Thoughts on the earthquake.
I'm safe. Just wanted to report that.
It's my first experience of such a calamity. Even though I sit in my apartment, with electricity, water and gas supplies, I'm freaked by what I saw in the news.
The sheer magnitude of it. The extent of the damage. All live feeds on the TV.
The damage from the earthquakes wasn't so bad. But the tsunami that resulted. OH GOD, THE TSUNAMI. It was a like it was straight out of a horror film! It swept cars, houses, ships, EVERYTHING into the waters, rushing into towns, fields, ANYTHING.
Good Lord. It's the single most scary thing I've ever seen. The fact that it's happening so close to me. The fact that I'm due to go to Yamagata next week. The fact that, as a JET, there was a strong possibility that I would have been sent to that area in the first place, and as a result, be caught in that horrid scene if I were.
That night, if it weren't for the two teachers in my apartment area who had dinner with me, I think I might have gone into a slightly crazed state by now. I'd been tweeting updates in English about the earthquakes for the whole day and watching the news is depressing.
And then today comes news of the possible nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, though they have now declared that it is just the outside and not the nuclear fuel holder that has exploded, and that it's under control. I'm reminded of when I met my Fukushima SG JET friends in Singapore and we were just joking about how dead meat they would be if anything went wrong.
We're all trying to save on electricity in the Chubu (central) and Kansai (west) regions so that Kanto and Tohoku are able to get electricity supply from us. I'm keeping electricity to a minimum - only my computer, tv and modem are on. I suppose I can turn off the TV, but it's so scary to NOT know what's happening. (Yes, I'm an info junkie.) And this is the ONLY thing we can do for them right now. ;_;
What also affected me was that while I was so traumatised and affected by the earthquake, and what I saw on the television, the other ALT in my area was looking into buying a dress, and seemed so unaffected by it (which later turned out to be untrue - she told me she cried many times because of the reports). This morning I went out to get food and possibly some flu medication (down with the flu) from the supermarket, and I met an old granny who said that the earthquake was frightening. Yet EVERYTHING around me was normal. The stark difference of it.
I thought with indignation, "How can you be so calm when everything is so wrong right now?", but then I realised just how lucky I am right now to be only feeling the slight tremors, with electricity, gas, water and internet supplies. And then I thought that if it happened in Singapore, we'd all be sitting ducks. There's no way (or where) to run, and no way we could shelter 5 million people on our limited land.
A friend retweeted something he saw: a tweet telling the kids that the Kamen Rider show was cancelled, and will be resumed only next week as all the Kamen Riders are busy helping out in the big disaster of Tohoku, and it also asked for the kids to cheer for the Kamen Riders as they fight.
You can't imagine how many times I've said this, but ONLY IN JAPAN. My beloved Japan, my heart goes out to you. My friends in the affected areas, those who I don't know, those who are fighting to help the people in the affected areas, my thoughts and prayers with you.
It's my first experience of such a calamity. Even though I sit in my apartment, with electricity, water and gas supplies, I'm freaked by what I saw in the news.
The sheer magnitude of it. The extent of the damage. All live feeds on the TV.
The damage from the earthquakes wasn't so bad. But the tsunami that resulted. OH GOD, THE TSUNAMI. It was a like it was straight out of a horror film! It swept cars, houses, ships, EVERYTHING into the waters, rushing into towns, fields, ANYTHING.
Good Lord. It's the single most scary thing I've ever seen. The fact that it's happening so close to me. The fact that I'm due to go to Yamagata next week. The fact that, as a JET, there was a strong possibility that I would have been sent to that area in the first place, and as a result, be caught in that horrid scene if I were.
That night, if it weren't for the two teachers in my apartment area who had dinner with me, I think I might have gone into a slightly crazed state by now. I'd been tweeting updates in English about the earthquakes for the whole day and watching the news is depressing.
And then today comes news of the possible nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, though they have now declared that it is just the outside and not the nuclear fuel holder that has exploded, and that it's under control. I'm reminded of when I met my Fukushima SG JET friends in Singapore and we were just joking about how dead meat they would be if anything went wrong.
We're all trying to save on electricity in the Chubu (central) and Kansai (west) regions so that Kanto and Tohoku are able to get electricity supply from us. I'm keeping electricity to a minimum - only my computer, tv and modem are on. I suppose I can turn off the TV, but it's so scary to NOT know what's happening. (Yes, I'm an info junkie.) And this is the ONLY thing we can do for them right now. ;_;
What also affected me was that while I was so traumatised and affected by the earthquake, and what I saw on the television, the other ALT in my area was looking into buying a dress, and seemed so unaffected by it (which later turned out to be untrue - she told me she cried many times because of the reports). This morning I went out to get food and possibly some flu medication (down with the flu) from the supermarket, and I met an old granny who said that the earthquake was frightening. Yet EVERYTHING around me was normal. The stark difference of it.
I thought with indignation, "How can you be so calm when everything is so wrong right now?", but then I realised just how lucky I am right now to be only feeling the slight tremors, with electricity, gas, water and internet supplies. And then I thought that if it happened in Singapore, we'd all be sitting ducks. There's no way (or where) to run, and no way we could shelter 5 million people on our limited land.
A friend retweeted something he saw: a tweet telling the kids that the Kamen Rider show was cancelled, and will be resumed only next week as all the Kamen Riders are busy helping out in the big disaster of Tohoku, and it also asked for the kids to cheer for the Kamen Riders as they fight.
You can't imagine how many times I've said this, but ONLY IN JAPAN. My beloved Japan, my heart goes out to you. My friends in the affected areas, those who I don't know, those who are fighting to help the people in the affected areas, my thoughts and prayers with you.