Helping our furry friends (Part I)

In the earthquake and subsequent tsunami, many lives were destroyed and many families were torn apart. Just as in many other countries, the Japanese people have pets that are considered as members of the family. Both owners and pets lost each other to the onrushing, unstoppable waters.

Then the nightmare of Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant occurred. Thousands of households suddenly had to evacuate, leaving everything behind in the belief they would return very quickly. Pets were left with a bowl of water and a bowl of food, or they were turned loose. It has been almost a month.

Obviously, this has created a situation where many animals need help. Our friend, Ulara, first made us aware of this when she went north with a group of animal activists a few weeks ago. They rescued the animals they could and provided supplies to overwhelmed animal shelters and vets. A Facebook page was created, and suddenly, a coalition of animal shelters came into existence: JEARS (Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support).

When Ulara's work as a journalist took her out of the country, she asked Joan to take over her duties with JEARS. One of the main organizers of JEARS, Isabella, who runs an animal hotel and shelter in Niigata, was on the phone to Joan almost every night, downloading the information of the day, with Joan frantically scribbling notes.

Like many foreigners in Japan, we desperately want to help. However, with our limited

Japanese, there is little we can do that the thousands of Japanese volunteers can't already do better. Obviously, in the face of these overwhelming problems, most of the rescue, recovery and restoration efforts are going towards helping humans, and not animals.

As Joan wanted to personally interview Isabella and others involved with JEARS and get better photos of the operation and animals, we asked if we could come up to Niigata and volunteer for a few days - maybe we could at least help a little bit in our own way.

An early morning express bus soon got us to Niigata where Isabella picked us up and drove us to

Animal Garden, her hotel/shelter. We quickly realized how serious the situation was as we saw their modest facility overwhelmed with more than 200 hundred animals: cats, dogs, and yes, a chicken. We helped as best we could with walking dogs, petting cats, and other chores.

I cleaned the cages of eight cats that had been left in a house in the Fukushima evacuation area by a "hoarder". I won't go into the details, but after a long time trapped in the house with no food and water, it was about as bad as you could imagine. Apparently it was a very difficult and traumatic experience for the rescue team.

These poor cats, now kept isolated due to fear of radiation, were

desperately unhappy and wanted affection. As I changed the absorbent pet sheets from the bottom of the cages and cleaned up any other mess, they frantically pressed themselves against the wire, meowing and crying. I started to cry. I'm crying now as I type this.

But, to be honest, it is hard to clean up cat pee and poop while crying, so I had to shut down that part of my heart. Similar to when I worked for the ambulance service and fire department, you cannot let the pain and suffering interfere with your work. You have to compartmentalize and do what you have to do. I couldn't stop the cats suffering, but I could damn well make sure they didn't have to crouch in their own urine and feces. It wasn't fun, but it felt good.

We spent the night in a simple, unheated cabin down the road. A good neighbor had donated the use of it for volunteers.

The next day was to be a big one for me as we were driving across the mainland to the earthquake and tsunami affected areas to rescue animals.

I would like to write more in this post, but it has been extremely difficult and somewhat painful, and has tired me out. I'll continue tomorrow.

Weirdest. Hike. Ever.

Our plan was to go backpacking and snowshoeing when we got back from our month's trip to America, but Joan's leg injury from walking in bad boots and then an impromptu Nitendo Wii Dance Party competition put her out of commission.

I had been chafing at the bit to get out and do some backpacking as the weather was quite warm and pleasant. To the west of us, still technically in Tokyo, are some mountains (really big hills) that have a lot of trails and some mountain huts. Hiking is very popular in Japan, and on weekend mornings, the west-bound trains are full of people fully decked out in way too much gear on their way to day hikes.

On topographical maps I had purchased earlier, I had identified some emergency huts where one can stay for free. We had stayed in similar huts up in Hokkaido and wanted to see if it was the same down here. Eventually, there is a four or five-day backpacking trip that I want to try in the Okutama region. I also had bought new hiking boots - big, Italian, full-leather monsters - that needed to be broken in. I had done hours of walking in flat Musashisakai but nothing uphill.

So, with a good forecast, I picked out an ambitious overnight route that would visit a hut midday with an overnight in a second one. The next day would stop by a third hut before descending back into the valley to catch a train home in the afternoon. This would be perhaps my first solo trip.

