Another One Rides The Bus.

When last we spoke, I was about to partake on a bus journey to Tokyo with a half dozen fellow Canucks and that trek did indeed occur via Yamagata and Niigata (Google them.) I met the Consular, an old friend Nigel with his wife & son, and a new friend, Louis.

We waited around an hour to see if there were any other stragglers and outside the City Hall rendezvous, there were a couple hundred people waiting for a portion of rice to feed their families. I espied a lady with daughter and gave her a can of peaches and another old lady was given a roll of TP (neither of them wanted to accept them..."Crazy gaijin giving stuff out...beware!", but eventually they did begrudgingly appreciate and take me up on the offer. From the bus of our impromptu tour, I took a few pics of Nigel & son and several photos of long lineups.

Once we got out of Sendai and onto the Highway, the lineups were less frequent (though not non-existent) and we could just sit back and enjoy the scenery while sharing horror stories of the past week.

Once we made it to Yamagata, we stopped at the Army Base in hopes of filling up. Our hopes were dashed and we continued on with enough fuel to make it to Niigata where we may have to change buses.

En route to Niigata and shortly after our pee break at Yamagata-Ken Kankobussan Kaikan (which had lots of fresh fruit and over-priced touristy-goods), we found a gas station whereupon we acquired a full tank!

After we picked up our hitchhiker (Louisa) from Fukushima in Niigata, it started getting dark so I stopped snapping. At the Canadian Embassy we were met by an envoy of Consular who fed us sandwiches and then popped us on a shuttlebus to our Hotel (not comped by Canada by the by.) At our buffet breakfast, we probably ate more than we had all week!

Let's close with a picture of the Godzilla tissues (saved for an emergency) that I gave Nigel and some
before and after photos of the disaster. Scroll to and fro to see the pre and post.

One Week Later...

Still no zombies! (Sigh of disappointment.)

I am far behind in my daily updating and so this will be brief.
Sunday was a nice sunny day, I gathered up some Halloween candles and batteries and biked for about 80 minutes to Alex's abode to see how his family was faring. They fared well. The chargers for the cell phones were well received as were the potatoes and treats. They still had no water (I would have brought some, had I known. Alex, Kaede and I went for a long walk around his area. Saw a shattered glass building, a dead tanuki and other stuff. On the way back I saw a traditional tiled roof completely smashed to rubble. (Every single one of these rooves end up the same way.) As I was pedalling back, the power slowly started coming on and when I saw my first vending machine lit up, so did my spirits. As I got nearer home, I also saw a Christmas tree lit up (let's waste that newly acquired juice, eh.) After I'd crossed the bridge towards my ward I plunged into complete darkness. 

Monday was spent at NHK where I discovered classes cancelled but was allowed to recharge my phone and catch up on my FB and let people know I was still alive and kicking. Monday night, comic books by candlelight.
Tuesday afternoon, my power came back so I discovered that my computer was operative (as you can see) and I could do a little more tidying.
Wednesday and Thursday was spent inside watching the 24-hour news, FaceBooking, tidying and staying out of the freezing cold weather and the potentially radioactive snowfall. Scary stuff!

I had to make a decision and after a day of indecision I finally decided to get out of Dodge and catch the next stagecoach to Yuma Tokyo.

Today is the one week anniversary of E-day and it was a lovely sunny day so it was spent tying up loose ends. I cooked some rice, got paid, paid bills, gave KitKats to my School's Day Care, met my gal-pal Michiko and gave her a bottle of IceWine (she cried), took a few pics of Sendai train station, it was decimated! 

When I got home, I gave a care package to each of my neighbours including a cup of rice, a tea candle, a roll of TP and a KitKat with my photo on it so they'd know who it was from.

Now it's just past midnight and I still haven't begun to pack, as I am wont to do every single time I travel! The snag is because I'm catching a complementary bus to Tokyo thanks to the Canajun Embassy, I can only take one bag! That means, no souvenirs for the masses or otaku goods for my fellow nerds!

If the Powers that be will it, I shall return on April 18th and who knows what it'll be like a month from now?

Support From The Blogosphere!

Thanks to all your well-wishes, here's a heads-up to the folks giving their support to Japan (and me.)

August Ramone at The Good, The Bad & Godzilla has banded together a fistful of dollars via fellow Japanophiles and thanks to the
Japan Society
333 East 47th Street
New York, New York 10017
Attn: Japan Earthquake Relief Fund
you can add to those dollars.

Prof. Grewbeard over at Magic Carpet Burn offers up his random kaiju and links you to the above.

Mark Evanier recommends OPERATION USA

and so does the Aquaman Shrine which will also be offering up some original artwork to be auctioned off to the cause.

Tegan over at Bloggity-blog-blog has been offering up links to my blog and tons of support. I also got this cool Youtube from her.

Xombi writer John Rozum has a cool page of his favourite Yokai (mine is the Kappa, which is Japan's version of the Leprechaun...Happy St. Patrick's Day.)

Max the Drunken Severed Head suggest you donate to
AmeriCares (through Charity Navigator)
Red Cross (through Network for Good)
and The Salvation Army (You can donate directly at the link, or text 'JAPAN' or 'QUAKE' to 80888 to make a $10 donation.)

I'm sure there are many, many more but I don't have time to check 'em all out (got other things going on...oh another tremour.)

Finally in the midst of all this chaos, I got a postcard from another follower, Shawn Robare on Monday!

Holy Sh*t!

This is awesome, everyone should watch this and stop panicking! (Or at least calm down folks...)

"Nuclear Reactor Boy" has a "Tummy Ache!"
おなかがいたくなった原発くん.

There's a little more info over at JapanSugoi.