Tokyo Update 17/3/11

*Again-This update is mainly for friends outside Japan – apologies to followers of the blog in Japan – nothing new here*

Things continue to be tense amongst us all here.
The British Foreign Office’s statement that we should “consider leaving Tokyo” causing some concern, though what exactly “consider” means is unclear….trust me we have been “considering” it since last Friday.
Pictures of many foreigners leaving at Haneda(Tokyo’s ‘other’ airport) and stories of Lufthansa charging 7000 Euros!! for an economy flight out of Tokyo to Europe (unsubsantianed Twitter rumor) not helping either.

Shelves at most stores are empty of bread,instant noodles, bottled water and eggs (though thankfully there is still beer) due to panic buying by Tokyo residents which whilst not only being annoying to the others of us here who’d like some toast for breakfast is on a much more serious note affecting relief operations going to the worst tsunami affected areas where it is now snowing as if they hadn’t had enough shit to put up with, and most of them still have no or very sporadic electricity.

These graphs of radiation levels in Hino,Tokyo however are comforting:-

along with these readings from December 2010 for reference:-

Those readings are coming from this site and there are several live UStream channels of civilian geiger counters here in Tokyo, HERE and HERE. For now they are all showing normal levels of background radiation.

For now all seems well, but the continuing problems at the reactors and the efforts to get them under control are keeping us all from relaxing for very long.
And just when you think they’ve stopped another little aftershock comes , just to remind you, in case you had managed to forget about it.

Meanwhile, mothers are picking their kids up from the school I can see from my balcony…….

On a personal note I am bored and frustrated as I have nothing to do, I’m torn between thoughts of leaving and thoughts of going North to take some pictures.
Whilst I’m sat here in Tokyo all there is to do is watch the twitter feed until it drives me nuts and then go out and drink.

Last night I had a dream last night about being back in my office on the 19th floor in Shinjuku and another quake coming, suddenly I was alone in the office and this time the building toppled over, I woke with a start as the building started to disintegrate around me.

This is far from over.

 

as before follow me on twitter @uchujinphoto for current information.

 

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