Mami's New Hobby

Unlike Rob who has many hobbies, reading, writing and getting fit, I don’t have many hobbies. About 5 years ago, I was introduced to scrapbooking, and I have made 5 albums since. But scrapbooking is not a popular hobby in Japan. Therefore it’s hard to find stuff and even I have found some paper, it’s very expensive. Last 2 months, I have basically stayed home and enjoyed baking bread, cooking dinner, going shopping and cleaning the house (only once a week). Yes, even ENJOYED cleaning the house!! I love my lazy life but I wanted to start something new …So I found a new hobby!! I made this little bunny out of a woollen ball & felt. I pull the woollen ball apart and make a little wool ball with hands. Then all you need to soak it in a bowl of soapy water and rolled into a sphere! It takes 10 minutes to make a 100% wool ball. After it dries, I add other body parts which made out of felt. I always loved hands-on thing.

Now I made 4 bunnies, 4 kittens and 2 bears, and planning to make a lot more, I decided to sell them at a flea market. I always wanted to have my little shop so it is a great opportunity for me. My family has a few unwanted things (old toys, clothes and plates etc) to sell. I will be selling my little creations at the shop as well.

Mami's Cousin's Experience of the Earthquake.

Last Saturday night, Mami and I spoke to our cousin, Kazu, on Skype. Good name for a cousin, don't you think?

Kazu is a densha (slower suburban train) driver in Miyagi prefecture. He has just built a new house which houses his wife and three girls, his widowed mother and grandmother (who is also Mami's grandmother).

Fortunately for Kazu, he was not working on the day of the quake. I say fortunately as one of his colleagues was driving a densha which had just left a station when the quake hit. The train was derailed and his friend suffered two broken legs and two broken arms!

The town Kazu lives in is Kurikoma city and although it is inland and was under no threat from the tsunami, the quake caused a lot of structural damage. Kazu is off work until April, as the densha tracks were twisted and warped by the quake and will have to be replaced in many areas. Due to the scale of the repairs there are not enough tracks on hand to immediately do the repairs and tracks will have to be imported from overseas. The shinkansen (bullet train) situation is even worse, with the tracks and other structural damage to the lines north of Tokyo not expected to be repaired until May.

On a persnal level, Kazu injured his arm when he thrown to the ground during the quake. He cannot straighten his arm and has been unable to see a doctor as he has no petrol to get into town. It sounds like he could have a chipped bone near his elbow and it is definitely hampering his movements. While on Skype he walked around the house, showing us the video of the cracks and structural damage to his new house.This house was under construction when we came here last time, so it is less than two years old. Kazu had insurance for earthquakes up to magnitude 6, so he is worried about how much, if anything at all, he get back from the insurance.

It is these personal anecdotes which bring home how widespread this disaster is and how long it will take for Japan to return to anything like normal. But the news reports, on screen and in print, all praise the Japanese people for their cooperation and willingness to help each other in this time of crisis.

CATS Give Us a Taste of Home

Yatta!!! (hooray, you beauty, YES! all of these thrown together and you get Yatta in Japanese.)

And why am I saying Yatta??!! Because Mami and I have just listened to the SEN broadcast of the mighty, unshakeable Cats fighting out a nail biter against the tenacious Saints.

It is so strange shaking a fist in the air with each goal, putting the head in the hands with each stuff-up and then dancing with your wife singing the Geelong song after the Darren Milburn goal. The rest of the family just looked at us with confused smiles, quite sure that we were both barking mad!!

It was nice to have a little bit of 'home' for two hours. Mami, would you believe (and I'm sure all who know Mami well, would easily believe this), tried to get Margaret to turn the computer so the camera was facing the tele in Australia, so we could watch the game on Skype!! Unfortunately the quality was not that good so we listened to SEN instead. The tension at the end was unbelievable.

Mami has ordered me to write about it on the blog so that is what I have done, obedient husband that I am.

Thanks to all those who have written comments. Now I have to keep writing, although I guess Jan P won't be writing too many comments on this post?? Jan??

Spring

Today is a beautiful day. Spring is just around corner.
Last weekend, we went to a nearby park for ‘Hanami’. Teachers who pay attention to my Japanese lesson will know what Hanami is, right, Jan P?? Hanami is the Japanese traditional custom of enjoying the beauty of flowers, "flower" in this case almost always meaning cherry blossoms or plum blossoms.

It’s too early for Sakura (cherry blossoms) so we went to see Ume (plum blossoms) It was still a bit cool for sitting outside, but we had a little picnic under the trees. This is something I really wanted to do and I am looking forward to another Hanami this weekend if the weather is good. And then, the following weekend, Sakura should be in full bloom!!! Can’t wait!!


