Today has been a strange day. I was in Tokyo, and today started out by a look outside this morning to see rain mixed with snow. What? It is almost March, and it hasn’t been that cold, so it was really odd to see that it was actually kind of snowing. Not much of course, and mostly rain, but clearly there were snow flakes in the mix.
Tsunami
We learned of the earthquake in Chile yesterday, and at this point when I am writing this I doubt anyone really understands the extend of damage or loss of life. I’m actually sitting on the shinkansen for the first draft of this as well, so I’m not particularly wired except through my iPhone.
Last night, I checked the Japan Meteorological Association webpage to look for any tsunami warnings. With such a big earthquake, it was clear to me that there would be some sort of tsunami. The reports were saying that warnings were issued for the whole Pacific region, yet nothing was showing up on the Japanese sites.
When I woke up this morning, the situation had changed. As a resident of the Eastern Pacific and Western Pacific, with domiciles in both locations, I have a bit of a reason to care. My condo in LA is far closer to the beach than my apartment in Nagoya, but the tsunami would have to rise over a REALLY big hill before it found my house. In Nagoya, I am a long way away from water. So I personally do not expect to be impacted but I still care. As a matter of fact, a friend of my was in Thailand for the Boxing Day tsunami as I think I’ve mentioned before. Also, a colleague of mine quit work and she and her husband and children are sailing around Mexico and I worried about her as well. She’s OK, but they definitely went out to sea to ride out the waves and their marina was impacted.
Tomo flipped on the TV to watch the Olympics and saw that there was a tsunami warning. I then went to the JMA website and saw the same.
The Japanese television coverage is interesting, and I took a few snaps of the TV screen. Of course, they had the roving reporters at various sea side locations to do on the scene reporting. The tsunami was hours away from hitting, so the reporting was mostly looking at preparation. It is not unlike hurricane or snow storm reporting in the US, where there is as much anticipation of the event as there is the event itself.
I was too slow on the draw with my camera as my small digital camera was buried away in my bag and my iPhone camera menu selections were to deep to catch the picture of the reporter in his hard hat reporting on the preparation. Hard hats are extremely popular as safety devices here. We have hard hats at work in case of earthquakes and other falling objects. So when you see the B and C movies from Japan with everyone running around with their hardhats on it is real folks.
The anchors don’t have to wear hard hats, but their treatment of the ensuing tsunami is very serious. And of course, they’ve got the typical graphics overlay showing the warning area.
Interestingly, as I was heading back to Nagoya, there was an alert on the Yamanote Line that train service on one line had been suspended due to “waves.†Once in Tokyo Station, there was a sign describing the closure and station personnel ready to assist travelers trying to reach their destination.
… it is now several hours since I started writing the blog on the train. It seems that we are still under a warning, and there actually has been some damage by a 1.20 meter tsunami. Let’s hope the worst is over.
Marathon
While we were out about town, we discovered the Tokyo Marathon was crossing our path. Literally. I snapped a few iPhone pictures as we also discovered we were at halfway!
The course was splitting Ginza into different areas. There was a particularly difficult scene as Ginza 4-Chome as runners make a turn towards Asakusa and other runners are returning from Asakusa and sort of in the last bits at about 34 km. Now, I’m sure the “last bits†is a bit of an overstatement for one who has never run a marathon, but definitely at the intersection it was especially difficult to watch. Those just making the turn were really struggling, and the pack was thin. This was about the 22 km mark. Those returning actually looked a lot fresher, had a good pace, and were moving along.
Abercrombie
As we were walking away from the marathon we stumbled across the new Abercrombie & Fitch in Ginza. This was quite the anticipated opening in Japan. A&F is popular here. We had some Japanese greeters at the door, decked out in a little winter gear. They utter English phrases at you when you go in, but that’s about it. I don’t think that the management staff will be too pleased with the picture I happened to snap. Talk about the imperfect moment? Which makes it perfect for me. I just wish I had gotten the store name in the frame. It sure looked that way on my phone!
We walked in and there was the typical bare-chested model in the entryway. I am always embarrassed for them. It was a little cold, so he had a jacket on. The inside was SO dark, and the cologne SO strong. We started stumbling up the stairs, got to the first floor, decided it was too stinky, too dark, and too loud and promptly left the building. I fear I am showing my age by whining about A&F. But Tomo didn’t like it either and he is still part of their demographic.
wanted to know if nagoya was affected in the recent earthquake