Needle ice

In cold winter,you can find the needle ice everywhere around a field here.
The subterranean liquid water is popping up on surface.

When I see the ice needle, I feel the real winter has come.

folded paper crane

10 km run

Tanzawako Marathon was held on the 27th of Nov.
I joined and run 10km around the lake Tanzawa.
Time was 71 min. and completed !

This Lake Tanzawa is the artificial lake that was created in 1978.
The old houses which used to be there on the bottom of the lake were abandoned.
Now the nature around the lake is preserved and you can enjoy the beautiful scenic view in spring, autumn especially.

Azalea

When I was climbing down, I found this flower.

The view of Mt.Yatsugatake from Mt.Kayagatake

Yatsugatake is here.
Kayagatake is the mountain of 1704 meters in height.

Let’s go to the real bright future.

Tokyo seems to have returned to the normal life.
Trains have resumed the original time table and operations are in standard service now.
But most of companies are saving electric power.
The government has asked us to cut the power up to 25%, comparing to the previous year.

Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has the capability of supplying 36,000kW in the end of March, 2011 due to the devastating earthquake occurred in the 11th March。
Summer is the peak season of consuming electric power in Japan.
So, it is said that TEPCO needs to supply at least 55,000kW in the end of July.
As of the 20th April, TEPCO can supply 41,500kW, in the meantime 33,500kw will be expected to consume.
So far, so good now.
But hot summer is coming. You need to save the power more.

The governor of Tokyo Metropolitan City said that the power of many vending machines scattered in Tokyo should be cut. You can save the power comparable to one NUC power plant by doing so.
This is the quite radical opinion but I will go with him ;)
Now every train stations, shops in Tokyo are a little bit dark in order to save the power.
Even in business office they cut some of fluorescent lamps over your head.

So Japan is now a bit dark but even so brighter than the cities in EU and USA.
Japan was consuming a lot of power in the past. Now is the good chance to reconsider our life.
Physically Japan is now dark country but it could invent energy-saving systems more than before.
When it could succeed in inventing many good systems, Japan would be a logically brighter country than it used to be.
I hope Japan is going in the right direction.

Vending machines at a train station.

The support for the northern Japan (Tohoku area)

Now we are supporting Tohoku area in Japan by buying the products manufactured there.

Bee's nest

Cherry blossom

Cherry blossom

Spring has come. All cherry trees are now blooming in Tokyo area.
But government announced that you should refrain from flower festival or flower-viewing parties under cherry trees, which many people will hope to do so.
The reason why they announced was to consider the thoughts of the evacuees from the great TSUNAMI.
The evacuees are under pressure how to survive the difficulties of poor life condition after the quake.

Many people, however, are thinking that this is bureaucratic thought.
Consumers should consume things you want. Otherwise, our economy will be shrinking rapidly.
Without healthy economy, you can not help the evacuees.
You can support the refugees with buying the products which will be manufactured by the survivors.
In order to rise again, you should not refrain from even flower festival or flower-viewing parties.

The radioactive substances are coming !

The radioactive substance,Iodine 131was found at Kanamachi Wastewater Treatment Works in Tokyo.
This seems to be spewed by Nuclear Plant in Fukushima prefecture in Japan.
Governor has announced that the infants under one year old should NOT  be given tap water as far as possible in specified area.
In announcement, he said he is preparing 240,000 bottled-water for the infants in return.

At a store (2)

At the same store near my office on 24th,March.
They seem to be supplying foods to sell.
Please compare this photo with the other one on my blog.

At a store

This store is located near my office (Yotsuya in Tokyo), having poor stock to sell.
The photo was taken at 8 am.

Scheduled black out

As of 2008, approximately 23% of electric power comes from nuclear power plants in Japan.
Therefore, if the nuclear power plants are damaged, it would be likely for power companies to cut the supply in order to meet the balance between demand and supply.

This is occurring in Japan.
The nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture in Japan was heavily damaged by the quake on 11th, March.
Though the company as well as the government is trying to cool the plant, this does not mean the recovery of the nuclear plants.
This means the prevention effort from nuclear disaster.
Power supply is now short to meet the demand.
The company has decided to cut the power supply to some extent.
This is called "the scheduled black out".
They have divided the Kanto area (the south of the nuclear power plant, 200 km away) into 5 groups.
Day by day they decide what group should be cut the power supply and how long.

No exception about customers.
The trains would be shut the operation. Many stores would be forced to close.
Poor electric power supply might affect manufacturing of food, water,etc.
People those who are afraid of the shortage of foods rush to stores, supermarkets.
People tend to buy more than they need. This cause the real shortage of foods.
The goverment has announced that there are enough foods and people don't need to be afraid.
Worse than this, evacuatee can not buy the foods they need due to the shortage caused by non-evacuee.

This shortage is occurring on the gasoline (petroleum).
People drive around for it but gas stations don't have it to sell !

So the life like this goes around here in Japan.

good things and bad things about the disaster

Good things:
- To understand that we are not alone.
- To know that many friends are concerning about us.
- To understand that many countries are sending troops, helping the quake area.
- To see the politicians stopped futile political fight temporarily.

Bad things:
- The nuclear plant is in danger.
- The scale of tsunami was more than you could have imagined in height, velocity.
- Tsunami will be able to kill more people than earthquake.
- The magnitude of the earthquake this time was the biggest on record.
- The quake could damage the power plants and caused the shortage of electricity supply.
- The public transportations even in central Tokyo are affected due to this shortage.

The life here

Today, I drove my car to a gas station to buy petro but they have stopped selling it due to no petro they have.
So the life without petroleum, LPG, electricity,etc will start soon even here in the central Tokyo.
We will see.

Tsunami

Now I understood very well that tsunami is more dreadful than the earthquake itself (its magnitude was 9.0 from recent report. This is the first value on the record.)

This time tsunami caused by the quake has swallowed the whole town and robbed the life of many people living near the sea.

Reportedly 200 people were found near the sea after tsunami was gone.

Tsunami was faster than you can imagine to evacuate.

You MUST go out of your house as sooner as possible and evacuate to higher places as soon as the official alert was given.

This time reportedly tsunami was 10-meter high, easy to climb over the sea bank or floodwall and left many people died.

The earthquake is not died down yet and keeping Japan shaking continuously.

The next is nuclear power plants in Fukushima prefecture.

They are in danger now.

The biggest earthquake

Yesterday, the biggest earthquake has struck the north of Japan.
When it occurred, I was in a office located in the central Tokyo.
I could not sit in front of my desk. I saw the crack run the wall of the office.
The quake was more than I could imagine.
The decision was made that all employee were to go home with free taxi ticket.
But once I was out of office, no taxi was found only with many many people were walking toward their home.
All public transportation stopped operation.
So I had also decided to walk toward my home, more than 30 km from the office.
While I was walking, I saw some people buying bicycles but other people walking without talking, still no taxi of cource.
After 3 hours, the car of the woman's farther in my group came and picked us, I was lucky.
But traffic jam was terrible. Eventually I was at my home 6hours after leaving the office.
Though I was lucky, I was wondering if other guys in my office could go home in safe.

If the quake like this hits the central tokyo, I think I am not the one of men to survive.