Before that I once looked over the top of this separator-thing while the taping was going on. Sat back down and thought “Woa, that one’s rough on the eyes”. Must have been his buddy. Been trying to google it but can’t find it. Eeeh? Am I imagening things after all? Usually I know what I saw and didn’t see you know.

I think I visited that in the first couple of days. It was so rainy that day!

BTW, Japanese women are amazing. They’re always prepared for rain. lol. I was sopping it up the entire day.

Japan Probe publishes this article, which, to me describes exactly the relationship between France and Britain. I told you this would happen. lol. Anyone that understands anything of Europe knows that the EU didn’t change anything, for the British absolutely nothing, but the mainland keeps-a-working on it. Right now, the British are Tsatziki ♥ and Guinness ♥ happy they didn’t jump into the boat of the sinking EUR. France is of course, used to being scolded as ‘cowards’. I point out the US response to France when it didn’t join the coalition of the willing for Iraq. I wonder how many bottles of perfectly good Bordeaux were spilled on US streets? Sacriledge! It is the blood of France you’re spilling. You know it’s serious when people start pouring booze down the drain. I always wondered why at that time nobody attacked the statue of liberty, but then again, most Americans probably don’t know. Sarkozy has absolutely no problem to stand anywhere like the buttheaded mule he is and say “I ain’t doin’ that and I don’t care what you think“. I never felt comfortable when I visited France, they should be a perfect match for the Japanese if they weren’t so incredibly rude and arrogant. Specifically Parisians, that is. You should see how Parisians park their cars. They use the same courtesy. It’s called French Parking. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed that hard walking down the street goin “Look at this one!”. So look at it this way: who can blame the French to flee that hard when they’re expecting they might be French Parked in Japan? Fancy rotating parking buildings in Tokyo? Mon dieu, what if there’s a power outage? Think ahead, they do.

It also seems the term for “pale face I wakarimasen” in Japan has changed from “gaijin” to “flyjin“. In our defense, the lack of public lynching during press conferences is enough to creep us out. Why is nobody whacking government officials? Yukio Edano should have problems breathing on the first day, the second and third day he’d probably be limping up to the microphone stand. “Too polite and too much faith”, it doesn’t matter whether an official handles it perfectly. In some countries self preservation is a virtue, specifically when there’s no parking laws. B’sides, we wouldn’t be lying if we’re saying we never have a clue what Japanese think. Anyone that hasn’t lived there for a decade, can’t possibly get it and you’re kidding yourself. That’s the difference between a culture that only makes sounds like a fish *blup blup* and one going seagul on your ass. See how confused and frustrated these birds get trying to peck at the french frie? “Ah, wakarimasen, let’s flyjin!” Maybe Kazuko Hachiya should make a cartoon about that.

The reporter who was in Koriyama a short while ago is now in Tokyo or about to leave Tokyo. She didn’t shy away again to tell the news caster “they don’t like talking to me”. Well, even if nothing happened and she’d be reporting on a business conference and would start to ask people on the street random things I think she’d still feel the same. It’s one of those things that will continue to weird you out as a foreigner. The only thing I can say is: it’s absolutely normal to feel ignored or avoided, even when nothing happened. You always have to remind yourself “it’s not you”, but it’s always a few days of culture shock – even on holiday. Sometimes it actually is you, particularly when they know up front they’ll have to speak English. Besides, Dutch people take any chance they get to start bitching about everything they can possibly think of when a microphone is shoved under their nose. Notoriously even. That alone makes it difficult for Dutch to understand Japanese people really. “Come on, here’s your chance! Spill it! Repeat yourself if need be”.

I still think it’s a pretty good idea to “calmly” get the hell out of there. No matter what anyone said or what the radiation levels supposedly are, I’d probably have left. Why take the risk?

Reporters from all around the world are fleeing now. They say “the great exodus from Tokyo” has begun. That’s right, when the French run, you better speed it up and run faster.

