kyoto today. The movement from Tokyo and up north to the south has made things a little more crowded here. So, we decided to try and take our trip to China early.  We will leave Kyoto this morning on the Shinkansen for Tokyo, take care of a few things there, and then leave on a flight at 23:00.  Our eventual destination is Hong Kong but we have a long layover in Seoul and so it will be a couple days before we have internet and can reach people.  Wish us luck that no big aftershocks hit today!

Another update

We are hoping to catch a flight out to China in the next few days. We had planned to go there for Spring Break and hope to only stay there for a week or so while we see how the situation here unfolds.  It is very sad.  We will feel relieved to leave Japan, but also very sad.  While Kyoto is weirdly surreal in that it seems to have the holiday atmosphere when so much is happening so short a distance away, at least here when you tell people that your home is in Tokyo they understand immediately how you feel, happy to be safe, sad for where you are from.  There is a common bond among those of us who experienced the earthquake, had friends in Sendai, and are worried about what's going to happen next. As I still worry over Tokyo, I will feel very alone in China where no one shares that sadness and concern with me.  Certainly, as this crisis has demonstrated, the Japanese have their limitations. They are not trained to deal with situations out of the ordinary.  But, there they have big hearts and are generous.  I hope that this is not the end of our time here, that we can come back and finish up our Japanese adventure.

More adventures

Our hotel managed to find us a room for the night and one with internet.  We are not sure what we will do next.  Many people are now leaving Tokyo for the south. As a result, hotels are very expensive and quite costly (chotto takai). We spent double for tonight's room what we paid for the nights before.  We thought to go ahead and leave Japan for a week or so until we see what's going to happen. But, the flights are essentially full.  So, we might mosey on south of Kyoto tomorrow. We don't know yet. But, for today our magic jack phone is working and we have internet. I am hoping to do some grading tonight.  I am woefully behind!  Sam is very nervous and as a result is more than a handful to deal with.  Perhaps that is the most nerve-wracking part of this whole experience, trying to keep a slightly spoiled and exceedingly nervous 8 year old entertained as we also try to make tough decisions and look for internet cafes.  The adults are tired. 

Another update

We are in Kyoto but scheduled to check out today. We only have intermittent internet in our room and otherwise must use the hotel business center which only has Japanese keyboards. We are not sure what we will do today. We had planned to return to Tokyo where we basically left everything, but will probably either head further south or stay here today.  Yesterday there was another big aftershock--actually big enough we felt it here in our hotel in Kyoto.  We are very sad for Japan.  It is heartbreaking.

update

Given the uncertainty of the nuclear plants and aftershocks with regard to Tokyo, we traveled by Shinkansen today to Kyoto. We are in a hotel here until at least Wednesday morning by which time we hope to know more about Tokyo's situation.  We can still be reached via the Magic Jack number and, as you can see, have established internet connection!

Earthquake

On Friday at about 2:45 Japan had a huge earthquake in Sendai--8.9.  Continuing our disastrous travel plan theme (many of you will remember the JTB-messed up plans to visit Kyushu that resulted in the ill-fated and canceled trip to Seoul when the North Koreans attacked the island there as well as the other trip the boys and I had to cancel due to local unrest), Sid and I had just picked up our Shinkansen tickets for Gifu (we were supposed to spend the weekend there) and were on our way to the subway station to go get Sam at school. Thinking we might need some cookies for the train ride, we popped into Belle Vie, a little train station store that sells things like western cookies. Then the earthquake hit. At first I thought someone was moving the shelves, but the staff herded us out into a little covered place above the station.  Across the street we could see these huge cranes on top of a building swaying back and forth--it looked like they would fall off. I don't know if anyone was in them or not, but it must have been terrifying if they were!

So, I told Sid, we had to catch a cab to get Sam. So, we ran to the main road where many people were waiting for cabs. But, I saw someone getting out of one and ran and caught it. Sid said, "Be honest, do you want me to go with you to get Sam?"  DUH!  So we went to pick Sam up, wending our way through traffic with a very excited taxi driver. When we got there I told Sid not to lose the cab and to go get Graham (Graham relies on the--then closed--subways to get back and forth from school).  So he left and I went to get Sam.  Sam's school would not immediately release him because there were aftershocks. In fact, part of the school was swaying.  Finally at 4 they cut the kids loose.  There was no cell phone service (almost no telephone service at all) and so Sam and I walked to the main road. No taxis. With the other 15 million people in Tokyo we began walking.  Every taxi was full--not that they could go anywhere as the streets were terribly congested.  So we kept walking. We walked out of Omotesando with its designer shops to Aoyama with its tired looking buildings to Akasaka Mitsuke with the Prudential Tower and Fulbright Office.  Of course, this was the one day I had not brought along my handy Tokyo map so we navigated our way by trying to read Japanese road signs and by following the subway map from station to station.  We stopped in at the Prudential Building to tell Fulbright we were okay--they also sent a Japanese speaker with me to JTB to refund our train tickets. Then we walked the rest of the way home only to find Sid and Sam just exiting the taxi at our building.  The walk was about 4 miles and change.

