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From Toronto, soon to be going home
Mar. 16th, 2011 12:35 amFirst of all, thank you so much for the well-wishes, it was wonderful to see how many people had us in their minds and hearts at his time.
Greetings from Toronto! Because of the uncertain situation in Japan, my family and I decided it was best for me to come home. There were no direct flights to Venezuela available, so at the moment I am at my friends house in Toronto and I think on Friday I continue to Caracas.
I live in Tsukuba, which is about 160 km from Fukushima (Tsukuba is north of Tokyo). We were having power and water rationing and stores were already sold out of food, toilet paper and the like by residents buying compulsively. Fortunately, there was little structural damage to Tsukuba-city and no danger of Tsunami.
Students were moved from the university dormitories to friend's houses if they could or shelters if they couldn't (the reason why is not 100% clear, maybe because they feared the structural integrity of the 40 year old dormitories or because water and electricity couldn't be guaranteed). So it is a strange mix of panic and business-as-usual as people go to work and laboratories resume their research, but people who can, go south or away. For instance, my laboratory friends from France and Netherlands are already on their way home and my Australian housemate is in Yokohama, and going home tomorrow. My Japanese neighbor who has a baby is going south to stay with her parents while her husband stays working in Tsukuba.
It feels weird to be going home like this. Narita Airport (Tokyo) was crowded and it was difficult to get tickets, as they didn't sell them at the ticket counter, but only through phone or internet reservation (thank God for my iPhone as the phone lines were full).
I only have my emergency bag that I packed on Saturday: 1 change of clothes, computer, passport, other documents, money, 2 coats and 3 sweaters, a roll of toilet paper, a towel, a roll of wide Scotch tape (you ever know when you might need to tape something), a swiss army knife and for some reason a lot of skin-care products I thought were essential in an emergency (???).
My housemate took some pictures:
( Seven eleven runs out of products )
( People lining up for water at a nearby park )
I hope I am over-reacting, and things will be controlled and back to normal soon and I can return home to Tsukuba, but as a student, March is a semi-vacation month as classes start in April, so it really has no big consequences for me academically even if I am away for a couple of weeks, and as my mother in Venezuela said "Since right now, it is wait-and-see, you can wait-and-see from here".
Lets hope for the best.
Greetings from Toronto! Because of the uncertain situation in Japan, my family and I decided it was best for me to come home. There were no direct flights to Venezuela available, so at the moment I am at my friends house in Toronto and I think on Friday I continue to Caracas.
I live in Tsukuba, which is about 160 km from Fukushima (Tsukuba is north of Tokyo). We were having power and water rationing and stores were already sold out of food, toilet paper and the like by residents buying compulsively. Fortunately, there was little structural damage to Tsukuba-city and no danger of Tsunami.
Students were moved from the university dormitories to friend's houses if they could or shelters if they couldn't (the reason why is not 100% clear, maybe because they feared the structural integrity of the 40 year old dormitories or because water and electricity couldn't be guaranteed). So it is a strange mix of panic and business-as-usual as people go to work and laboratories resume their research, but people who can, go south or away. For instance, my laboratory friends from France and Netherlands are already on their way home and my Australian housemate is in Yokohama, and going home tomorrow. My Japanese neighbor who has a baby is going south to stay with her parents while her husband stays working in Tsukuba.
It feels weird to be going home like this. Narita Airport (Tokyo) was crowded and it was difficult to get tickets, as they didn't sell them at the ticket counter, but only through phone or internet reservation (thank God for my iPhone as the phone lines were full).
I only have my emergency bag that I packed on Saturday: 1 change of clothes, computer, passport, other documents, money, 2 coats and 3 sweaters, a roll of toilet paper, a towel, a roll of wide Scotch tape (you ever know when you might need to tape something), a swiss army knife and for some reason a lot of skin-care products I thought were essential in an emergency (???).
My housemate took some pictures:
( Seven eleven runs out of products )
( People lining up for water at a nearby park )
I hope I am over-reacting, and things will be controlled and back to normal soon and I can return home to Tsukuba, but as a student, March is a semi-vacation month as classes start in April, so it really has no big consequences for me academically even if I am away for a couple of weeks, and as my mother in Venezuela said "Since right now, it is wait-and-see, you can wait-and-see from here".
Lets hope for the best.
