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Section 72 Entry 0002. Date: 2003 October 11 Saturday. (diary) (previous) (top) (bottom) (next) (topics) (contents) After thinking about it for more than a year, last Sunday I finally stirred myself into action and went and bought two water containers. It was the recent earthquake in Hokkaido which prodded me into action. The scenes we saw on TV included water being distributed to waterless houses. I get the impression that do-it-yourself is becoming more popular in Japan. Certainly there are two home centers within walking distance of the house where I live, both piled high with just about everything you might need to do any job around the home, all the way from killing ants to renovating your bathroom. And it was at one of the home centers that I got two containers, each holding twenty liters. My plan was to rinse out the containers, fill them with water and then store them in the downstairs garage. Then, rather than just rinsing them, I decided to fill them up and leave them to soak. The result was that the containers spent the week sitting in the bathroom, ignored, still full of their first-wash water. I didn't think about them again until yesterday. Occasionally, when there is a gap in my business English teaching schedule, I get sent to an elementary school to teach some culture classes, and that's what I did yesterday morning. While I was teaching the little kids (we got heavily into animal noises, which are always fun - "Moo moo!" "Hello, cow!") I noticed, sitting on a shelf to one side of the classroom, a bunch of safety helmets, one for each kid. Previously, in various teachers' rooms at various schools, I'd noticed collections of safety helmets for the teachers, but I don't remember ever having seen safety helmets for the kids before. Maybe most classrooms don't have them, or maybe they're typically tucked away in some cupboard, unobserved. Anyway, the sight of the helmets made me think again of earthquakes. And, today, I emptied out the wash-and-soak water, filled the containers with fresh water and stored them in the garage. The thing about earthquakes in Japan is that the years go by and the Big One doesn't happen. True, the city of Kobe got trashed by a big earthquake some years back - a major national catastrophe with thousands dead. And the recent earthquake in Hokkaido released collosal forces, smashing up (largely uninhabited) countryside and generating tidal waves. (Peak tidal wave: four meters. But that was on an uninhabited stretch of the coast.) Big earthquakes do happen. And we all know that a really massive earthquake could hit the Tokyo-Yokohama area any day, without warning, killing thousands, knocking out the electric power, closing down the gas lines and sabotaging the water supply. However. The years go by and, although the house sometimes gets a little shake, nothing serious happens. So we get complacent. It's difficult to be otherwise, particularly when life is so busy that there's really not much time for just sitting around worrying. At one stage I made up a little emergency kit, packaged it up in a small backpack and took to sleeping with this kit by my pillow. However, later I needed to use the backpack for something, and I never afterwards reassembled the kit. I always sleep with a flashlight by my pillow, but I really need to get round to reassembling my emergency kit. The key thing is to have at least one portable radio to hand. I have two such radios, but I don't have a clue where either radio is. I need to find them and make sure they're working. The most important things, I think, are a radio, a flashlight and some water. Some time back, I did read a newspaper article in which some guy reckoned that you should also have a shovel and a crowbar so you can help dig your neighbors out of their collapsed houses, but I'm not sure that I'm going to go as far as buying those tools. I might, however, think about getting a safety helmet. There is always food in the house, but I should also make sure that I know where I can lay my hands on some matches. And I also need to find out where the camping gas stoves ended up getting stored. Section 72 Entry 0003. Date: 2003 October 13 Monday. (diary) (previous) (top) (bottom) (next) (topics) (contents) A national holiday here in Japan. Heavy rain. Apart from that, nothing happened except that my daily ration of spam arrived, one message offering me the opportunity to "look good in lingerie" ... somehow, I don't think I would. Speaking of spam, back on Saturday I posted a poem on that very subject:- |
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