March 13, 2011

I woke up about the same time the next morning and by this time, the nuclear plant in Fukushima had started to dominate the news. I was regularly checking the news via my kindle, and found BBC to be the most reliable source as every American site I tried was reporting on pure speculation of what might happen rather than what was actually happening. I decided, however, that it might be a good idea to be able to leave in a hurry, so I packed up my bags. I figured it wasn’t a bad move as I was supposed to be moving in a week and a half anyway. I then headed out to the Kencho to see how things were progressing there and found the news running on a TV and discussing the first explosion at Fukushima which had happened the previous day. I also, found a faucet to refill my water from, which was good news as the Kencho is only two or three blocks from my Apartment.

I then left the Kencho and rode over to my school to ask about work the following day. I found the Vice Principal, Secretary, Guidance councilor, and two first year teachers there. I helped them clean as much as I could, which wasn’t very much as it mostly required Japanese reading ability and an idea of how their filing system worked. I didn’t have what was required for either. I did clean up the fallen shelves behind the third year teachers’ desks. No one had touched that area yet.

However, most of the cleaning had already been done. Below is a meeting room where teachers without homerooms get their school lunches.

So I asked the vice principal about work and he replied that the teachers would certainly be there even if the kids weren’t. Next, I went downtown to see if anything had changed on the transportation front. I found a bus parked outside the station that was taking people to Tsukuba, halfway to Tokyo. I asked how long the buses would be running and she said the last one would leave at 5:40. I then got my second bag of rice and banana from the city office, and then headed over to my company to ask about school, get their take on the Fukushima business, and see what would happen if I skipped out on the end of my contract.

They told me as soon as I arrived that school had been cancelled for me for the next two days, so I decided to take the bus to Tsukuba taking a suitcase with me to help make the move more manageable. As it was only 3:40 at the time, I had time to ride back to my place and walk back to the station and still have half an hour to spare. I rode back home, stopping only to accept a free Dixie cup full of curry udon (udon are thick noodles usually served in a broth) from some friendly people who had set themselves up on the side of the road and were handing out food to everyone. It was actually quite good. I then rode home, turning down another offer for free food from a similar operation about 100 yards later. I then picked up a suitcase, walked back to the station and had a three hour bus ride on one of the most winding routes I’ve ever taken.

The traffic was heavy and I assume most of the main roads were still out. As I say, it took three hours. I understand that usually the trip should take under one hour. I was unsure I would be able to make it out of Tokyo before last train as the trains were on a strange schedule that I can only imagine was due to the emergency. But, it all turned out well and I caught the last train out of Tokyo. I arrived in Yamanashi fairly late, and was able to go to sleep undisturbed by earthquakes for the first time since Friday.

March 12, 2011

I woke up the next morning feeling somewhat refreshed, though the ground didn’t stop shaking a little until later Saturday afternoon. I got up and decided my first order of business should be to clean my apartment, as it was still in a state of disarray. It took me a little more than an hour, but eventually everything but the dishes had been put back in its proper place. I still had no running water and no food to eat off of them, so I figured that could wait. So, I struck out in search of food at about 9:30. This may seem late, but stores in Japan usually open at 10, and with the power out I figured they would need some time to prepare for the lines of people who needed food. So, I put on my backpack which now had bread, carbonated mineral water, and peanuts in addition to the few clothes and other necessities.

After riding past the closest grocery store and finding that line to be all the way around the block, I decided to go to one of the other two that were close to me. I thought I was in luck when I found the next closest store only had twenty people in line, so I parked my bike and got in line only to find that the line wasn’t moving because the doors were closed. There were signs on the door, but they were too far for me to read from my position, and I didn’t want to get out of the growing line only to see that I couldn’t read the sign. I figured it couldn’t be anything to discourage this line, otherwise no one would be here. After waiting for an hour, a man came out and told us that they still needed between an hour and two more hours to make preparations but they would open up at the other once they were ready.

The entire line quietly snaked around so that no one lost their place and we all quietly waited for what turned out to be a little less than a hour before they wheeled out tables of food. Each table had a price of 100, 200, or 300 yen and all of them asked that each person only take two items from each table.

The first people all took two waters from the first table, and I managed to get enough food to last me through at least midway through the week. After getting through with this, I took my swag home and set out for downtown Mito to see if my company office was still standing and if leaving Mito was at all a possibility in case I could still make a break for Nagoya.

I found that downtown had more damage than my area with plenty of cracked pavement and wrecked sidewalks. Several buildings had their windows shattered and there were quite a few sinkholes around manhole covers. The station had been completely roped off and no buses seemed to be running out of the bus terminals.