I will let the photos do most of the talking about what I saw. They can be seen here at this link:

Okutama backpacking trip

The main problem was that I started developing a blister on the heel of my right foot from the new boots - rats! I decided to switch to my Teva sandals and kept pushing up the trail. It was fine until I hit the snow; the sandals don't have much traction. So, I put the left boot back on and struggled up the steep trail, slipping and sliding. This combined with about a month and a half of not much exercise and a backpack was quite slow and exhausting. When I finally made it to the top of the snowy, icy ridge, at least two hours behind schedule, I was tired and a little shaky. I decided to change the plan and just continue to the first hut to spend the night. I could reassess in the morning and decide then.

Well, when I reached the area where the emergency hut was supposed to be, on the side of the mountain, it wasn't there. However, there was a newer toilet hut, as well as a lot of weird buildings and structures - but no people. I pitched my hammock on what I assume is an old helicopter landing pad, based on structure and painted markings to catch my breath and enjoy the last of the sunshine - also to experience some of the most excruciating leg cramps I have ever had.

After awhile, I put my sandals back on and started spooking around, thinking about where I might sleep. I had not brought a tent, just a sleeping pad, bag, and hammock for relaxing. The mountain tea hut looked all raggedy and run down from the outside but seemed functional on the inside. Almost everything was still in place; it really felt like aliens had suddenly abducted everybody. Nothing was locked. Just down hill, there was another building that was a small ryokan (inn) with a dining room, dismantled kitchen area and sleeping rooms upstairs, with closets full of futons and blankets. I initially thought about making a nest up in one of the rooms.

Then I went down to the larger building, which looked like a 1970's commune retreat center.

From what I could see, I think it is a temple or retreat center for a Daoist religious group. While mostly empty, most of the building is in fine shape. However, in the central, round tower room, where many alters and other religious items where still on full display, the roof was leaking and causing extensive water damage. It was weird, weird, weird!

I spent a full 30 minutes exploring the warren of rooms and hallways before decided to stay in a

sun-warmed, carpeted and dry room with a fantastic view of Tokyo and closets full of futons and blankets. The room had some items (rolls of toilet paper, flashlight, box of clothes, etc.) that made it look like some had been staying there somewhat recently. I found some religious publications from as recent as 2008.

With my stove on a low table in front of the windows and sitting in a lawn chair I found in a storage closet, I made a dinner of instant ramen and watched the night fall on Tokyo. As it grew dark, the lights below began to create a sea of sparkling colors. It was completely silent and weird, weird, weird.

Finally around 8 pm, exhausted and, quite frankly, bored to death, I crawled into my nest of futons and blankets and fell asleep, listening to the unknown creaks, drips, bangs, and other sounds of the building.

I awoke at dawn and made coffee. Wrapped in a blanket, I watched the sun rise over Tokyo and

enjoyed its heat. Feeling much about the prospects of the day, I made a plan to hike to the second hut to check it out and head down from there. It was too far to make it to the third hut, and I didn't want to push my luck with the new boots. I had found a roll of duct tape in the tea house and was able to tape up the heel enough to hike the rest of the day.

Starting around 7 a.m., it was a great hike along the snowy ridge on a beautiful and sunny day. After about four hours, I reached the other mountain, where I cooked lunch and tended to my heel. From there, I headed down a trail

to the Okutama station, about three hours away. The downhill section was great as it took any pressure or friction off my heel, and I made good time.

Along the trail down the valley, I found some other excellent waterfall swimming opportunities and other interesting sites. And yet, another weird thing. I was striding along a flat section of the trail, at the base of a cedar-covered slope alongside the river, when seemingly out of nowhere, a large dead animal was just lying on the side of the trail, really

startling me. It turns out it was a "kamoshika"- a rare goat-antelope. There were no obvious signs of injury or decomposition: old age? sickness?

Eventually, I reached the end of the trail and started hiking along the road down to the bottom of the valley. It eventually joined a larger road that followed the Tamagawa river and led to the train station. With relief, I caught a train and sank into a seat.

Overall, it was a good but weird trip. I am excited to go back to explore the area and go deeper into the mountains. However, I need to figure out the boot situation and will try to drag someone else along next time. Many of you will not be surprised to hear that solo hiking is not for me!

Back to normal?

Perhaps it's sign of returning to normal...

I went with Shuji (a friend who works in the international student office next to mine at Asia University) to Koganei park with his dogs, Mei and Kopi.

Of course, we had to schedule a trip to a ramen shop! In Musashikoganei, near the park, there is a street nicknamed "Ramen Dori" - (Ramen street). Among the many ramen shops is Jiro ramen, famous for the size and taste of their ramen - mostly their size, though. With 33 shops in Tokyo, it is a kind of White Castle of Ramen.