Rob keeps wondering how many people are actually reading this blog. So I spent half a day to figure out how people can leave a comment on this blog without all the hassle. I cleverly changed the setting, so anyone can leave comments, even if you do not have a google account.

Just go to ‘comment’ and write comment and press NAME/URL and type your name and post it.

So if you are reading this, please just leave a comment or your name to encourage Rob to write in the future!!!! Otherwise he will use it as an excuse not to do it and sneak off to the gym, pool or mall to have another latte`.

A SPECIAL DAY

Today is Saturday 19th March, which is a very important day to us. On a Saturday 6 years ago Mami and I were married! Hard to believe it was six years ago.
We were going to do a special all day train trip around the coastline, both east and west, of Yamaguchi but because rain was forecast we postponed it until the weather fines up a bit.

However the day was still very special. As you can see from the photos, the family went to a lot of trouble to make the day something we would remember. There were streamers, poppers, a big banner, sensational a Japanese BBQ (indoor of course), and to top it all off, Nana bought special cakes for dessert.

Yoshi, ever the clown, had various costumes to dress up in and entertain us and of course we all had to take a turn at putting on wigs, glasses etc to join in the fun.


It was a great day to share with family as we have never been in Japan to celebrate a wedding anniversary.

Things are improving here in Japan.

Thanks for the kind messages by email and on Facebook. We are safe and my family is doing well. I really thought about leaving Japan and moving back to Australia, but things are improving and I now believe there is no need to panic and leave immediately.

I have been watching both Japanese news and CNN, and it’s very interesting to find out there are a big gap in what they believe. However, I think Rob said enough about the disaster. So I will tell a bit more about our daily stuff.

Just in case, people are wondering what I am doing everyday, I am enjoying a total holiday in Japan. I have been looking for a job but my town, Shunan, is too small to have a short contracted job. I will try again in May, and might move to Hiroshima or Fukuoka for a month. Well, I am THINKING about it.


Meanwhile, I have been helping mum with washing, cleaning, and cooking, so please don’t call me ‘slack’.

On the other hand, Rob is doing really well. He goes to a swimming pool and a gym everyday. He has lost 5kg already!! He has also made a few friends there. I will ask him to write more about his ‘Japanese friends’.

ISHINOMAKI

We have just read the morning newspaper which has given us a town by town assessment of damage and loss of life along Japan's North-east coastline.
The news for Ishinomaki is not good but perhaps not as bad as we initially thought in terms of death toll.
The numbers as they stand at the moment are; 1000 confrimed dead, another 400 still missing and 43,000 homeless. When you see those figures for just one town along the coast it gives you an idea of the scope of the tragedy and the impact it will have for each of these smaller coastal communities as well as the larger ones like Sendai.
Unfortunately for us and for the students of Ishinomaki, I cannot see them making the trip to Australia this year. If had the money, I'd love to pay their way, just to get them away from the devastation, even if only for a week, to give them some respite from the grief and frightful memories which surround them.
I hope the fundraiser goes really well at OSPS to aid the schools and relief work which is starting to take place now.
Thankfully the town is more than 100km away from Fukushima, where the added disaster of the nuclear reactors is occurring, and which therefore allows the rescue and clean-up work in Ishinomaki to continue relatively unimpeded.
Power is starting to come back on line in some areas but there are still towns without kerosene, which is the major source of heating in Japan, as they have no natural gas supply. With roads blocked in many areas it has not been possible to get kerosene in by tankers to the affected areas.
This compounds the woes as you can imagine. With 43,000 homeless in a town like Ishinomaki, no kerosene and it is snowing heavily, you can imagine the conditions people are living under.
We just hope that the government, which despite reports in Western media is doing all it can under stressful and trying circumstances, can make the plight of the people in the affected areas a little easier in the coming days.

Another quake....

Japan has just been hit again by an earthquake. There have predictions of further activity and an hour ago another quake hit near Mt Fuji, Japan's highest mountain and a major tourist attraction.
The quake measured a 6 on the Richter scale but because it is inland there is no tsunami alert. Fortunately there are no nuclear power plants in that region as it is mainly a rural area with farming and tourism its major income sources.
The Japanese economy which I mentioned in a previous post may struggle to deal with this crisis has indeed reacted with the stock market dropping over 10% today. This has hit Yoshi, Mami's dad, really hard as he manages his own super and had invested quite heavily in shares. I'm sure he is not the only one and this is going to be one of the many far reaching impacts of the quakes.
Ishinomaki was also a major source of paper for Australia and New Zealand but latest reports have said that Ishinomaki's paper mill, which is a major industry in the town, has been badly damaged and is not functioning. Just when people seemed to be coming to terms with this the country is hit again. It is just beyond belief.
For those who remember Maiko our friend who worked at the secondary college, the second quake was recorded as a 3 in Gunma where she lives. We will contact her tomorrow to check how she is.