I got to my office and found one secretary there. I left my name with him and told him that I still had no power or water and my apartment had suffered some earthquake damage. Then he suggested that I go to the city office. It is only about 30 yards from my company’s office and we could see that the food line was very short at the moment. I went there and was given one banana and was allowed my pick of one bread item, one dango, or one bag of rice. I chose the rice as I had bread and am not a huge fan of dango (balls of mocha on skewers).

I then availed myself of the city office’s power. Like the Kencho, they have their own generator. I charged my phone and called Amelia and Lana and gave them the update. While my phone was charging, there were two other guys doing the same at the same extension cord. I was pleased with how much of their conversation I could understand. They were talking about where there was power, downtown and I was able to say that the immediate block around the Kencho had also come on, as the stoplights had started working while I was standing in line at Maruto. Then they were talking about how much their lives had started to resemble a disaster movie. I missed the verb in the sentence, so I am unsure if one of them said it was his favorite disaster movie or if the situation just reminded him of Towering Inferno.

After that, I returned home in the dark. I was excited to see my school lit up and hoped it meant that my power would also be on, but as soon as I rounded the corner everything was dark. I got home, put my bedding back under my desk, and slept through another battery of aftershocks, though this time only three or four woke me up. Once though, I woke up already sitting under my desk and was a little dismayed that curling up there had become so automatic that I had done it in my sleep before the quake was strong enough to wake me up. But, it was a more restful night than the night before.

March 11, 2011

I think I'll post each day separately.

Friday was fairly average. I was planning to visit my sister in Nagoya after school, so I had packed a backpack the night before. After making sure everything was in order for me to be able to leave immediately after school, I left for school. It was a pretty light day on Friday, as all my days were one class short since the third years had graduated on Wednesday. On Fridays, sixth period is homeroom and sometimes they have cleaning at the beginning of sixth period rather than at the usual time after sixth period. The students had finished cleaning and had been with their teachers for about ten minutes. I was in the teachers room with three other teachers, the principal, and the school secretary. We were all just standing around doing various things around the room.

Around 2:45, we heard a low rumbling. We all stopped what we were doing, and looked at each other and one teacher said 地震 (jishin - earthquake). This is what seems to happen every time we have had an earthquake. Everyone pauses. If it is a strong one that shakes the room and lasts a few seconds someone will say 大きい (ookii - big). If it lasts longer than five seconds usually someone will add 長い (nagai - long). This time, after about ten seconds of increasing intensity, someone said すごく大きい (sugoku ookii - super big). It was about this time that everyone realized that this was not like the little tremors that were frequent in Ibaraki. I lost count of those in the first month of living there. It was getting increasingly violent and showed no signs of stopping. After we stared at each other for a few seconds, things in the room that had just been rattling actually started to move. In a second we were all under our desks, except the second year social studies teacher who had been standing by the TV. He stood there through the whole thing, holding it in place.

I really don't have a concept of how long it lasted. The whole experience was pretty unreal. It kind of felt like you're stading on a train between two cars going around corners at high speed, except way more disconcerting because when you're on a train you expect that level of motion. When you're squatting beneath your desk in a solidly constructed building you're note expecting to be thrown against every side of the small enclosure with the sounds of pictures and books crashing to the floor while two teachers on opposite ends of the room repeatedly say 怖い (kowai - scary).

Just northeast of Tokyo Bay there is a smallish lake. Mito is just

north of that lake, right in that nice yellowish orange section.

After the room stopped shaking, we got out from under our desks. We looked around at the room which was now quite a mess. The nearest teacher to me asked 初めて？ (hajimete - first time). I responded in the affirmative as the rumbling picked up again. She said もう一度 (moo icido - one more) and we got back under our desks for the first aftershock.

I was pretty surprised that the building had survived that much shaking. It doesn't seem like any structure would be able to shake that much and still stand. After the first aftershock, we got out and the teachers were about to give the word for everyone to make their way outside to the yard but then the second aftershock started up and we were back under our desks. Once that had subsided, we all left the building at a jog and gathered in the schoolyard. The kids all got in their rows by classes and squatted down to be counted to make sure that everyone was there. And once all were present and accounted for, the teachers were called together and the principal announced that the earthquake had been off the coast of Tohoku and a large tsunami had occurred. This was a great relief to me as it meant that both my sister, Lana, and everyone else I knew in Japan was farther away from the epicenter than I was, and I was now standing safely in an open field.

We felt some powerful aftershocks every few minutes. The only one that approached the violence of the ones we had inside almost brought the gym down. There was a full second or two where the wall facing us shook independently of the roof. I was sure it would crumble, but the tremor dissipated and the wall stopped moving. Until about 24 hours later, it seemed like the earth never stopped shaking, and well into Sunday there was still an aftershock every few minutes.