We arrived around 3 pm to find not an empty seat. So, we ordered the small, basic ramen and settled on to the waiting stools. As we watched people tuck into their ramen, we saw some patrons served their ramen - huge, heaping, steaming bowls of ramen. We looked at other each with fear in our eyes. Shuji said, "Oh my God, I hope that's a large!"

Nope. It was the small. Delicious. Ginormous. Distended-belly making.

We struggled through the ordeal, groaning and whimpering like everyone else in the shop. Finally, we declared a partial victory and fled to the sunny street. Luckily, we were headed to the park after lunch and were able to walk some of it off.

While I would recommend the experience, we may have to wait awhile before we can muster the courage to do it again!

Tokyo update

In general, things are good here in Tokyo. We arrived back just as the news was flashing around about the radioactive iodine found in one water treatment plant. Of course, there was a run on bottled water and even vending machines seem to be out of small bottles, as well.

So, our solution? We'll just stick to beer! It's a sandwich in a can anyways... However, it may make the coffee taste funny. A Japanese friend was telling us about buying what she thought was a bottle of plain water that turned out to have a fruity flavor. She didn't realize it until she tasted the coffee she made with it...

Tokyo, overall seems normal. However, there are just enough small things to let you know that things are not quite... Our first sign up returning to Tokyo was that the lighting in Starbucks was at about half strength. Most stores just have minimal lights on; it is more than enough to see but definitely not the glaring, surgical brightness. Many of the external lights and signs of stores and restaurants are turned off at night, too. It's quite nice and makes one think about how much light we actually need...

On a side note, tonight is third annual Earth Hour, where everyone is asked to turn off as much electrical use as possible from 8:30 to 9:30 pm. Candles and beer? Sounds romantic...

Another thing was that the escalators at the train stations are turned off. The elevators work, for which Joan was thankful - still on crutches but getting better.

A friend in the restaurant industry says that business is way down. People are going home right after work and staying home.

There was a tweet today from someone who spoke with a Tokyo taxi driver who reported that fares were down 50 %. All of this is unfortunately going to hurt the Japanese economy just a little bit more, as people become even more cautious about spending. Deflation is a big concern here.

The supermarkets can be kind of disturbing, too. There are open shelves for the first time. And if there is bread, milk, or water, it is gone quickly. In fact, I went to Hanamasa grocery near our station and could not find any milk and cream - what's a coffee drinker to do? For a variety a reasons, I could only get about half the items on my shopping list. Even the fruit and nut muesli was out! However, a lot of it has to do with disrupted supply chains as roads and shipping is still snarled from the earthquake/tsunami; plus, a great deal of those resources are helping those up north, as they well should. We are more than happy to accept a little suffering in light of conditions up there.

The size and extent of the disaster is truly overwhelming. We are not sure what the Japanese government is going to do. Many areas along the coast were completely wiped out and will require a complete rebuilding, if they decide to build. Like many places in America, some areas were economically stagnate and only afloat due to government subsidies or because people have always lived there. Should the country rebuild what was there or try to design/re-imagine a new way forward? There will have to be some serious soul searching here in Japan. With a horribly clean blank slate to start with, anything is possible...

We hope for the best and are hopefully positive that Japan will find a way to recover.

Going home to Tokyo!

So, the plan is to head back to Tokyo tonight on an night express bus. My university has pushed back the start of school two weeks, so now we have a set date to plan our lives around.

We have been talking with our friends still in Tokyo, Japanese and American, and the word is that everything is OK. Things have calmed down, and the supply of food and other things have somewhat stabilized. There have been some blackouts but not many or sustained. A friend who works for the U.S. embassy says that all their experts have given Tokyo a thumbs up.

Also, there is electrical power to all the reactors in Fukushima, and the systems (control and cooling) seem to be operational. TEPCO (Tokyo Electric and Power Corporation?) seems to finally be in somewhat in control of the situation with people and resources in place. For awhile, it appeared that they were just reacting to an unfolding situation, and that really made us uncomfortable.

However, those pesky afterquakes keep happening (a 6.0 and 5.8 in the Fukushima area this morning), so that is a little disturbing...

Well, hopefully Joan's leg will get better soon, and we can go for a trip to take advantage of the extra vacation!

We'll keep you posted! Mata ne! (See you later!)

Boring update - thank goodness!

