Category: Japan

  • Concentration

    I’ve not been able to concentrate as well on work as I would like for the last few days. People may be able to guess at the reasons. The situation in Tohoku is still grim, but according to news reports on NHK this morning the roads are now clear to most of the affected area,…

  • Consular Advice

    The UK Embassy has just changed its consular advice, to say that British nationals in Tokyo and to the north of Tokyo should consider leaving the area. Well, we’re in Kawasaki, which is (just) south of Tokyo, so we’re fine. Actually, I’m sure that they really mean that British nationals in the Kanto region or…

  • Stress

    The situation in Kawasaki is still much the same as yesterday, but the stress is starting to get to people, including me. There was a fairly strong earthquake last night. Apparently it was completely independent of Friday’s, and not an aftershock, but that doesn’t help people to calm down. There are no food shortages yet,…

  • New Blind

    We had a new blind fitted in the bedroom today. It looks very nice. I mention this because international media reports seem to be suggesting that Tokyo is caught up in mass panic, teetering on the verge of social breakdown and ever greater catastrophe. This is very, very far from being the case. I was…

  • Rolling Blackouts

    The Kanto area (around Tokyo) is going to be subject to rolling blackouts until at least the end of April, and possibly beyond that, into summer and winter. At least tomorrow, we are likely to be without power from 13:50 to 19:00 local time; I don’t know whether the same time block will be maintained,…

  • Road to Recovery

    Tokyo is getting back to normal, with electricity generally restored and trains running again. Supermarkets and convenience stores are still short of fresh goods, suggesting that distribution has not got back to normal yet, and TEPCO, the electricity company, is warning of the possibility of rolling blackouts, as many of its power stations are in…

  • Earthquake

    We’re all fine. Well, Silver feels the need to make that explicit when writing about crashing her trike, so I’d better say it when reporting on the effects of the largest earthquake ever recorded in Japan. As fate would have it, today I was teaching on the other side of Tokyo. It would have to…

  • The ÅŒyama Kaidō: From Nagatsuta to Atsugi

    My most recent stage of walking the ÅŒyama Kaidō was the longest single stage, at something over 20km, plus walking to and from the railway stations at the beginning and end. I did it on February 13th, because I was very tired, and needed a break. Since the tiredness was primarily mental, walking about 30km…

  • End of the Year

    The Representative Assembly works by the Japanese fiscal year, which means that, just as our term began in April last year, so the first year ends at the end of March. However, we don’t have a meeting in March, so the meeting on Sunday was the last of the first year. In the Society and…

  • The ÅŒyama Kaidō: From Futagotamagawa to Nagatsuta

    My scheme to walk the whole length of the ÅŒyama Kaidō, from Akasaka in central Tokyo to ÅŒyama, in Kanagawa, was last covered on this blog about a year ago. It was, in fact, suspended for quite a long time, first because we were moving house, then because we had one of the hottest summers…