ESCAPE
Ok, as promised, I've gotten internet back on my laptop, so here's the epic tale of my escape from the earthquake, from the day of the Quake (I think it deserves capitals) to when I arrived here in Okinawa. It's rather long (8 pages on Word) so I'll put it under a cut ^.~ I was bored and have way too much free time down here, so I had a bit of fun writing this all up!
While I can’t say that Friday, March 11, 2011 started out like any other day, the reason I thought it was different ended up being very different from the reason I’ll never forget it. It did, in fact, start out like every other Friday: I woke up, ate a quick breakfast and went to my Monday/Friday school, Miyazaki Elementary. I had two classes that day; the last of the year for my 5th and 6th graders. It would be my last with the 6th graders forever, as they would be graduating on the 18th and moving to the Junior High School, where I don’t teach, so their Homeroom Teacher, Suzuki-sensei, and I had planned a special class for them. Instead of a normal English class (we had finished the ‘textbook’ weeks prior); we decided to make a Western-style breakfast with the 10 6th graders: French toast. We spent fifth period making and eating French toast, using a combination of Japanese and English. At the end of the period, I took pictures with the whole class as per my tradition, and then they all sent me back to the staff room while they finished cleaning up. Back in the staff room, I headed to the computer and the website I use for Japanese practice. I had been on the computer for maybe five minutes when the earthquake hit. The nurse, Hongo-sensei, grabbed my arm and half-dragged me back to my desk and pushed me under it before taking refuge herself. As I crouched under there, I could see some of the male teachers running around: opening a door leading outside, turning on the alarm, who knows what else.
The shaking was incredible. I’ve been through no few earthquakes in my four years in Japan, including a magnitude 7.8 my first summer, and this was certainly a big one. It was also only my second decent-sized quake during school - the first had happened only a few days before. If you’ve never been in a quake you can’t understand what it’s like. First is the obvious shaking: the ground that is supposed to be firm and unmoving underfoot suddenly rebels, shaking you like a ship in a storm. Next is the noise; a groaning rumbling sound unlike anything you could ever hear. Accompanying this underlying noise are smaller, more local ones - glass breaking, students’ desks scraping the floor as they brace themselves under them, things from who-knows-where falling. On top of this were the alarms, a Japanese female voice announcing something that I understood only because I’d heard it before during earthquake drills: this time, the words were drowned out by the noise of the quake. It felt like I was under the desk forever; in actuality, the major shaking probably lasted about two minutes or so. As soon as the shaking subsided somewhat, we evacuated, the school nurse and I leading the way with the evacuation flags: running in our ‘indoor shoes’ out into the snowy, muddy schoolyard. The students came flooding out: my heart wrenched when I saw the 27 3rd graders coming out, faces covered in soot - had something caught fire? But thankfully they had just been doing some kind of science experiment with soot before the quake had hit. Every one of the 106 students and 20 staff members safe and accounted for, and with snow coming down and the earth still shuddering, we sent two teachers to see how the auditorium fared. The building appeared to be safe, so everyone was ushered inside there. Several of the first grade girls were crying and clinging to me as we walked, terrified of the quake and wondering if their families were all right. I did my best to comfort them, staying with the first graders the whole time and helping their substitute for the day while half the teachers were sent around the school to see what the situation was and if the students could return to their classrooms to get their things before we sent them home. Before those sent returned, parents had already begun showing up. The ones that knew me, either from around town or through the English Conversation class I teach in town, seemed almost as relieved to see me as their children. Finally the other teachers returned, saying it was all right for us to go grade by grade to collect the children’s things before sending them home. Again, I stayed with the first graders, and after we returned to the auditorium, backpacks and coats on, outdoor shoes in hand, the students were all asked to line up according to where they lived. A teacher was assigned to each section (this was a normal division, not something put together on the spot for this occasion, so the lining up and everything else went rather smoothly), and when parents came to take their children they had to sign off with the teacher in charge, and also let them know if they were going to take any other students with them: if parents were working or couldn’t get to the school, we were not allowed to let the students leave without an adult. We were also not allowed to let a child leave if they would be going to an empty house. But with the phones down and the electricity out, we had no way to make contact with parents other than physically seeing them. Soon, most of the students had left with their parents, but there were still several left: their parents all worked in nearby Furukawa. The bus driver told us that something had come down across one of the major access roads in Furukawa, so it might be some time before those parents could get to school. In the meantime a few teachers stayed with the students left, and the rest of us surveyed the school for damage. It was surprisingly light: a few bowls broken in the Home Ec room (and all the bowls and plates used in my cooking class were fine and still even on the tables!), some cups in the Staff room, the large fish tank in the hallway moved about an inch and lost a good amount of water, and some cracks opened up in various walls. Once the report was in, and whatever could be straightened up was, we were sent home to see how our houses and apartments fared.
I arrived at my apartment just about the same time that Emma, one of the other 5 JETs in town and one of 2 who lived in the Nakaniida apartments instead of in Miyazaki with the rest of us, arrived to see if we were ok. I sent her to my apartment to get out of the cold (Emma had been going back and forth to various hospitals for several months; no one knew quite what was wrong, but one of her symptoms was a complete intolerance to cold) while I went to check on Yumi, the secretary at one of my other schools who lived in our building. She was fine, but her apartment was trashed. By the time I got back to my apartment though, Emma and her car were gone. I still hadn’t seen her or any of the other 3 JETs who shared my building by the time our supervisor, Mr. Endo, arrived. Endo asked if I was ok, then if I knew where the other 5 were and if they were all right. When I said I hadn’t seen anyone but Emma, and didn’t know where even she was now, Endo went a little ballistic: I was the ‘leader’ (by virtue of having been there the longest: 4 years as opposed to Lauren, Anny, and Stefan’s two, or Emma and Allison’s one), I had to know where everyone was, I was in charge of their safety. It was almost two much. By the time he left I was nearly breaking down, sitting in my cold, dark and silent apartment as the skies slowly darkened. I had tried to clean what I could, getting to the bathroom and a little of the main room before I could no longer see what I was doing. Searching for a flashlight, I found one in the ‘earthquake kit’ that had been left to me by my predecessor. Unfortunately, it was out of batteries. Finally there was a knock on my door: Lauren had returned, and said we were all gathering at Emma’s and staying there for the night. I grabbed some blankets, picked up Yumi, and we were off. The 7 of us crowded into Emma’s apartment, which was bedecked with candles and covered with food everyone had brought. We ate tuna on crackers, fruit, and other no-cooking-required food while keeping each other company in candlelight. Around six, my phone rang: startled that it was even working, I picked it up to hear one of my Prefectural Advisors, Mr. Inomata, on the other end, asking if I was ok. I said yes, and that the other five were safe and with me, but that was beyond his English (or stress) level, so I was passed on to Luke. He confirmed with me that everyone else was safe and said he was checking us off as ‘confirmed,’ before hanging up. Around the same time, Lauren got another call from the third PA, Cameron, who was also working down the list. At that point all of us tried making calls or sending e-mails, but nothing would go through on our cell phones. We spent the evening trying to keep each other’s spirits up: at one point, we found out that the water, at least, was still working and sent up a cheer. The night passed uneasily nonetheless, large aftershocks waking us all up anytime we’d just fallen asleep. In the morning, we scattered. Most everyone went home; Yumi and I decided to try and see if any of the shops were open so we could get some food. Aeon was closed, it seemed, but there was a very large line outside the doors, waiting. We turned around and went to the other supermarket in town, Yoku Benimaru. The same situation was there, but the line was much shorter. The sign on the door said they would open at 10 to sell water, instant ramen, candles, etc. We waited in line for 40 minutes before the doors opened, and then they old would let 5 people inside at a time. By the time we got out of the store, the line stretched all the way through the parking lot.