MORE ON THE EARTHQUAKE (JINSHIN)

The latest here is that the magnitude of the earthquake has been upgraded to a 9.0 on the Richter scale. That is unbeleivably strong and as I said previously it is the strongeest quake in Japan since records have been kept.
Despite the rising death toll there are a number of good news stories. A man who took to the roof of his house was found, still on the debris of his roof with the water lapping around him but get this; he 15 kilometres out to sea!! He was finally rescued when a helicopter spotted him and winched him to safety.
We have seen some emotional reunions between families, husbands and wives and friends who are so overwhelmed with emotion when they find each other alive that they just embrace and burst into tears.
For the normally staid Japanese, to show this sort of physical contact and emotion in public shows the enormous impact this tragedy has had.

YURINA GRADUATES!

In amongst the horror of the earthquake we had some good news to celebrate on Saturday. Our niece Yurina graduated from kindergarten and yes they do have a ceremony and kids and parents and grandparents dress up to the nines.
Yurina looked really cute as Nanna went to Hiroshima to buy new outfits for both herself and Yurina the previous weekend. Both scrubbed up very well indeed as you can see from the photos.
The children sang a song, gave a little speech about what they want to do when they grow up (Yurina told everyone she wanted to be a cake shop owner) and received their graduation certificates. It was nice to see some smiling faces.

In April, she will be a big primary school student as kids start primary school from age 6 and go straight to grade 1. There will be a big entrance ceremony at her primary school where all the new students are introduced to the school. Very big on tradition here.

THE HORROR OF THE JAPANESE EARTHQUAKE

As you would all know, Japan has just been hit by the worst earthquake in its history since records have been kept. In Japan they are saying it was 8.8 magnitude, but we have read outside reports that it was 8.9. What perhaps did not get reported in Australia was that there were a number of quakes, 6 that I know of, ranging in magnitude from 5.8 through to 8.8. That’s why there have been second and third waves with the tsunamis.
I was just leaving the pool after a workout and saw the tsunami warning appearing on the TV screen in the foyer. We had a small quake a bit over a week ago in the same area but the resulting tsunami was less than 60cm. However I was due to meet Mami at the supermarket and the map on the TV looked like Miyagi so I put the foot down.
When I got to the supermarket both Mami and her sister were on their mobiles trying to contact family in Miyagi and also Mami’s mum, Yoko. They informed me of the magnitude of the quake and we hurried inside the shopping mall to watch on the big public screens they have here.
The force of the tsunami was terrifying, absolutely terrifying. The large area affected, not just by the tsunami but also by the quake, was enormous. In Sendai, the biggest city in Miyagi (population around 1,000,000) we have just heard there have been 200-300 bodies already found floating in the water. It is snowing quite heavily while all this is happening in Miyagi so that just adds to the problem. The Sendai airport has been hit by the tsunami but luckily all planes took off immediately the warning went out and all incoming flights were diverted.
We eventually got through to Yoko’s family when we got home, and they are all safe and well. They are perhaps far enough inland to be safe from the tsunami but the quake has done some damage to property.
The force of the quake in Tokyo was so strong it actually shook the Tokyo tower so much the aerial at the top of the tower was bent. The quake has started fires in Tokyo in buildings and in an oil refinery and a steel works. I am sure the number of people who have perished will be absolutely horrendous.
We are watching the continuous news at the moment (11.20pm) and have just heard some good news. Some 600 students and staff from a primary school in Sendai have been saved by going onto the roof of the school without loss of life. Let’s hope there are more of those types of stories to come.
One potentially worrying factor is a nuclear power plant located on the coastal town of Fukushima, south of Sendai may have sustained some damage. Reports have not been clear as to whether there has been damage but the reactor is only a couple of hundred metres from the shore.
As I write we have just seen footage of amateur film showing cars travelling along a beachside road, their vision obviously blocked by the seawall. The first wave hits, the impact sending the wave 20-30 metres into the air before obliterating the wall. Thankfully the person taking the footage was using a telephoto lens and at that point he/she must have cut and run, but the people in the cars had no hope. Now we are seeing footage that reminds me of the Victorian bushfires. The residential area of Sendai is on fire, it is an inferno. I don’t know how Japan can recover from something as massive as this. It is just terrifying and devastatingly sad.
Trains have only just started running again and the traffic has been horrendous with many people in Tokyo forced to remain in the CBD as they cannot get home. This must be terrifying as there have been over 50 shocks ranging from 2-5 in magnitude and still going since the big one hit around 2.45 this afternoon.
It will be a long time before the full impact of this earthquake is known and even longer for the people of Japan to recover from its devastation.