After we waited for a while out in the cold, the staff decided it was time to let the kids go home. About half the children had their keys with them, so they were dismissed immediately. The rest were allowed in a few classes at a time with their homreoom teachers and got only their keys before coming out and being dismissed.

After all the kids were home, the teachers met back up at the school briefly before we dispersed. I went home and found my apartment standing, though continually and loudly shaking. It looked like someone had been searching for the secret microfilm I had hidden somewhere. My food was all over the entrance way, my refrigerator had moved half a foot, my papers were all over the floor and my closet door had fallen on the suitcases I had been packing just to get an idea of how everything would fit when I was going to move out on the 25th. Miraculously, nothing was broken. It was just extremely messy and I had no power or running water.

I checked around a bit, changed out of my suit and put some essentials like my passport and the only food I had in the house, half a loaf of bread, in my bag that I had packed for Nagoya. I went out and headed for a walk to see how the town had held up and because I didn't really trust the sounds my apartment was making. I soon discovered that power was out everywhere. As it started to get dark, it dawned on me that I had no food, no water, and that I probably wasn't the only on in Mito in that situation. I headed for the nearest convenience store which was already packed, running low on everything, and also powerless.

The line stretched all the way around the store. I stood in that line for about an hour and a half, amazed at how patient and orderly everyone was being. We all stood in line in the dark everyone who had better flashlights helping their neighbours who just had cell phones. There were three clerks working, two at each register with a calculator and one bagging things and running to find how much things cost when the clerks didn't know how much it was supposed to be. They were out of normal water, naturally, so I bought a couple bottles of carbonated mineral water, the last calorie mate, and a couple of bags of peanuts. Everything else there either required power, hot water, or was already sold out.

I returned home and cleared a spot under my desk, cleared a path to my back doorway, and slept like this in case of a strong aftershock so nothing would knock me unconscious before I could make it to the door. Then I went to bed and tried to get some sleep. My apartment continued to shake all night. There were tremors powerful enough to wake me and make me sit upright in a ball under my desk at least a dozen times, but considering the day I had, I actually slept pretty well.

Pictures

There is a longer account of my weekend coming, but currently Central and Eastern Japan are experiencing "rolling blackouts" where a section of the country has a blackout for three hours in order to shift more power to the northeast. The eastern half of the country is apparently running on low power as all the nuclear plants have been shut down for a while. We're being warned that there is a high chance there will be another really big aftershock (as high as a 7) sometime in the next few days and, I assume they will resume operation after that.

So, in an effort to get something up before then, I'm just going to put up some pictures of Mito and save the narrative for the afternoon when power should be back.

First, my apartment. Miraculously, nothing was broken but it did look like someone had searched the place for secret documents. Sadly, you can't see my pile of scratch paper strewn about the floor in front of my desk.

My refridgerator was snugly in that corner in the morning. It was about equally far from the back wall as it was from the side.

All of my dishes except for the saucepan and one mug were in the sink. Most of them had fallen from a small shelf above the sink and still, nothing was broken. That frying pan had been on the front burner when I left home in the morning.

My school. The clock there is at a slightly odd angle because its insides were thrown out during the quake.

This is what my teachers room looked like post quake. This was taken on Sunday though, and this was the only section that had been untouched.

This is the store I went to. After waiting in line for two hours before they opened, they wheeled out tables of food with signs marking everything as either 100 or 200 yen and saying that we were only allowed two things from each table. I'm pretty sure everyone took two 2 liter water bottles from the first table for as long as there was water.

This is how long the line was when I left. That green sign is the front.

My water was back at a trickle on Sunday morning, and after going outside I discovered why it was just a trickle. Apparenlty a pipe had ruptured somewhere in the neighbourhood.

This is about 50 yards from my apartment.

The first time I walked by this building I didn't have my camera, but you could see the sun setting through the corner of the building.

There are a lot of traditional style homes in my neighborhood and most of them had chest high cinder-block walls around their yard/garden area. Most of them ended like this one.

Glass storefront on my way to downtown.

For those of you who have read my sister's blog post from when she visited Mito, this is the parking lot where the Mercedes-Benz firetruck was parked.

They have been working on this sidewalk since I moved to Mito, so I was glad to see it escaped pretty unfazed.


Downtown got hit a little harder.

Large pillar for decorative purposes.

Some shattered windows.

This building is between my company's office and city hall.

This is the edge of a courtyard between city hall and the city auditorium where the chorus competion was held my first day of work in Mito.

There were a lot of sinkholes in the areas around manhole covers.

There must be something about how they build roads to make this happen so evenely, but the left lane made a clean break with the right lane and is now half a foot higher than the right.

Som men trying to take down a damaged overhang safely.

This is hard to see, but these cars aren't parked. At the end of this block (if you can make out the stoplight) is a gas station and these people are waiting in line...

...a line that stretches around the block