Making it home, I took stock of the damage. I had noted the day before that my dryer, on a shelf on top of the washing machine, had fallen into the opposite wall and was likely broken. Books and things covered my floor; my kitchen was liberally papered with recycling goods. The microwave had fallen from on top of the fridge; my electric kettle was also on the floor, dented and leaking water: it appeared the microwave had landed on it. The TV and my mirror were also on the floor, but appeared undamaged. Spices and other cooking implements were scattered all over the kitchen counter, toiletries were piled in the bathroom sink. One bowl was broken clean in half, but there was no clue as to how: half was still on the counter, half in the sink, but there was nothing heavy enough to have broken it anywhere near it. I spent most of the morning and part of the afternoon cleaning, stopping whenever another aftershock hit, until Lauren and Allison told me they were going to Stefan’s in Nakaniida. Anny and Yumi decided not to come, but we met Emma over there and spent the evening with them. We found out then that at least in Nakaniida (it was true in Miyazaki too, although none of us had checked then) gas was also working, so Stefan made us all pancakes with the batter he had prepared with his students on Friday (but hadn’t gotten to cook before the earthquake hit). We finally left around 8 to return to our own cold apartments, and around that time I noticed that my cell phone was actually getting reception, but the battery was dying. Fortunately I had a car charger for my phone - I sat in my car, listening to the radio as I charged my phone and read the e-mails that had poured in over the last day. Unfortunately none of the replies I typed would send, so I tried a last-ditch effort: connecting to the internet via my phone. It worked, and I got to Facebook. Figuring it would be the fastest way to reach the most people, I typed a ‘status update’ that I was all right. I also found tons of posts waiting for me from my friends and family: asking if I was alright, other posts saying someone had found me via ‘Google people finder,’ which had been apparently set up after the quake, another confirming that and saying they had called my mother, who had been told by the JET offices that I was alright. I admit that was enough to undo me, after all the stress and the fear, seeing the proof that so many cared for me sent me to tears. I sat reading the posts through the tears running down my face, and listening to the radio updates as a few more aftershocks hit. Among the facts I got from the radio that night, the ones that stuck were almost unbelievable: a 10-meter tsunami has struck the coast; the magnitude of the quake had been an 8.9 (upgraded later to a 9), making it one of the 5 biggest earthquakes in the world since 1900 when they started measuring; Japan itself had moved 4 meters. Soon after this my cell phone’s reception went out again, so after relaying what I’d heard to my friends inside, I returned to my cold, dark, and silent apartment for another wakeful night filled with tremors.
Sunday passed much in the same way. I took breaks from cleaning to read or knit - anything to distract my mind for a bit. When it started getting dark, I headed next door to Lauren’s so I wouldn’t have to be alone. Having other people around was the only thing that kept me sane during the next several days, with no electricity or heat (or hot water), and food starting to run low. I made stir-fry noodles one evening by candlelight, just trying to use all the stuff that was in my fridge and freezer before it went bad; that lasted me about four days. Other than that I was subsisting on instant ramen or Cup Noodle-type foods, power bars, and other emergency rations. That evening Endo stopped by again, saying that Monday we needed to go into work as usual, but the students wouldn’t come in. I spent the morning at Miyazaki helping to catalogue the damage at school. I’d brought one of the Cup Noodle udon meals with me for lunch, but they said to save it - instead I had rice balls brought by one of the teachers, who’d made enough for all the staff. I also found out that another of my teachers had power back on at her house: she lived near a hospital, and they were restoring power to such essentials first. After lunch, we were sent home: that day was supposed to be my last day at Miyazaki until the start of the next school year, and not knowing what teachers would still be there when I came next (it is common in Japan for teachers to change schools ever few years), I almost cried saying goodbye that day. That afternoon, I ‘bathed’ for the first time since the earthquake: I heated a soup-pot full of water and a kettle as well on the stove, took them both to the shower, and essentially had a sponge-bath, shivering in the cold. It was warm enough in the sun though, that I sat outside reading to dry my hair. That evening I spent at Anny’s apartment with Yumi. At some point during the evening, Anny’s phone rang: the three of us were overjoyed and Yumi and I ran to get their own phones. I tried something I had never been able to do in 4 years from my phone: call my parents in the States. Miraculously, it went through, and I spent 20 minutes reassuring my parents and brother that I was alright.
