Tokyo Skytree and the Eclipse

Hi

It's been a week of media frenzy here. First the eclipse of the sun on Monday morning and then on Tuesday the opening of Tokyo Skytree. The eclipse was an annular solar eclipse, a rare phenomenon when the moon blocks all but a ring of the sun's light. The Japanese 'kinkan nisshoku' (金環日食）literally 'band of gold eclipse' is much more romantic than the English and captured the public's imagination. Skytree at 634 metres is the tallest tower in the world and the technology that gets the lift up to the first observation deck at 350 metres in less than 50 seconds is amazing. But why did NHK think it worth spending the whole of the morning news - from 7:00 am to 7:23 am on that topic alone? Weren't there more important things going on in the world? Neither event lived up to the hype as the weather was bad on both occasions. Here in Koriyama it got dark as I walked to work on Monday but the cloud was too thick to to see anything.

So for a couple of days these two events eclipsed (sorry) the more pressing issue of what is to happen to the nuclear plants and how the country is to deal with the upcoming electricity shortage. Up here in the Tohoku region we're going to have enough electricity and Tokyo (which has got old thermal power stations going again) should have enough, but in Osaka a request has gone out for a 15% cut (compared with the hot summer of 2010). Restaurants serving the local specialities, 'konomiyaki' cabbage pancakes and noodles cooked on a hotplate, are complaining that without air conditioning temperatures will rise to 40 or 45'C. I remember those days when I first came to Japan. Boy, was it hot.

In a separate development, the local authority has voted in favour of opening the Oi nuclear plant in Fukui. It doesn't really have much choice as it can't function without the tax income from the plant. The whole system is skewed this way and without changing the system it's hard to see how Japan will actually abandon nuclear - which is what most people want. And Hashimoto, Mayor of Osaka, came up with the bizarre suggestion that the Oi plant could be opened 'just for the summer'. What happened to the idea that they couldn't be re-opened until their safety was assured?

Good news is that today big government handouts for the recovery have been decided. The first slew of money in February was only 65% of what had been requested prompting the governor of Miyagi to comment that the Recovery Agency was not trying to help but was a censor. This time 1.5 times the amount requested was granted so the Recovery Agency seems to have got its act together and the recovery can get going at last.
So that's a round up of this week's news.
Bye for now
Anne

Children and Radiation

Hi

Interesting leader in the local paper (Fukushima Minpo) today written by Genyu Sokyu. He's highly respected locally, a Buddhist priest, and past winner of the highest literary prize, the Akutagawa Prize. He was on the first committee to discuss the recovery last year. He put forward an interesting thesis that, contrary to popular opinion, children are better able to deal with the effects of radiation than adults. Up to now,  Bergonie-Tribondeau's law of radiosensitivity, the result of experiments with rats, stated that immature cells were at greater risk. But Dr Kohei Takahashi, an obstetrician in Minami Soma, has found that babies repair quicker, and excrete caesium  faster than adults. Dr Masaharu Tsubokura of Minami Soma General Hospital who has done surveys using whole body counter machines says that whereas the half life of caesium in an adult is 100 to 120 days, for  a 6 year old it's one month, and for a one year old only 10 days. 

Certainly we're in new territory here. If it's true then it could be good news for those mothers and young children currently choosing to live outside Fukushima.

The Emperor's back after his trip to London - much to everyone's relief. It's only 3 months since his heart bypass operation and he packed a lot into a 3-day visit. England got a lot of good publicity. There was footage of his visit to the Coronation at the age of 19 with the Queen chatting to him at the Derby. We saw his walk around the Japanese garden in Holland Park, the reception to thank those who had offered assistance at the time of the disaster (some familiar faces in the Embassy ballroom!), and the lunch at Windsor Castle where he was seated next to the Queen. No mention here of the issues made much of in the British media - the presence of the King of Brunei (Princess Michiko was sitting next to him) and the snub from Queen Sofia of Spain. 

And today was the last day of the summer sumo tournament. I'm not much of a sumo fan but Kokutenho, unranked,  beat yokozuna Kokuho and six Ozeki to become the oldest wrestler ever to win (he's 37). Incidentally, one of the idiosyncracies of living out in the sticks is that at the end of the news we are always told how our local wrestlers, way down in the ranks, have done. Today one Oazuma did well. He hails from Tomioka and his parents are in emergency housing. He looked pleased.