Thought I'd just write a quick blog post to keep everyone up to date.

Luckily, there is nothing much to report! We are still in Osaka with Seth and Haruna. We went to a small "record" bar in the downtown area where Seth was one of a couple of guest DJs and listened to a lot of good music. It was a nice change, but we stayed up fairly late for this pair of old farts.

The weather has finally turned for the better with a high of 61.

We dragged ourselves out to the river bank today for a picnic lunch and welcome sunshine. Joan's swollen foot finally felt the rays of the sun. It shone bright pink, scaring fish right out of the river! She's now able to stretch it and put a little weight on it. We're pretty excited and

looking forward to crutch-free days.

As I said before, we hope to return to Tokyo this coming week. We desperately want to be home, just doing our regular things. This limbo of not knowing what is going to happen next or when we should go home is killing us! It's hard to focus on anything productive, such as studying Japanese, exercise, or writing - very frustrating...

If you have been following the reactor situation in Fukushima, today is hopefully the day they will be able to bring electrical power to the plant. Hopefully, they will be able restart the cooling systems and get some sort of control of the situation. Today could be reactors #1 and #2; tomorrow would be #3 and #4. Here's hoping...

It is so hard to truly get a feel of what is going on there. Media, both international and Japanese, seems all over the page and inconsistent. There's talk of not being able to trust the information coming from TEPCO (the Japanese power company) nor the government. Obviously they have to be very cautious with what they say. A panic would be horrible, but so would not telling the public what they need to and should know.

We talked to friends in Tokyo today, and they report that all is OK in our area and Tokyo in general. There are still some shortages of perishable foods, toilet paper, gasoline, but it is getting better. Trains are running. Life goes on. But.... Everyone is watching the situation in Fukushima.

And the worse thing is, it is taking the focus away from rescue (unfortunately, mostly recovery) efforts up north. The magnitude of what happened up there is still being assessed, and it looks to just get worse and worse. It will be extremely difficult and expensive to recover and rebuild; no one seems sure how it will be done, but everyone is resolute that it must be done.

We hope all is well with you and yours. I can't wait for our life to get so boring again that I'll forget to write on this blog for a looooong time...

"Fleeing" Tokyo

I have been following developments in Japan via my wife's twitter account; it has been an excellent source of information.

However, there have been some tweets, mostly dismissive or scornful, about people who are "fleeing Tokyo," as if they are being panicky, thoughtless, or cowardly.

Well, Joan is on crutches from a leg injury. It is very difficult for her to move. If something were to happen (and I don't think that it will), there is no way that I want to take the risk of evacuation or panic. With a population of over 30 million people, any "incident" would be a nightmare situation to deal with. Our controlled departure to Osaka by night bus last night was extremely difficult and stressful, compounded with that 6.0 which occurred while in the basement of a skyscraper. It was horrible. Should I wait because someone called me a "chicken?"

The situation in Tokyo over the last few days has been a combination of earthquakes, tsunamis, reactor issues, decreasing food and utility supplies, and general upset of daily life (trains, etc.). In my seven years as a volunteer fire fighter and four years as an EMT, I have seen and dealt with many terrible situations. I have seen many people wait too long to make a decision. I also know how hard it is to make the right decision with so much uncertainty.

As much as I didn't want to leave the city that we love as our new home, after a great deal of painful deliberation and discussion, we made the difficult decision to leave Tokyo until things calm down. It was a risk I could not and would not take. It was not a decision we made lightly, and I resent the implication that it wasn't.

While I understand that emotions run high in times like these, I think it is very inappropriate and unhelpful to judge and criticize others for the decisions they make in difficult situations. It is even harder to make the right decision when feeling that one might be judged unfairly for it.

A teacher friend has recently gone to Nagoya with her young child to stay with her in-laws at the request of her husband. He has a long commute from home, works long hours until late and does not have the luxury to be there for his family. He is constantly worried about what is going to happen and what will happen if he cannot be there, if, God forbid, "something" happens. Should he have kept his family in Tokyo because some people might think he is overreacting, panicky, or cowardly? Perhaps we should consider the complexities of the situation before making snarky tweets?

While I cannot speak for everyone who has left Tokyo, I can only assume, they, like us, feel horrible and guilty about leaving friends, families and their lives behind. I question the decision every minute I am here, but I can't - and shouldn't - feel bad about it.

As Joan said, "I'd rather feel silly about leaving than stupid about not leaving."

These are difficult times for everyone, and we should spend more time supporting each other and less tearing each other down.