It wasn’t until Tuesday, back at my base school, Kamiishi Elementary, that any information regarding the nuclear power plant in Fukushima reached our ears. Even then it sounded like nothing was really wrong: a 20km radius had been evacuated just in case, but we would be fine where we were. Part of the day was spent just talking with other teachers, until a truck pulled in. It was the father of one of the students, son in tow, with a delivery of donations from Glico: crate after crate of drink cartons and packs of pudding were unloaded from the truck. At the end, our meeting room almost overflowed with them. We had enough to give each of the 96 students 5 varieties of things, and there were still enough leftovers for the teachers to also receive a sizeable amount of them. After the allocation was finished and the food sent out to the various sections in town, we had a meeting to discuss what was going to happen about school. The next three days, through the 18th, would definitely not see the students coming in, and that day the principals of the 10 elementary schools and 3 junior highs would come together again to decide when schools would reopen. Graduation was tentatively moved from the 18th to the 24th, and would be held in abbreviated form in conjunction with the year-end Closing Ceremony. The next school year, set to start April 8th, would be postponed: at the earliest, it would be April 20th - no one knew what would happen with the changing teachers, and it was possible that teachers who would have been coming to Kami were killed in the earthquake or the tsunami. As for payday, supposed to be on the 18th, without power there was no way we were going to be able to get paid. If they could get their hands on enough cash, we would each receive 5 man (about $500) in cash on that day, and the rest of the paycheck when the banks started running again. With that, we were sent home. I had biked to school that morning, wanting to save gas since it had essentially run out - people were waiting in line for hours to get 10 liters of gas, and still being turned away - but it had started snowing, so Yumi offered to drive me home and back the next morning. As we left, one of the other teachers commented that it was possible the snow was radioactive from the nuclear situation, leaving me with a hard lump of fear in my stomach. Once I got home I sat in my car charging my phone again, and saw an e-mail from Lauren’s mom asking if she was safe. When Lauren came home I relayed it to her, and she joined me in my car to borrow my charger. She had received several e-mails from her family, all telling her to get out as soon as she could to avoid the ‘nuclear disaster.’ Those words infected the rest of us with fear, and we had to make a decision: stay or go? I needed more information. It was clear that the American media was sensationalizing the situation, and I knew my parents would be just as frantic as Lauren’s, so I couldn’t get advice from them. Immediately I thought of my friends on Okinawa, college friends who were living on the military base there. I thought someone with access to military intelligence would probably have more sure information than someone relying on the Western media, I e-mailed them for advice. The reply I got was somewhat reassuring, but they said if I wanted to get out I could come stay with them. There was talk of the weather patterns, and how if anything was leaking it wasn’t blowing toward my area for the time being. That was what decided me: although I was safe for now, there was no guarantee that the weather wouldn’t change and I wouldn’t be exposed.
The next morning, March 16, the four of us who had decided to leave: Lauren, Allison, Emma, and I, visited the Board of Education to tell Endo of our decision. He looked shocked, and scared, that we were leaving. I think it made the situation real to him in a way it wasn’t before. He asked us to write down as much information about where we were going and what our plans were as we could, and to keep him posted on our whereabouts. Since Sendai airport had been pretty trashed by the tsunami, we couldn’t fly out of there, and none of the trains in the Tohoku region were running. So the plan was to somehow get to our Prefectural capital, Sendai (Endo informed us that busses were indeed running from town to Sendai, so that made things slightly easier with the gas situation), and from there get a bus to Yamagata. Lauren’s father had booked two tickets out of Yamagata, and I had a ticket out of Akita, so we would try to get to our various airports from there, and Emma, without any tickets, would try to fly out standby. We packed a small bag of clothing each, I grabbed my computer, a few books, and most of the edible food left in my apartment, and we were off. The bus stop was at one of the Town offices, so we stopped in and handed our car keys to someone there, as Endo had instructed us, then caught the bus. Anny joined us there; she was unsure if she was going to leave or not, but she would come with us as far as Sendai, at least. Staying in contact with my mother and a JET in Hokkaido from my hometown, I realized that getting to Akita would be nearly impossible, so they managed to get Emma and me waitlisted on the same flight out of Yamagata to Tokyo as Lauren and Allison.
Once we got into Sendai, we went to the Prefectural Offices to check in with our Pas and see if they had any information that would help. While we were there, a JET from the coast came in, and we listened to her horrifying tale. She had literally outrun the tsunami. Like the rest of us, she had been in school, and when they saw the wave coming, they all ran for higher ground. Her house was gone; all she had left was the clothes she stood up in and her cell phone in her pocket. Her Board of Education was gone: the building in ruins, the superintendent and a few other members dead. All she wanted to do was go home, but with no passport or money, and in her state of shock, she didn’t know what to do. We all urged her to go to the American Embassy: even though we had been told the Embassy wouldn’t help us get out - we had to make our own way, they said - if they didn’t want to be denounced to the media, they would get her out. After she left, we discussed getting the bus to Yamagata, and alternate routes to get to Tokyo if we couldn’t fly out there. Luke got us a place to stay with a couple Sendai JETs, so they came and got us and took us home with them. Our host was a British citizen, and also leaving: the British Consulate had arranged a free bus to Tokyo for all the Brits who wanted to get out. It turns out most of the other Consulates had done the same things; it was only the Americans who were left to fend for themselves.
Knowing there would probably be huge lines for the busses out, we got up at 5:30 Thursday morning to try and catch the 8:00 bus out. The line was about three people deep and stretched around the corner right to the entrance to the Prefectural Office. Emma and I made a stop at the First Aid tent: she was so cold that she couldn’t move her hands. It took 20 minutes and a lot of explanation to stop the doctor from trying to diagnose her (a feat that hadn’t yet been managed with 2 months and full hospital diagnostics, much less in 10 minutes in a hastily set up tent), but in the end we got her some heat packs and went back to the line. We made it onto a bus around 8:30, and were on our way to Yamagata.