Abe San's junk came in handy, though. She has so much stuff packed into this little apartment that not much had fallen during the earthquake.  Her bookshelves are so tightly packed that the entire thing (attached to the wall) would have to fall for anything to be knocked off!  In the closet, though, Abe San's paper shredder had fallen--and scattered Abe San's shredded bills all over the place!

We are still having aftershocks but are now more worried about the nuclear plant explosions just north of Tokyo.  Many of the expats we know seem to be leaving for Hong Kong or Singapore.

Catching Up

Well, we have done many things and seen many places since I last posted.  So, I am going to add in some photos of our recent doings here.  :)

 

When Sid went to Sendai, the boys and I went to the Tokyo Paper Museum.  There is only one trolley line left inTokyo and we took it.  I might also note that the morning before this picture was taken there was a small earthquake here. I was laying on the bed reading and the bed began to shake.  It turned out to be insignificant, but it was scary. For those of you old enough to remember, it was a little like the Laverne and Shirley episode except that the bed just shook, it didn't move around the room. Of course, our room is not big enough to allow for very much rolling.

 

The paper museum was fun. We sat on chairs made of paper.

 

Sam's school had literacy week.  This was a fun time for the kids.  Each day they had various literacy activities. The principal would ring the bell in the hall a couple times a day and the kids would drop whatever they were doing and read for 15 minutes. For about a week after this Sam had a keen interest in reading on his own.  It was great. It is fading a little now and I wish Mr. Ulu would ring the bell some more to drive Sam's interest up again.  On the last day of the week the kids got to dress up as a favorite book character. That part of the week was less successful. The kids tended to pick books by the cool characters they could dress up as rather than picking a favorite book or character and then trying to dress up like them. Sam felt deprived at having been Captain Hook in the school play instead of an Indian and so he was absolutely determined to be an Indian.  We had to hunt around for a book with Indians in it and finally found an old raggedy book on the Pilgrims.  Then, it was time to build a costume. This is not America with fabric stores and Walmarts.  It is so hard to find anything. So, I took a packing strip and stapled "feathers" on it (I made these out of shopping bags).  I convinced Sam that Indians tried to look like nature and that maybe they wore camoflauge shirts and that beige pants looked like deerskin.  Luckily, he settled for that. :)

 

We went to our friends' mountain house and went skiing. I think I already posted about the mountain house. But, I couldn't remember if I posted any photos.  This is the view from the ski lift with Graham--on the way up to my almost death.  If I had only known when I took this picture I might have jumped off here.

 

Graham insisted on buying this bankrobber mask.  He spent many yen on it.  I haven't seen it since.

 

Hisako with Sid and Sam at the dairy farm where we went for Margherita pizza and ice cream.

 

Sid and Sam and I visited two Edo museums in Tokyo.  This one is the Fukagawa Edo Museum.  It is really cool.  The museum is a little Edo-era village where you can go in the houses and see how people lived. This is Sam serving tea.  It changes with the season (we had rain because it is winter), but will go back in spring for the Sakura time (cherry blossoms).  The village goes through a whole 24 hours (gets dark, the cock crows for dawn, a cat meows on top of a rooftop...).  Very fun for kids.

 

We also went to the Tokyo Edo Museum, billed as a must-see for visitors to Tokyo.  Sid had been here with a Fulbright tour. We got an English guide (they are free and provided by the museum).  It was okay--many, many, many miniatures showing Tokyo life. The little people cost about 30,000 yen (or 3000 USD) each. They are very detailed and look real. In one of the models there is even a little pickpocket stealing someone's money!  This is a suit of armor from the period.

 

The Tokyo Edo Museum has other stuff as well like this cool bike you can pose on.

 

And this carriage you can sit in.  It also has a display of World War II which is quite sad.  It shows before and after pictures of Tokyo. There is also a section on the Occupation.  It is sort of enlightening. You follow the arrows through the museum and they take you through the artifacts in chronological order so you follow Tokyoites as they lived in the Edo and following periods all the way to the more recent Olympics. You can really see how profoundly events shaped life here in Tokyo.

 

We watched the Tokyo Marathon...

 

Where Graham's school had a booth  to play and entertain the runner.  Half of Graham's band did not show up, so he and another boy, Franklin, played alone.  The playing was good, but the singing I think needed the singers.  I'll try to post video on the next blog.

 

Graham and his friends.  The girl on the right is Carolina--she is a model and the daughter of a famous chef.  The girl on the left is "Sam."

 

We watched Graham play basketball at his school. This was their first win! :)