Monday, March 14, 2011

Tuesday morning...

I wish I felt like I could trust the stuff that's being put out on the news. I'm very dubious of the reports because I think they're downplaying the reactor issue. On the other hand - I don't necessarily believe that the doomsayers are entirely accurate either. I have been trying to take a middle of the road approach - it's worse than this but not yet at that point either - and I'm in Hokkaido.

Being a gaijin (foreigner) makes it challenging too - I can't understand what's said on the news. One of the teachers had to inform me about the explosion yesterday - he'd heard about it on the radio at lunch time. Unfortunately he told me in the middle of class - it took me a minute to regain my composure.

The news that I have is the same as what you have - the number 2 reactor at Fukushima has some kind of leak that won't allow it to hold the seawater that they're pumping in to cool it. It has or will meltdown and the only thing we're waiting to find out is the extent of the damage it will cause.

Joisan and Tiffany are leaving in 9 days and I'm wondering about whether or not it will be safe for them to go through Tokyo. We are so isolated here that we really are safe.

The information that's getting out to the world is definitely being controlled though - there was an earthquake this morning that was big enough to warrant an alarm on the cell phones and the US Geological Survey site has not updated it - and it was more than an hour ago... usually they update within 5-10 minutes.

And life here in Otaki continues as usual... I'm off to work at Date Chu and the girls are coming in to have some more shopping time.
More as it comes...

2 comments:

  1. I'm very glad you're all well. I was wondering how you were doing and just found your blog. Hello to Joisan and Tiffany from Hannah.
    Alex G

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  2. Thank you for the updates. Reading it is the first thing I do in the morning. We would really like it if all of you would take the first flight to "anywhere but Japan". Just saying.

    Love Cheryl, Darcy, Aidan and Ella

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