Somewhere through the pass across the mountains, I started feeling sick. Ignoring the snow-covered views around me, I closed my eyes and concentrated on my breathing for the rest of the hour or two we drove. Arriving in Yamagata station, I handed my bags to the others and ran for the bathroom, throwing up nothing but bile. I joined my friends in the waiting room after and tried to get something into my system, figuring I was nauseous from not eating properly, but the apple juice, slice of toast, and even the water I tried to ingest just came back up. Really worried now as well as feeling awful, I called my mom and asked her advice, and we decided that it would be best to get me to the hospital. The other three girls waved goodbye as they put me in a cab: they would continue on to the airport, and I could meet them there when I was released. The flight wasn’t until the next day, the 18th, so I figured I had time. At the hospital, I was checked in, and was seen by doctor rather quickly. After hearing my symptoms - nausea, vomiting, dizziness and shaking - and that I was evacuating from Miyagi, he asked all kinds of questions about the earthquake. Satisfied that I hadn’t hit my head or anything during the shake, he prescribed me nausea medication and an IV drip. Two hours and a full IV bag later I felt better enough to down a power bar. From phone calls with Lauren while I was in the hospital, I learned that all the flights leaving Yamagata were full, and there hadn’t been any cancellations or people not showing up for their flights: there was almost no chance Emma or I would be able to get on the next day’s flight, and Emma had decided to take one of our backup plans: bus to Tsuruoka, from where the trains were running, and from there to Niigata, where we could catch the Shinkansen to Tokyo. It was worth a shot. I left the hospital and headed back to the station. Someone, I don’t know if he was a volunteer or what, helped me figure out the schedule and another alternate route: a charter bus following a similar route that would leave at 10 the next morning. Knowing that if I didn’t get on the next bus I wouldn’t make the last train to Tokyo, I decided that was a good backup plan: I had found us a place to stay that night near the station if necessary, at the home of a Yamagata JET, so I was covered if need be. I booked it to the bus station and stood in line, barely making one of the last seats on the bus to Tsuruoka. Seated next to me on one side was a young Japanese guy, on the other was a family of four, with a first-grade-aged son and a baby in the mother’s arms. After a while, when the first grader had fallen asleep on my leg, I started talking to their parents. Once I said that I was an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) in Miyagi, the guy on the other side of me asked, “Are you a JET?” I told him I was, and his next question was, “Do you know Marti MacElreath?” Small world. I’d done a summer program in Japanese with Marti when we were in high school, lost touch with her later on and had been completely shocked to see her in Sendai when I went to pick the new arrivals up last July. He had been worried about her; I reassured him that she was ok, having gotten that information myself from the PAs. He was taking the same route I was out, going to his family home in Chiba, so he and I stuck together going into Tsuruoka, although he bought a non-reserved seat ticket and I, worried about having a seat, went for a more expensive reserved seat. We also bought some more food at the convenience store in the station, although the shelves had been all but cleaned out - the closest I could find to actual food was a ‘yaki udon sandwich’ and some crackers. By this point I still hadn’t heard from Emma or the other two staying at the airport, and figured I was on my own, but waiting at the platform, I happened to look up and saw Emma walking toward me with a few other JETs. I don’t know how I caught up with her, but I had never been gladder to see a familiar face! My cell phone was dead at this point, so I had no way of contacting any of the friends I have in Tokyo for places to stay, so I had been thinking I’d just head then to Haneda and sleep in the airport for 2 nights until the flight my mother had booked (the one from Akita stopped at Tokyo then continued on) to Okinawa, where my friends had welcomed me to come for as long as I needed. Emma however had made contact with a friend of hers in Tokyo and was already planning on going there, so I hoped I could stay with her too. Our tickets were for different cars, so we made plans to meet on the platform in Niigata and Tokyo stations and found our respective seats. Our train had gotten delayed somewhere along the way - a huge anomaly in Japan, where the average delay is something like 3 seconds - and we had 5 minutes between when it pulled into Niigata station and when the last Shinkansen to Tokyo would leave. It was a mad dash through the station, lugging our bags and gasping for breath as we raced up stairs and across the station, where the workers were waving us through to the Shinkansen tracks, not even checking our tickets. Another escalator later and we made it onto the train with not a moment to lose. I found my seat and settled in for my fourth long ride of the day.
We finally arrived in Tokyo around 11PM, and made our way through the maze that is Tokyo Station. We found the appropriate exit, and no sooner had we left the station than Emma spotted her friend and they raced to embrace. Emma’s friend Peggy had been almost as frantic as Emma’s parents, and had been in constant contact with them. She wouldn’t even allow me to question staying with her, and our bags were quickly put into her car and we were driven to her house. After days on the move in the cold with little food, her house - nice under normal circumstances - was luxurious beyond belief. Both of us plugged in our phones to charge and called our parents - Emma’s had gotten her a flight back to the States (she had decided that between the quake and her continuing health issues it would be best for her to just not come back to Japan), and my mother, after hearing I had arrived in Tokyo and was planning on going to Haneda in the morning and seeing if I couldn’t get an earlier flight, got my flight on the 19th bumped a day earlier. We also heard that the American government was finally starting to offer help for expats evacuating Japan - a bit late. Although we had barely eaten all day, the meal she served us - pork chops and rice with soup and applesauce - was too much for us to eat, we had been living on short rations for so long. We showered for the first time in days, and collapsed, exhausted, into bed. Sleep was slow in coming though - I had reached that point beyond exhaustion where I had been running on nerves for so long that I couldn’t convince my body that I was safe enough to sleep. I also kept bracing myself for another big shake, although Tokyo hadn’t gotten nearly as much of the shocks that we had. Sleep finally came, although I kept waking up in the morning sure that I had missed my alarm.
Friday morning Peggy fed us again, and Emma took me to the train station. I left the bag of food I’d been hauling around with me this whole time with Peggy - I didn’t want to look at any of it ever again, much less eat it. I told Peggy if she didn’t want it she could donate it somewhere else. Peggy had found an extra Pasmo train card that even had money still on it, so I didn’t even have to pay for this leg of the journey. I knew the Tokyo train system pretty well, having studied abroad there for four months in college, but I think the stress and my lack of sleep got to me, and I got on the wrong train in Shinjuku. Fortunately it was the correct line, just the wrong direction, and I noticed before we got to the second stop, so I was able to switch and made it the rest of the way to Haneda without mishap. I got checked in, went through security, and to the gate without ever once having my ID checked - nice and easy, but not the most reassuring situation. The plane left; I could see Mount Fuji through my window: it was snow-covered and looked pristine, a far cry from the palpable terror of nuclear radiation that I had felt among the Japanese the last several days. Hoping it was a good omen for a quick return, I watched Fuji until it disappeared from view, then fell into an exhausted slumber until we landed at Naha.
My good friend from college, Martha, met me at the airport. I hadn’t seen her since I left to study abroad in Tokyo 5 years ago, so it would have been wonderful seeing her under any circumstances. As it was, it was as if the past week had been nothing more than a nightmare. She drove me to the military base where she and her husband live, I got a temporary pass so I could come and go on base, and then she took me to her house. I met her 18-month-old baby and greeted her husband, Nathan (who I had also known in college through Martha), and settled in for however long I would be staying. That night I slept in a warm bed that wasn’t moving from the force of the earth: something that so many take for granted but for me then was the most wonderful thing.
So since I got to Naha I've been bumming around with Martha, Nathan and baby Eva. She's wicked cute and I'm so glad I finally got a chance to meet her (and of course, see them!) We've gone on a couple adventures so far: to the beach, a park on a dam, and the island's aquarium (second largest in the world), and really it makes everything just better. I will be thrilled when things calm down and I can return to Kami, but I had been feeling the need for a vacation anyway long before all this started, and it's great to be able to relax for a while!
