Remembering 3/11

It’s been two years since the big earthquake struck the north east region of Japan. It was certainly a life changing event for everyone in the region, and also for many of us who lived hundreds of kilometers away. The same evening they opened the highway I was on my way. The strongest memory I have (rather silly but something that I can never wash out of my head) is the stench of the mud that covered everything, and got worse the closer to the destruction you got. All of these photos were taken more than 3 weeks after the earthquake, by which time many of the roads had been cleared.

There are still massive amounts of work to do to bring the tsunami hit areas back to something resembling a normal situation and a lot of people are critical of the pace of the government, but having been up there I am not surprised that things are taking time. It’s not even the seemingly straight forward question of rebuilding everything that was destroyed, we also need to consider for what reason we are rebuilding and how.

1. A train caught by the tsunami lies across a cemetary on top of a 24m tall hill overlooking Onagawa town, Miyagi prefecture. 2. A ship lies across a concrete building, on top of a car in Kesenuma city, Miyagi prefecture. 3. A tent to house a temporary morgue in Shiogama city, Miyagi prefecture. 4. A long distance travel coach washed off the highway south of Kesennuma city, Miyagi prefecture. I don’t know about survivors. 5. An announcement of the result of a building survey at what remains of the Saito residence, only the front gate pillar, Shiogama city, Miyagi prefecture. 6. Refugees at a temporary shelter in local high school, Higashimatsushima city, Miyagi prefecture. 7. Plum flowers in full bloom, outside Zuiganji Temple at Matsushima town, Miyagi prefecture. 8. Large vessel washed onto the harbor, Ishinomaki city, Miyagi prefecture. 9. Train washed onto Prefectureal Route 10, Sendai City, Miyagi prefecture. The nearest train track is 3-4km to the north. 10. Crushed crane truck outside the remains of a Lawson convenience store, Sendai city. 11. All that remains of Sakamoto station on the Joban line. I have heard that the station was evacuated before the tsunami struck. Yamamoto town, Miyagi prefecture. 12. A JR train from the Joban line crushed on top of the remains of Shinchi station, Shinchi town, Fukushima prefecture. All passengers of the train reportedly survived.

Iroha – Taiko Kids

I saw these two wonderfully cute little wadaiko (taiko) drummers in Mishima in the middle of last month. They performed as a mixed group of local taiko groups and drummers from some towns in Miyagi prefecture that are trying to rebuild themselves. It was an excellent perfumers. I love how these two just look so professional before going on stage. I wish I could be this cool!

Remembering 3.11 – Kesennuma Harbor

So it’s been one full year since the earthquake and still not a day goes by without us thinking about it. Even being safe and sound here in Tokyo during the earthquake and seeing none of the carnage first hand, like most people in the capital I was glued to the news for the first days of the unfolding disaster. I remember walking home from work, helmet in hand in case of after shocks, while watching the news on my cell phone. As darkness fell truly shocking images came in from the port city of Kesennuma on fire from burning ships drifting in over the city drowned in the massive tsunami, and those images were massively more shocking than the earthquake itself for me personally. The days following the earthquake me and many other foreign bloggers fought hard to fight back the ridiculous news coming out of foreign news media. The bank of Japan pumped money into the market to stabilize a completely unrealistic stock market situation, the government of Japan had to route precious resources to calm citizens of Tokyo all the while leaving the people actually stuck in the disaster zone in a worse situation than what would have been necessary if foreign media hadn’t been busy milking the story for every penny it was worth. At the end of March I and a good friend decided enough was enough and we piled as much food and supplies as we could find into a small car and just went up there to see how bad it really was. We did it again in the first days of April, this time with a third friend and a much bigger van, raising a budget of about 8000 USD just by asking friends, friends of friends, and coworkers for donations. A few stores around Tokyo was asked to prepare our orders and we spent a whole evening gathering supplies as not one store had enough of what we needed (at this point there wasn’t any sort of rationing in Tokyo itself, as stores had had plenty of time to restock after the initial buying). From the places we had already visited we knew exactly what supplies they needed. Although we had planned a route of cities to visit we ran out of supplies early on. The farthest north we got on that second trip was to Kesennuma City, the place were those first shocking images were coming from less than three weeks earlier. I took these photos of burnt and damaged ships in the harbor, but up to a certain point the city was in essence destroyed.

Since the day I took these photos I haven’t been able to go back up north and see for myself how much has changed but several of my friends have made it a monthly ritual to spend a weekend work volunteering in the worst hit areas. It is a little surprising to me personally that it felt better to walk in the rubble and see it first hand than to see it on the news or in photos. The scariest part of going there was the journey home and the feeling that you aren’t actually doing enough to help. I still daydream of quitting my job and moving up there permanently, but I doubt that will ever happen. I know things have stabilized a lot in this year, but having seen the area both before and after the earthquake, I still think there are few places in any country as dynamic, as challenging and as interesting as the north of Japan right now. I hope I can visit soon again.

If you want to read my other posts on the earthquake, just go back to March 11, 2011, March 13 2011, and so on, through to April 2011. But much more than the blog posts themselves, the comments are what is interesting as dozens of people wrote words of support, commentary on what was going on, pitching questions, helping out and making sure me and everyone else in what almost felt like a little community (a Tokyobling community?!) for a couple of weeks. Seeing my posts twittered and mentioned on other blogs also really helped lift my spirits. Non mentioned and non forgotten, those comments helped a lot.

Northern Horizons

I have returned! Tokyobling has been left fallow for far too long, and the reason is that I have spent the last week up north in lovely Miyagi Prefecture. Compared to Tokyo Miyagi is practically deserted. I visited two huge shrines, saw the Matsushima Bay Archipelago, tried to gain access to the Mount Zao Okama Crater Lake and ate more oyster and beef tongue than ever before.

As much as I love Tokyo, there isn’t much variety in terms of horizons here. We have a fantastic skyline but no horizon, so imagine my joy when I came up to the Miyagi highlands and saw this mountain range, 360 degrees perfect horizon with miles and miles of greenery. It is the coldest November in 17 years over here and the trees had shed their summer leaves earlier than expected but still I couldn’t help myself from just grabbing my camera and running out into the fields of a local cattle farm (luckily no cows were around). I understand most visitors not having spent years locked up in Tokyo might not see much charm in these photos but for me they were a slice of heaven. Visible in these photos are the Mount Zao range, and the last photo is of a famous 3-stepped water fall, 三階の滝, for a total of 181 meters. This was as far up as we could go, the road being closed due to snowfall, which was a bummer since I really wanted to see the gorgeous crater lake up there. Being a volcano, Mount Zao luckily hasn’t erupted much since 1720. Enjoy, and please excuse my silly landscape photography. Got to love that CPL filter!