More than 8 months after the accident at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima the leaking radiation is still not stopped. In fact, new researches show that the amount of leaked radiation and was is much higher than originally thought. And although lots of the foreigners who left after the earthquake because of the wrecked nuclear power plant are now coming back. But actually the real long-term problems are still there and everything but solved.

Oh what a day! Starting around noon the rain and wind got heavier and heavier. Looking out of my office window on the seventh floor usually providing an awesome view of Tokyo’s sky line including Tokyo Tower today showed me more an armageddon like scenery.

Some areas of Tokyo got apparently really flooded and little ponds build up, so that they had to close some streets which obviously lead to huge traffic jams. Many trains stopped at least for a few hours and people were gathering at the stations waiting for their trains to take them home. The whole scenery kinda reminded me of 3/11 when all the trains and busses stopped and people had to line up or just wait in front of the station entrances.

Once again, it’s really amazing how the Japanese people here handle the situation. Everyone stays calm and even when the masses begin to move again to get on the trains, no pushing, no hustling and no panic at all. No one start yelling at other people and everyone stays just calm. Although most of the people aren’t really happy about such a situation they don’t get pissed as much as you would probably expect it. Or they are just reeeaaalllly good at hiding it but even that is a sign of self discipline, right

I personally think it’s really amazing how many Japanese people stay calm when it comes to natural disasters or even personal problems. They somehow understood that there are some things beyond their control and there’s just nothing you can do about it. It’s just 仕方がない（しかたがない）.

How did you experience the typhoon, where were you and… did you get home safely? Leave us a comment or send us a mail!

It’s now exactly six months since one of the most disastrous earthquakes hit Japan and caused a huge tsunami flushing away whole villages and cities in north east Japan and the biggest nuclear incident since Chernobyl.

In part I I already shared with you how I experienced the day of the earthquake. In this post I wanna share with you how I experienced the weeks after the quake.

At that time my everyday life consisted of going to my language school, working at a fashion store, going to the gym and meeting friends for dinner and drinks. So what happened the week after the quake was that my school, my gym and the fashion store I was working at closed… No one knew for how long. I literally woke up every morning after a night of everything but decent sleep checked my phone and got messages from my foreign friends in Tokyo saying they’re about to leave the country or to go to Kansai at least. When I turned on my computer I found messages and mails from friends abroad telling me to leave the country ASAP. Even some of my friends who I’d expected to rather sink to the ground of the ocean with Japan (that’s more less what some of the media abroad predicted) than leaving the country.

So I ended up with a pretty limited amount of friends, as even my Japanese friends went a bit south or didn’t wanna leave their houses. I’m sure you can imagine how weird it was to stroll through Tokyo with remarkably less people than usual. The only thing I was missing was some tumbleweed rolling across Shibuya crossing just like in an old cowboy movie.

I basically met up with my very close German friend everyday for lunch, a stroll in the neighborhood, shopping and dinner. Of course we constantly exchanged the newest information about the situation, what to do and how to react to it.

Some convenience stores and supermarkets ran out of stock on some goods like dairy products, bread and water. And even after the goods returned to the supermarkets they rationed it and asked you to only take one or two bottles of water or bread and think of families and children. Once again I found it pretty impressive how Japanese people helped and supported each other and even started collecting money and goods for the people in Fukushima and other affected areas.

It was kinda hard to get accurate information as the Japanese government obviously didn’t tell the truth to avoid a panic especially in Tokyo but the foreign media on the other hand exaggerated like crazy coz for them it was just a story and business. Seriously, Geiger counters to measure radiation were sold out in Berlin, which is like 10.000 km away from Fukushima! Speaking of foreign media, I actually got interviewed by German TV stations and radio via Skype and phone to explain how I experienced t and how the current situation is. Pretty interesting experience!

I’m not sure if there us a final number about how many people died and how many people are still missing. But I know that it will take quite some time for the people to return to a normal life in the affected areas and the reconstruction will most likely take several decades.

I can barely express how it makes me feel every time I think about the incident and remember the pictures. Although already half a year has past and most of us in the not affected areas more or less returned to our daily routines, let’s not forget that there are still so many people suffering in the aftermath. But I’m sure if there is any country that can get back on its feet after such a disaster, it’s Japan.

If you wanna support the reconstruction, please check one of the following links.

Red Cross Japan

Volunteering

A topic that basically always comes up when I meet someone new or someone I haven’t talked to in like 6 months, is 3/11, the day when a M9 earthquake hit Japan and a massive Tsunami flushed away whole cities in the Tohoku region in North-Japan.

I was in Shibuya, just finished lunch with a friend and we were strolling around and I was about to go home. My friend was supposed to meet another friend, so I decided to wait for her friend with her.So we stand at Hachiko, the famous dog statue at Shibuya station, where she was supposed to meet her friend and then it happened. The earth started to shake, an indescribable noise was hearable and the buildings around us started shaking. Everyone around us was shocked and confused as it was shaking for a quite long time. And I can tell you, when the earth under your feet is shaking even 10 seconds feel like 10 minutes.

What really impressed me deeply though was how calm the people were. Obviously all trains stopped and the telephone network crashed, so the only way to contact people was Twitter, Facebook and public telephones. And without any trains running the only way to get home was by bus, by taxi or by foot. But as you can imagine, in a city like Tokyo with several million people commuting from the outskirts of Tokyo and cities nearby, busses and taxis were hard to get.

So, what did people do? They lined up for the public telephones, buses and taxis with lines reaching 100 m and more. No panic, no fights, nothing. I even heard the next days that people who ran out of restaurants and cafés without paying, went back after everything calmed down a little bit after the earthquake.

Fortunately, I live in walking distance from Shibuya, so it took me less than an hour to get home but several friends of mine living further outside of Tokyo said it took them 5-7 hours to get home. Some even stayed at their company, school or where ever they could crash.

At that time, no one could imagine that the nuclear power plant in Fukushima got totally destroyed and the following meltdown would cause such a disaster.

As you can imagine the following days and weeks were really tough and a big emotional challenge but more details about that in the next post

Where were you when the earthquake happened and you found out that Japan experienced the biggest earthquake in history? Leave us a comment or send us a mail!