While I can’t say that Friday, March 11, 2011 started out like any other day, the reason I thought it was different ended up being very different from the reason I’ll never forget it. It did, in fact, start out like every other Friday: I woke up, ate a quick breakfast and went to my Monday/Friday school, Miyazaki Elementary. I had two classes that day; the last of the year for my 5th and 6th graders. It would be my last with the 6th graders forever, as they would be graduating on the 18th and moving to the Junior High School, where I don’t teach, so their Homeroom Teacher, Suzuki-sensei, and I had planned a special class for them. Instead of a normal English class (we had finished the ‘textbook’ weeks prior); we decided to make a Western-style breakfast with the 10 6th graders: French toast. We spent fifth period making and eating French toast, using a combination of Japanese and English. At the end of the period, I took pictures with the whole class as per my tradition, and then they all sent me back to the staff room while they finished cleaning up. Back in the staff room, I headed to the computer and the website I use for Japanese practice. I had been on the computer for maybe five minutes when the earthquake hit. The nurse, Hongo-sensei, grabbed my arm and half-dragged me back to my desk and pushed me under it before taking refuge herself. As I crouched under there, I could see some of the male teachers running around: opening a door leading outside, turning on the alarm, who knows what else.
The shaking was incredible. I’ve been through no few earthquakes in my four years in Japan, including a magnitude 7.8 my first summer, and this was certainly a big one. It was also only my second decent-sized quake during school - the first had happened only a few days before. If you’ve never been in a quake you can’t understand what it’s like. First is the obvious shaking: the ground that is supposed to be firm and unmoving underfoot suddenly rebels, shaking you like a ship in a storm. Next is the noise; a groaning rumbling sound unlike anything you could ever hear. Accompanying this underlying noise are smaller, more local ones - glass breaking, students’ desks scraping the floor as they brace themselves under them, things from who-knows-where falling. On top of this were the alarms, a Japanese female voice announcing something that I understood only because I’d heard it before during earthquake drills: this time, the words were drowned out by the noise of the quake. It felt like I was under the desk forever; in actuality, the major shaking probably lasted about two minutes or so. As soon as the shaking subsided somewhat, we evacuated, the school nurse and I leading the way with the evacuation flags: running in our ‘indoor shoes’ out into the snowy, muddy schoolyard. The students came flooding out: my heart wrenched when I saw the 27 3rd graders coming out, faces covered in soot - had something caught fire? But thankfully they had just been doing some kind of science experiment with soot before the quake had hit. Every one of the 106 students and 20 staff members safe and accounted for, and with snow coming down and the earth still shuddering, we sent two teachers to see how the auditorium fared. The building appeared to be safe, so everyone was ushered inside there. Several of the first grade girls were crying and clinging to me as we walked, terrified of the quake and wondering if their families were all right. I did my best to comfort them, staying with the first graders the whole time and helping their substitute for the day while half the teachers were sent around the school to see what the situation was and if the students could return to their classrooms to get their things before we sent them home. Before those sent returned, parents had already begun showing up. The ones that knew me, either from around town or through the English Conversation class I teach in town, seemed almost as relieved to see me as their children. Finally the other teachers returned, saying it was all right for us to go grade by grade to collect the children’s things before sending them home. Again, I stayed with the first graders, and after we returned to the auditorium, backpacks and coats on, outdoor shoes in hand, the students were all asked to line up according to where they lived. A teacher was assigned to each section (this was a normal division, not something put together on the spot for this occasion, so the lining up and everything else went rather smoothly), and when parents came to take their children they had to sign off with the teacher in charge, and also let them know if they were going to take any other students with them: if parents were working or couldn’t get to the school, we were not allowed to let the students leave without an adult. We were also not allowed to let a child leave if they would be going to an empty house. But with the phones down and the electricity out, we had no way to make contact with parents other than physically seeing them. Soon, most of the students had left with their parents, but there were still several left: their parents all worked in nearby Furukawa. The bus driver told us that something had come down across one of the major access roads in Furukawa, so it might be some time before those parents could get to school. In the meantime a few teachers stayed with the students left, and the rest of us surveyed the school for damage. It was surprisingly light: a few bowls broken in the Home Ec room (and all the bowls and plates used in my cooking class were fine and still even on the tables!), some cups in the Staff room, the large fish tank in the hallway moved about an inch and lost a good amount of water, and some cracks opened up in various walls. Once the report was in, and whatever could be straightened up was, we were sent home to see how our houses and apartments fared.
I arrived at my apartment just about the same time that Emma, one of the other 5 JETs in town and one of 2 who lived in the Nakaniida apartments instead of in Miyazaki with the rest of us, arrived to see if we were ok. I sent her to my apartment to get out of the cold (Emma had been going back and forth to various hospitals for several months; no one knew quite what was wrong, but one of her symptoms was a complete intolerance to cold) while I went to check on Yumi, the secretary at one of my other schools who lived in our building. She was fine, but her apartment was trashed. By the time I got back to my apartment though, Emma and her car were gone. I still hadn’t seen her or any of the other 3 JETs who shared my building by the time our supervisor, Mr. Endo, arrived. Endo asked if I was ok, then if I knew where the other 5 were and if they were all right. When I said I hadn’t seen anyone but Emma, and didn’t know where even she was now, Endo went a little ballistic: I was the ‘leader’ (by virtue of having been there the longest: 4 years as opposed to Lauren, Anny, and Stefan’s two, or Emma and Allison’s one), I had to know where everyone was, I was in charge of their safety. It was almost two much. By the time he left I was nearly breaking down, sitting in my cold, dark and silent apartment as the skies slowly darkened. I had tried to clean what I could, getting to the bathroom and a little of the main room before I could no longer see what I was doing. Searching for a flashlight, I found one in the ‘earthquake kit’ that had been left to me by my predecessor. Unfortunately, it was out of batteries. Finally there was a knock on my door: Lauren had returned, and said we were all gathering at Emma’s and staying there for the night. I grabbed some blankets, picked up Yumi, and we were off. The 7 of us crowded into Emma’s apartment, which was bedecked with candles and covered with food everyone had brought. We ate tuna on crackers, fruit, and other no-cooking-required food while keeping each other company in candlelight. Around six, my phone rang: startled that it was even working, I picked it up to hear one of my Prefectural Advisors, Mr. Inomata, on the other end, asking if I was ok. I said yes, and that the other five were safe and with me, but that was beyond his English (or stress) level, so I was passed on to Luke. He confirmed with me that everyone else was safe and said he was checking us off as ‘confirmed,’ before hanging up. Around the same time, Lauren got another call from the third PA, Cameron, who was also working down the list. At that point all of us tried making calls or sending e-mails, but nothing would go through on our cell phones. We spent the evening trying to keep each other’s spirits up: at one point, we found out that the water, at least, was still working and sent up a cheer. The night passed uneasily nonetheless, large aftershocks waking us all up anytime we’d just fallen asleep. In the morning, we scattered. Most everyone went home; Yumi and I decided to try and see if any of the shops were open so we could get some food. Aeon was closed, it seemed, but there was a very large line outside the doors, waiting. We turned around and went to the other supermarket in town, Yoku Benimaru. The same situation was there, but the line was much shorter. The sign on the door said they would open at 10 to sell water, instant ramen, candles, etc. We waited in line for 40 minutes before the doors opened, and then they old would let 5 people inside at a time. By the time we got out of the store, the line stretched all the way through the parking lot.
