Just as I start to write this blog entry the NHK station that I incessantly stay tuned into reports an upcoming earthquake warning… yet again. Since Friday March 11, there have been over 300 after-shocks only about 40 of which I can remember actually feeling or experiencing. Also, if the only news you have is from Wolf Blitzer on CNN, then you are drastically misled about the current situation.
Since I was small child I have experienced four major natural disasters – the first was typhoon Pamela when I was 11 years old growing up on Guam. Then the 1989 San Francisco earthquake, then typhoon Paka on Guam in 1997, then the great Kanto-Tohoku earthquake last Friday. This one is by far the most unsettling and ongoing experience because the people around me (namely, the Japanese people) are such drama queens. They freak out over the smallest bit of news. Besides a nuclear reactor melting down about 170 miles away, Tokyo residents are in such good shape because all the destruction really happened from the tsunamis that devoured Miyagi and Iwate well north of Tokyo. Despite this, Kanto residents are running to fill their cars up because they think that without power for a mere three hours a day, all the supplies and gas will run out! Pfff!
I want to meet that Japanese person I saw on Friday night that bought all the bread in the store. What’s he doing with five-day-old bread right now? We kept our cool, since my wife has been through a typhoon disaster or two. When there were long lines at the stores on Monday, we came home. When we went into stores and saw that there was no meat or bread, we bought flour, yeast, milk, and eggs. No biggie. Today (three days later) we went to the stores and I snapped a few pictures.

The shelves are still empty, but you can buy bread, meat is back on the shelves. The quick foods like instant curry and noodles have doubled in price and there is a limit to two or three items per person. The only thing I really don’t understand is the unpreparedness. Living in Japan, we constantly get directions from the community and township groups to prepare – stock up on canned goods, keep five days of drinking water, know where the local disaster shelters are, and confirm protocol with your kids and spouse. We did all these things and it has been a smooth ride; literally. One thing for sure, I’m not the dumb ass sitting on five-day-old bread, wondering what I’m gonna do with it. Instead, we have fresh meet, ten cans of Stag Chili and many other varieties of canned food, all the fixings for tacos (including salsa and just bought the ground beef today), plenty of drinking water, and a whole lot of chocolate and candy, fresh home-made bread, and everything else we would normally have.

As you can see from the dairy cooler above, some people are also sitting on a lot of that pasty, nasty-tasting boxed milk. All the good milk is at the bottom of the cooler and there is plenty of it.

Besides the death and destruction that was left in the wake of the tsunami on Friday, all we have to clear up to get on with life is the nuclear reactor. As I sit here, I am getting yet another report of the white smoke bellowing from the fourth reactor. Since Sunday, each day has brought a different reactor problem, starting with number one. Work is in Tokyo, which directionally would put me closer to the nuclear reactors, so I am diligently avoiding trips to Tokyo this week, or until those reactors settle down. On Friday night I was stuck in Tokyo without train transportation or any means of catching a taxi, so it took 21 hours to get home. By all means, I do not want to be in Tokyo when they call an evacuation due to a complete melt-down.
On! On!