Pics of Okinawa

Okinawa

Last week we travelled with the family to Okinawa. A 3 hour car trip to Fukuoka airport was followed by a one and a half hour flight to the group of islands which form the prefecture of Okinawa.

Being so far south of the main islands of Japan, Okinawa has a completely different climate and vegetation. It is very tropical and except for the narrow streets and extremely slow drivers (we were told by a local 'Okinawans drive very slowly' which means a top speed of around 40kph.) it is similar to Queensland in appearance.

On arrival we paid a visit to a cave in which Japanese civilians and soldiers sought refuge from the American army during the battle of Okinawa. The history of that battle is very sad, with over 200,000 soldiers and civilians from both sides losing their lives.

One of the saddest stories involved a group of schoolgirls from Himeyuri High School, who were ordered by the Japanese army to help in the field hospital when the battle began. As the tide of the battle turned and American victory seemed imminent, the girls were told they were no longer needed and to leave the area where the army were. They were basically told to go and fend for themselves in the middle of a war zone. Of the 240 students and teachers who joined the field hospital or other corps, 226 died. The stories of survivors from the school and other civilians are absolutely horrific and the Okinawans are very much oriented toward world peace.Tthey therefore have been unsuccessfully waging a campaign to have the American bases removed from thier island.

After the tour of the cave, it was off to the hotel. The first night we stayed in Naha the biggest city on the main island of Okinawa. The hotel was very nice, and more through good luck than good management, Mami and I scored a penthouse suite with separate foyer, lounge, bedroom (two double beds), two toilets and spa bath in the bathroom. Absolute luxury.

We ate out at a restaurant which served the best sashimi dishes at unbelievably good prices.
Check out the presentation of the sashimi in the picture.

Yummmmm!!!

Japanese Workers.

This part of the blog is in response to a question by Jan Presnell about Japanese worker's holidays and I thought others who read the blog may also be interested.
As a rule, Japanese people only get one week's annual leave and it is not unusual for them not to take it if they are feeling under pressure at work. But unlike us their leave is not cumulative. If they don't take the week, they lose it!!
Teachers only get 10 days leave per year. They spend school holidays running clubs for students like Sporting clubs such as Baseball, Volleyball etc or doing Band practice with the school brass band or other school related tasks. If teachers do not come to school during the term breaks, they do not get paid!!
Japanese workers do however get more public holidays than us and workers on full time contracts are paid bonuses twice a year. This includes teachers! The bonuses are taxed but are the equivalent of two payments each to the value of 2 months wages!! Not bad is it??
Japanese workers think we get a good deal getting 3 months long service after 15 years. After 15 years with a company or in a teaching position, Japanese workers will have recieved the equivalent of 60 months wages in bonus payments!! It would be nice to get 2 months pay around Christmas time or in the middle of the year, wouldn't it??
Mind you, I think I'd take the holidays we get in preference to the Japanese bonuses, but they do not do too badly, especially as teacher's wages are higher than ours in Australia.
There is also no emergency teaching provision for teachers in the Japanese system. If a teacher is away, classes are split or Assistant Principals take the class. As absenteeism is inconvenient to other staff, teacher absenteeism is a rare occurrence.
The work ethic is very different to Australia and loyalty to the company, the boss and the job is very high.
People are amazed that at 56 I have retired and really have no driving urge to work. For them work seems to almost be their reason to exist, hence the need to never be absent and to forgo holidays if they feel the job requires their presence.
I have made friends, through swimming, with a manager of an oil distribution company in Shunan. He and his wife are learning English and I have started socialising with them a bit to help them with their English and to broaden my experiences of Japanese life.
He was telling me today about the pressure he is under and the stress it is causing him. He is quite well off, having a house in Shunan and one Hiroshima. He is 68 years old and I'm sure he doesn't need to work for financial reasons, but he will probably continue to work into his 70's. It is a very different mind set to Australia and although the Japanese people I have met often profess to envy my lifestyle, I do not believe any of them would trade places with me. They would be lost without their job.
Interesting isn't it? One of the many cultural differences I find absolutely intriguing. Hope you enjoy reading about it too.