Making it home, I took stock of the damage. I had noted the day before that my dryer, on a shelf on top of the washing machine, had fallen into the opposite wall and was likely broken. Books and things covered my floor; my kitchen was liberally papered with recycling goods. The microwave had fallen from on top of the fridge; my electric kettle was also on the floor, dented and leaking water: it appeared the microwave had landed on it. The TV and my mirror were also on the floor, but appeared undamaged. Spices and other cooking implements were scattered all over the kitchen counter, toiletries were piled in the bathroom sink. One bowl was broken clean in half, but there was no clue as to how: half was still on the counter, half in the sink, but there was nothing heavy enough to have broken it anywhere near it. I spent most of the morning and part of the afternoon cleaning, stopping whenever another aftershock hit, until Lauren and Allison told me they were going to Stefan’s in Nakaniida. Anny and Yumi decided not to come, but we met Emma over there and spent the evening with them. We found out then that at least in Nakaniida (it was true in Miyazaki too, although none of us had checked then) gas was also working, so Stefan made us all pancakes with the batter he had prepared with his students on Friday (but hadn’t gotten to cook before the earthquake hit). We finally left around 8 to return to our own cold apartments, and around that time I noticed that my cell phone was actually getting reception, but the battery was dying. Fortunately I had a car charger for my phone - I sat in my car, listening to the radio as I charged my phone and read the e-mails that had poured in over the last day. Unfortunately none of the replies I typed would send, so I tried a last-ditch effort: connecting to the internet via my phone. It worked, and I got to Facebook. Figuring it would be the fastest way to reach the most people, I typed a ‘status update’ that I was all right. I also found tons of posts waiting for me from my friends and family: asking if I was alright, other posts saying someone had found me via ‘Google people finder,’ which had been apparently set up after the quake, another confirming that and saying they had called my mother, who had been told by the JET offices that I was alright. I admit that was enough to undo me, after all the stress and the fear, seeing the proof that so many cared for me sent me to tears. I sat reading the posts through the tears running down my face, and listening to the radio updates as a few more aftershocks hit. Among the facts I got from the radio that night, the ones that stuck were almost unbelievable: a 10-meter tsunami has struck the coast; the magnitude of the quake had been an 8.9 (upgraded later to a 9), making it one of the 5 biggest earthquakes in the world since 1900 when they started measuring; Japan itself had moved 4 meters. Soon after this my cell phone’s reception went out again, so after relaying what I’d heard to my friends inside, I returned to my cold, dark, and silent apartment for another wakeful night filled with tremors.
Sunday passed much in the same way. I took breaks from cleaning to read or knit - anything to distract my mind for a bit. When it started getting dark, I headed next door to Lauren’s so I wouldn’t have to be alone. Having other people around was the only thing that kept me sane during the next several days, with no electricity or heat (or hot water), and food starting to run low. I made stir-fry noodles one evening by candlelight, just trying to use all the stuff that was in my fridge and freezer before it went bad; that lasted me about four days. Other than that I was subsisting on instant ramen or Cup Noodle-type foods, power bars, and other emergency rations. That evening Endo stopped by again, saying that Monday we needed to go into work as usual, but the students wouldn’t come in. I spent the morning at Miyazaki helping to catalogue the damage at school. I’d brought one of the Cup Noodle udon meals with me for lunch, but they said to save it - instead I had rice balls brought by one of the teachers, who’d made enough for all the staff. I also found out that another of my teachers had power back on at her house: she lived near a hospital, and they were restoring power to such essentials first. After lunch, we were sent home: that day was supposed to be my last day at Miyazaki until the start of the next school year, and not knowing what teachers would still be there when I came next (it is common in Japan for teachers to change schools ever few years), I almost cried saying goodbye that day. That afternoon, I ‘bathed’ for the first time since the earthquake: I heated a soup-pot full of water and a kettle as well on the stove, took them both to the shower, and essentially had a sponge-bath, shivering in the cold. It was warm enough in the sun though, that I sat outside reading to dry my hair. That evening I spent at Anny’s apartment with Yumi. At some point during the evening, Anny’s phone rang: the three of us were overjoyed and Yumi and I ran to get their own phones. I tried something I had never been able to do in 4 years from my phone: call my parents in the States. Miraculously, it went through, and I spent 20 minutes reassuring my parents and brother that I was alright.
