Door Policy

A bar near Nogizaka

5 Months on

The tsunami was five months ago today. I won't write much but wanted to put up this sequence I came across in a magazine. It was taken at Kuji, Iwate which is the next major town North of Noda where the clip at the end of this earlier post was shot.

3:28

3:29

  

3:30

  

3:31

Click on the 3:30 pic. I've seen hunderds of images of the tsunami but when I saw this I still couldn't help but groan out loud. Pick anything you like for a sense of scale, the 2-storey house in the foreground, the green JCB-digger just to the right of the pile of sand, the harbour wall, the telegraph poles, either way, that's just a bastard of a wave.

Onahama July 30

I think we got promoted at the volunteer centre in Iwaki last week when they gave THJ a job quite a way South at Onahama about 50kms from the reactor.  We had to clean out this restaurant which was right on the water's edge and although protected by a large sea-wall and tucked up against a headland the first floor was in bits.

I'd driven around this place before looking for waves and remember the restaurant with the topless mermaid on the sign, and the big fish hanging out the front door but never ate there though.

This time there were 36 of us, a new record and we got the job done relatively easily. Word is starting to spread.

The volunteer centres will take a break next weekend for O-Bon the Japanese festival where it's believed the spirits of the ancestors return to the family home. Extra significance this year.

 Tales Mello from Rio de Janeiro on the bus home reading us his favourite part of Midsummer Night's Dream. Actually he was just (succesfully) trying to talk the flower into coming for a drink with us afterwards. Good on him though, he lives in Osaka and came to Tokyo on his summer holiday to join us for the day.

You pronounce his name with two syllables like  "Tal-es" but everyone uses the English pronounciation with one syllable of Tales. He said his father came to Japan and saw the book, "Samurai Tales" and was stoked to find there was a famous samurai called Samurai Tal-es. Sorry Dad.

Dirk, our resident Dutchman and entertainments-officer.

Thanks to Sylvain and Dirk for the photos.