Edit:

The site also helpfully notes that 100 CPM is about 1 microsievert per hour.

For a bit of context:
As I stated above, one hundred counts per minute in a Geiger counter like this is equivalent to 1 microseivert per hour.
It takes about a full seivert (equal one million microseiverts) to have a risk of death from acute radiation poisoning.
At lower levels of exposure, around 100 milliseiverts, one can suffer some permanent injury (like infertility).
A dose of 1 milliseivert per year is considered a ‘safe’ annual dose of radiation.

So… according to my calculations you would need to stay in Tokyo at radation level say, 16,5 for an entire month to reach over 100 microseiverts. Oh! Milliseiverts… I HATED MATH. Waits! 0.000165 milliseiverts per hour * 24 * 365 = 1,4454 a year. But…. ? The readings in these geigercounters are entirely different… wtf. Look at this one, it says around 30 cpm now, instead of that live video one. That’d be 2.68 a year. Milliseiverts I mean. Anyone that actually CAN count, may correct me here. I’m bettin’ on the graph instead of the video.

Edit #2: Japan reverses the decision, asks EU for help. Dutch have figured out some time ago what they could do for Japan, when the first reactor blew up: “we can builds a dam”. The reporter said it was “not in any way for the near future, but hey”. I thought it was the most hilarious and stupid thing I heard, but then I heard a few days ago a dam had indeed bursted. Not so crazy after all? There’s a team ready with K9′s as far as I hear… though there was talk about them even going.

On the Dutch news just now there was a guy, part of a rescue team, 120 kilometers under the Fukushima plant 2 and he was just advised to go back into his hotel room and close all doors and windows as the plant was ready to start releasing some radioactive steam again. He was kind of shocked about that. As far as I know the stuff is flying North so far. Weird.

It’s probably the first time in my life I’m glad the country is more than 9000 km away. Oh, plus 4 meters. As long as there’s that many nuclear reactors on the island, I don’t mind flying a few extra when the geigercounters return to normal. XD. You know you’re Dutch when the immediate response to this paragraph is: “Are they gonna tax me extra for 4 meters?”. Don’t deny it. You thought it.

It’s been quiet for over an hour now… let’s hope it’s a sign the aftershocks are getting less and less and this whole nightmare is over.

Of course I don’t understand much of the Japanese broadcast, but you piece it together. Been piecing that language together for over 10 years, though when they speak that fast like in newscasts or in tv variety I understand 10% at most.

DOORBELL THIRD TIME, while I was writing this.

They always say: “under control”
Then: “may fail”
Then: … “sorta failed”
Then: “no biggie, radiation level = low”
Then: “you’re dead within 2 years”

If I were in the Tokyo area right now, I’d get out right now. But I wonder if anyone can? A thousand kilometers away from a radiation leak is better than several hundred. Only, if I can think that idea up… merely a question of time and more news reports before half of Tokyo intends to get out of the city to the south. In a calm and disciplined fashion, LEAVE NOW. >_>

Then they say on the tv here: “They’re not like us, they stay calm and stay put”. That’s true, if all of this happened here: Mayhem.Death.More.Destruction.

Well then, let’s hope Fukushima doesn’t get worse.

I’m happy to be here. NOTHING EVER HAPPENS HERE. In the Netherlands it’s of course “pump it dry or drown”, but so far, I’m quite happy to be here. Even more happy I live in the South because, it’s above sea level. ♥  So, when the people up North get wet feet, they’ll just have to swallow their ego’s and go down South, hicktown, NL.

As Japan nearly sank into the ocean today, stuff gets you thinkin’. If the Fukushima nuclear plant manages to go, Japan would also set the world record for “sustained most nuclear damage” in the course of history.

Home sweet home.
No tornado alley,
No giant ass underground super-volcano under any nature reserve,
No faultlines big enough to cause a tear in your pants…
… now that I remember a big chemical plant nearby (gas masks on standby)…
All the cheese you can eat.