It wasn’t until Tuesday, back at my base school, Kamiishi Elementary, that any information regarding the nuclear power plant in Fukushima reached our ears. Even then it sounded like nothing was really wrong: a 20km radius had been evacuated just in case, but we would be fine where we were. Part of the day was spent just talking with other teachers, until a truck pulled in. It was the father of one of the students, son in tow, with a delivery of donations from Glico: crate after crate of drink cartons and packs of pudding were unloaded from the truck. At the end, our meeting room almost overflowed with them. We had enough to give each of the 96 students 5 varieties of things, and there were still enough leftovers for the teachers to also receive a sizeable amount of them. After the allocation was finished and the food sent out to the various sections in town, we had a meeting to discuss what was going to happen about school. The next three days, through the 18th, would definitely not see the students coming in, and that day the principals of the 10 elementary schools and 3 junior highs would come together again to decide when schools would reopen. Graduation was tentatively moved from the 18th to the 24th, and would be held in abbreviated form in conjunction with the year-end Closing Ceremony. The next school year, set to start April 8th, would be postponed: at the earliest, it would be April 20th - no one knew what would happen with the changing teachers, and it was possible that teachers who would have been coming to Kami were killed in the earthquake or the tsunami. As for payday, supposed to be on the 18th, without power there was no way we were going to be able to get paid. If they could get their hands on enough cash, we would each receive 5 man (about $500) in cash on that day, and the rest of the paycheck when the banks started running again. With that, we were sent home. I had biked to school that morning, wanting to save gas since it had essentially run out - people were waiting in line for hours to get 10 liters of gas, and still being turned away - but it had started snowing, so Yumi offered to drive me home and back the next morning. As we left, one of the other teachers commented that it was possible the snow was radioactive from the nuclear situation, leaving me with a hard lump of fear in my stomach. Once I got home I sat in my car charging my phone again, and saw an e-mail from Lauren’s mom asking if she was safe. When Lauren came home I relayed it to her, and she joined me in my car to borrow my charger. She had received several e-mails from her family, all telling her to get out as soon as she could to avoid the ‘nuclear disaster.’ Those words infected the rest of us with fear, and we had to make a decision: stay or go? I needed more information. It was clear that the American media was sensationalizing the situation, and I knew my parents would be just as frantic as Lauren’s, so I couldn’t get advice from them. Immediately I thought of my friends on Okinawa, college friends who were living on the military base there. I thought someone with access to military intelligence would probably have more sure information than someone relying on the Western media, I e-mailed them for advice. The reply I got was somewhat reassuring, but they said if I wanted to get out I could come stay with them. There was talk of the weather patterns, and how if anything was leaking it wasn’t blowing toward my area for the time being. That was what decided me: although I was safe for now, there was no guarantee that the weather wouldn’t change and I wouldn’t be exposed.
The next morning, March 16, the four of us who had decided to leave: Lauren, Allison, Emma, and I, visited the Board of Education to tell Endo of our decision. He looked shocked, and scared, that we were leaving. I think it made the situation real to him in a way it wasn’t before. He asked us to write down as much information about where we were going and what our plans were as we could, and to keep him posted on our whereabouts. Since Sendai airport had been pretty trashed by the tsunami, we couldn’t fly out of there, and none of the trains in the Tohoku region were running. So the plan was to somehow get to our Prefectural capital, Sendai (Endo informed us that busses were indeed running from town to Sendai, so that made things slightly easier with the gas situation), and from there get a bus to Yamagata. Lauren’s father had booked two tickets out of Yamagata, and I had a ticket out of Akita, so we would try to get to our various airports from there, and Emma, without any tickets, would try to fly out standby. We packed a small bag of clothing each, I grabbed my computer, a few books, and most of the edible food left in my apartment, and we were off. The bus stop was at one of the Town offices, so we stopped in and handed our car keys to someone there, as Endo had instructed us, then caught the bus. Anny joined us there; she was unsure if she was going to leave or not, but she would come with us as far as Sendai, at least. Staying in contact with my mother and a JET in Hokkaido from my hometown, I realized that getting to Akita would be nearly impossible, so they managed to get Emma and me waitlisted on the same flight out of Yamagata to Tokyo as Lauren and Allison.
Once we got into Sendai, we went to the Prefectural Offices to check in with our Pas and see if they had any information that would help. While we were there, a JET from the coast came in, and we listened to her horrifying tale. She had literally outrun the tsunami. Like the rest of us, she had been in school, and when they saw the wave coming, they all ran for higher ground. Her house was gone; all she had left was the clothes she stood up in and her cell phone in her pocket. Her Board of Education was gone: the building in ruins, the superintendent and a few other members dead. All she wanted to do was go home, but with no passport or money, and in her state of shock, she didn’t know what to do. We all urged her to go to the American Embassy: even though we had been told the Embassy wouldn’t help us get out - we had to make our own way, they said - if they didn’t want to be denounced to the media, they would get her out. After she left, we discussed getting the bus to Yamagata, and alternate routes to get to Tokyo if we couldn’t fly out there. Luke got us a place to stay with a couple Sendai JETs, so they came and got us and took us home with them. Our host was a British citizen, and also leaving: the British Consulate had arranged a free bus to Tokyo for all the Brits who wanted to get out. It turns out most of the other Consulates had done the same things; it was only the Americans who were left to fend for themselves.
Knowing there would probably be huge lines for the busses out, we got up at 5:30 Thursday morning to try and catch the 8:00 bus out. The line was about three people deep and stretched around the corner right to the entrance to the Prefectural Office. Emma and I made a stop at the First Aid tent: she was so cold that she couldn’t move her hands. It took 20 minutes and a lot of explanation to stop the doctor from trying to diagnose her (a feat that hadn’t yet been managed with 2 months and full hospital diagnostics, much less in 10 minutes in a hastily set up tent), but in the end we got her some heat packs and went back to the line. We made it onto a bus around 8:30, and were on our way to Yamagata.
Somewhere through the pass across the mountains, I started feeling sick. Ignoring the snow-covered views around me, I closed my eyes and concentrated on my breathing for the rest of the hour or two we drove. Arriving in Yamagata station, I handed my bags to the others and ran for the bathroom, throwing up nothing but bile. I joined my friends in the waiting room after and tried to get something into my system, figuring I was nauseous from not eating properly, but the apple juice, slice of toast, and even the water I tried to ingest just came back up. Really worried now as well as feeling awful, I called my mom and asked her advice, and we decided that it would be best to get me to the hospital. The other three girls waved goodbye as they put me in a cab: they would continue on to the airport, and I could meet them there when I was released. The flight wasn’t until the next day, the 18th, so I figured I had time. At the hospital, I was checked in, and was seen by doctor rather quickly. After hearing my symptoms - nausea, vomiting, dizziness and shaking - and that I was evacuating from Miyagi, he asked all kinds of questions about the earthquake. Satisfied that I hadn’t hit my head or anything during the shake, he prescribed me nausea medication and an IV drip. Two hours and a full IV bag later I felt better enough to down a power bar. From phone calls with Lauren while I was in the hospital, I learned that all the flights leaving Yamagata were full, and there hadn’t been any cancellations or people not showing up for their flights: there was almost no chance Emma or I would be able to get on the next day’s flight, and Emma had decided to take one of our backup plans: bus to Tsuruoka, from where the trains were running, and from there to Niigata, where we could catch the Shinkansen to Tokyo. It was worth a shot. I left the hospital and headed back to the station. Someone, I don’t know if he was a volunteer or what, helped me figure out the schedule and another alternate route: a charter bus following a similar route that would leave at 10 the next morning. Knowing that if I didn’t get on the next bus I wouldn’t make the last train to Tokyo, I decided that was a good backup plan: I had found us a place to stay that night near the station if necessary, at the home of a Yamagata JET, so I was covered if need be. I booked it to the bus station and stood in line, barely making one of the last seats on the bus to Tsuruoka. Seated next to me on one side was a young Japanese guy, on the other was a family of four, with a first-grade-aged son and a baby in the mother’s arms. After a while, when the first grader had fallen asleep on my leg, I started talking to their parents. Once I said that I was an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) in Miyagi, the guy on the other side of me asked, “Are you a JET?” I told him I was, and his next question was, “Do you know Marti MacElreath?” Small world. I’d done a summer program in Japanese with Marti when we were in high school, lost touch with her later on and had been completely shocked to see her in Sendai when I went to pick the new arrivals up last July. He had been worried about her; I reassured him that she was ok, having gotten that information myself from the PAs. He was taking the same route I was out, going to his family home in Chiba, so he and I stuck together going into Tsuruoka, although he bought a non-reserved seat ticket and I, worried about having a seat, went for a more expensive reserved seat. We also bought some more food at the convenience store in the station, although the shelves had been all but cleaned out - the closest I could find to actual food was a ‘yaki udon sandwich’ and some crackers. By this point I still hadn’t heard from Emma or the other two staying at the airport, and figured I was on my own, but waiting at the platform, I happened to look up and saw Emma walking toward me with a few other JETs. I don’t know how I caught up with her, but I had never been gladder to see a familiar face! My cell phone was dead at this point, so I had no way of contacting any of the friends I have in Tokyo for places to stay, so I had been thinking I’d just head then to Haneda and sleep in the airport for 2 nights until the flight my mother had booked (the one from Akita stopped at Tokyo then continued on) to Okinawa, where my friends had welcomed me to come for as long as I needed. Emma however had made contact with a friend of hers in Tokyo and was already planning on going there, so I hoped I could stay with her too. Our tickets were for different cars, so we made plans to meet on the platform in Niigata and Tokyo stations and found our respective seats. Our train had gotten delayed somewhere along the way - a huge anomaly in Japan, where the average delay is something like 3 seconds - and we had 5 minutes between when it pulled into Niigata station and when the last Shinkansen to Tokyo would leave. It was a mad dash through the station, lugging our bags and gasping for breath as we raced up stairs and across the station, where the workers were waving us through to the Shinkansen tracks, not even checking our tickets. Another escalator later and we made it onto the train with not a moment to lose. I found my seat and settled in for my fourth long ride of the day.
We finally arrived in Tokyo around 11PM, and made our way through the maze that is Tokyo Station. We found the appropriate exit, and no sooner had we left the station than Emma spotted her friend and they raced to embrace. Emma’s friend Peggy had been almost as frantic as Emma’s parents, and had been in constant contact with them. She wouldn’t even allow me to question staying with her, and our bags were quickly put into her car and we were driven to her house. After days on the move in the cold with little food, her house - nice under normal circumstances - was luxurious beyond belief. Both of us plugged in our phones to charge and called our parents - Emma’s had gotten her a flight back to the States (she had decided that between the quake and her continuing health issues it would be best for her to just not come back to Japan), and my mother, after hearing I had arrived in Tokyo and was planning on going to Haneda in the morning and seeing if I couldn’t get an earlier flight, got my flight on the 19th bumped a day earlier. We also heard that the American government was finally starting to offer help for expats evacuating Japan - a bit late. Although we had barely eaten all day, the meal she served us - pork chops and rice with soup and applesauce - was too much for us to eat, we had been living on short rations for so long. We showered for the first time in days, and collapsed, exhausted, into bed. Sleep was slow in coming though - I had reached that point beyond exhaustion where I had been running on nerves for so long that I couldn’t convince my body that I was safe enough to sleep. I also kept bracing myself for another big shake, although Tokyo hadn’t gotten nearly as much of the shocks that we had. Sleep finally came, although I kept waking up in the morning sure that I had missed my alarm.
Friday morning Peggy fed us again, and Emma took me to the train station. I left the bag of food I’d been hauling around with me this whole time with Peggy - I didn’t want to look at any of it ever again, much less eat it. I told Peggy if she didn’t want it she could donate it somewhere else. Peggy had found an extra Pasmo train card that even had money still on it, so I didn’t even have to pay for this leg of the journey. I knew the Tokyo train system pretty well, having studied abroad there for four months in college, but I think the stress and my lack of sleep got to me, and I got on the wrong train in Shinjuku. Fortunately it was the correct line, just the wrong direction, and I noticed before we got to the second stop, so I was able to switch and made it the rest of the way to Haneda without mishap. I got checked in, went through security, and to the gate without ever once having my ID checked - nice and easy, but not the most reassuring situation. The plane left; I could see Mount Fuji through my window: it was snow-covered and looked pristine, a far cry from the palpable terror of nuclear radiation that I had felt among the Japanese the last several days. Hoping it was a good omen for a quick return, I watched Fuji until it disappeared from view, then fell into an exhausted slumber until we landed at Naha.
My good friend from college, Martha, met me at the airport. I hadn’t seen her since I left to study abroad in Tokyo 5 years ago, so it would have been wonderful seeing her under any circumstances. As it was, it was as if the past week had been nothing more than a nightmare. She drove me to the military base where she and her husband live, I got a temporary pass so I could come and go on base, and then she took me to her house. I met her 18-month-old baby and greeted her husband, Nathan (who I had also known in college through Martha), and settled in for however long I would be staying. That night I slept in a warm bed that wasn’t moving from the force of the earth: something that so many take for granted but for me then was the most wonderful thing.
So since I got to Naha I've been bumming around with Martha, Nathan and baby Eva. She's wicked cute and I'm so glad I finally got a chance to meet her (and of course, see them!) We've gone on a couple adventures so far: to the beach, a park on a dam, and the island's aquarium (second largest in the world), and really it makes everything just better. I will be thrilled when things calm down and I can return to Kami, but I had been feeling the need for a vacation anyway long before all this started, and it's great to be able to relax for a while!