It’s just friggin’ marvelous here compared to many other places. 51 degrees N, 6 degrees E: guaranteed a good night’s sleep. No stretch excersizes needed, no sleeping pills, heavy drinking allowed for fun.

I lie of course. There’s been one occasion where we experienced ‘a quake’. It was perhaps 2.6 on the scale. I remember waking up that night thinking my mom wanted to kick me off to school. Then noticed the collection of marbles in my fish bowl was coming closer to the edge of my closet. I stood up and shoved it back where it belonged. When it was gone I had the “HEY?” effect. “What just happened?”.

Nothing ever happens is of course, not entirely true. However, in comparison, we’re pretty safe here. Here’s something else I remember… Even though I was only 4 years old, I remember what happened the day Chernobyl blew up. Not what adults would remember, but I remember standing in front of the back door of our house and looking outside after my mom said I couldn’t go play in the backyard. I think, as per usual, I whined at her so much she eventually said to me: “because there’s something scary in the air today”. I can distinctly remember looking at the sky going: “Wut? WHERE?”. I do believe I sat there almost 10 minutes trying to figure it out. Ten minutes is a long time for a 4 yr old kid.

My dad woke me up this morning “Hey, there was a quake in Japan!”. By the way he said it to me I knew that’s no ordinary earth quake.

I am following live Japanese tv broadcast TBS and NHK World (English), the Dutch tv station NL2 and Twitter. It’s … I don’t have any words for this.

It’s absolutely frightening to see places where you know you walked around in that kind of chaos and destruction. The picture of Odaiba that was posted here, I was in the museum next to that glass building and now you see a fire behind it.  It’s unreal.

The most scary from this point on? Fukushima and Onagawa nuclear plants.

Edit: I’ve been watching the news the entire day. In the meantime I’ve taken a look at the (astrology) chart for the disaster. It can be found through my twitter. Twitter, which is basically sighing under the load of all it’s tweets.

Where’s your favourite place in Tokyo?
Sakurada-doori. Because it’s the place where you can see Tokyo Tower the best.

This is a street in between Sakurada dori and if you turn 180 degrees towards the road called “409″ something something, there’s a business hotel. It was probably the only landmark I felt comfortable finding by foot. It’s still a pretty long walk to go down this street and follow to Sakurada-dori.

Grotere kaart weergeven

Guess the hotel I stayed in? XDD.

Also from my vacation in 2007 there is video, and lots of it. This particular one is from Hakone, which I dubbed with some X Japan (which happens to be the son’s favorite).

I wish you lots of fun in Japan next year!

It contains about 1100 photo’s so there’s lots you have not seen.

I’m still planning to tag them and order them by date, but for now it’ll do. I noticed my camera date was completely off, hmm.

Things I notice now that I’m home:
~ The trees lined up on the country road look twice as pretty.
~ I loooooooooooooove driving.
~ I miss a bidet, but they can keep the heated toilet seat.
~ I miss wet napkins. I feel utterly disgusted having a meal someplace without wet napkins. Iew.
~ I forgot what an ASS-HUGE computer monitor I have and how friggin great my stereo system is :D

We boarded 20 minutes late which is unusual for JAL anyways, priding to be the most punctual airline. I guess they were still flipping a coin on whether to go or not. I saw one of the staff head over to the sign to write down what appears to have been the exact same English message to be called over the gate intercom a while later. This is how that went:

“Due to the…. volcanic-u… erup … eruption in Iceland, the following-u …. flights might-oh return to Narita ….. or *($&*#$&#$ LUKE I AM YOUR FATHER &#*($&# ….
Staff now looks really confused at the other staff member that wrote down the message from the sign. Engrish man, what can you do! I’ve never understood one full sentence on one of these flights so… if we had actually diverted I’d probably only have known once we’ve landed.

Through the eye of the needle, once again. It seems to be my middle name.