Time to watch the historical drama, my Sunday night ritual,

Good night

Anne

Before and After

Hallelujah! 
After six months of repair work, the scaffolding is down, the netting cleared away and for the first time in a long time I have daylight coming into my apartment. 

Now that I have use of the balcony again, the vexing question: to hang the washing out or not? A quick survey of the flats and houses in the vicinity suggests that most people are still drying their clothes inside - maybe 10% have washing outside. But it's a lovely day and I take the opportunity of putting the 'futon' bedding out - the first time they've been aired since the disaster. What a change from the old days when Japanese would put everything out in the sunshine: to air, kill the bugs, and make soft and fluffy.  The bedding would plump up so much it wouldn't fit back in the cupboard!

Anyway, here are some Before and After pictures to show you how things have changed round here.

Bye for now

Anne

Badly damaged tile roof replaced with a newer, lighter roof.

The temple was demolished within weeks and a new one opened just recently.
(The tree in the circle on the right - they took it away during the work and brought it back again!)

This was the most dramatic damage in Koriyama. Rumour has it that the owner wanted more space, and contravening building regs, removed the pillars in the ground floor office. Now it's a car park.

The church hall (white building with red roof) was unsafe so had to be pulled down. The  house to the left is a 'soba' noodle restaurant. It took a long time (shortage of workers, shortage of tiles) but the roof tiles on the ridge were eventually replaced in November.

And this is the entrance to my apartment. Brand new front door to  replace the buckled one
and  walls as good as new - or let's hope so ...

11 May 2012 - Update

Hi

My usual monthly update but not a lot to report. All quiet at the reactor. Off the news radar, even here. According to the Tepco website (it's in English too) some of the issues raised recently in the media are unfounded. The building over Reactor 4 is not going to collapse and a mere 60 cm of water in the containment vessel of Reactor 2 won't affect cooling.

There's been a lot of debate about how much electricity the country needs this summer and whether we can manage without nuclear. A few weeks ago it seemed that the PM was pushing for the Oi Plant in Fukui to be re-started to meet demand - and that may still happen - but the debate is more measured now. An independent inquiry was set up and has just concluded that IF it's a sweltering hot summer like the year before last, and IF people throughout the country economise like Tokyo did last year, and IF no nuclear plants are in action, then most of the country will have enough electricity except for Hokkaido and Kyushu which will be a bit short and the Kansai area (Osaka, Kyoto) which will be 15% short.

How to meet the shortfall? An appeal for energy conservation, planned power cuts and the re-opening of the Oi nuclear plant are on the cards.

Big companies are taking independent action. Our parent company Rengo which opened a  brand new factory in Sendai on 15 March to replace the one washed away by the tsunami has fitted over 2,500 solar panels which will provide 45,000 kW/year of electricity saving 200 tons of CO2. Lithium ion storage batteries have also been installed for emergency back up of server and phones and to store cheap night-time electricity to use during the early afternoon peak. But these measures are too expensive for small businesses and hospitals.

The debate about nuclear goes on. There's a groundswell of popular opinion against nuclear, some of it emotional. Setouchi Jakucho, novelist turned Buddhist nun and 90 year old national institution, went on hunger strike in protest. The electricity companies are being grilled and ways to meet the shortfall are being discussed. One interesting point that came out was that Kanden (short for Kansai Electricity) says  it can't abolish nuclear immediately as that would wipe half the assets off its balance sheet effectively bankrupting the company.

Tepco has produced a recovery plan. Asking for a 1 trillion yen  injection of government funds (I think that's 7.7 billion GBP but the figures are astronomical). The government would take a majority shareholding, thereby nationalising the company. Prices are to rise. Electricity for businesses in the Tokyo area has already gone up 17% and domestic bills are to go up 10% in July. The recovery plan is based on the premise that two reactors at the Kashiwazaki plant open next spring but this is controversial. The company aims to cut costs by 3.3 trillion yen over the next 10 years. The new chairman Mr Shimokobe has said he'll work for no pay and the new CEO is to be a Mr Hirose an internal promotion.

Nearer to home, the local authorities in the evacuated areas continue to wrestle with the thorny problems  regarding their future. They were dealt a heavy blow a few weeks ago when the government produced maps showing that even in five years time radiation levels would remain above 50 mSv/year in the four villages nearest to  Fukushima Daiichi. The government wants to get on and build an 'interim storage site' there for all the radioactive waste but the local authorities won't agree until compensation is properly sorted and so the wrangling goes on. Recently the four villages announced they want to set up temporary communities elsewhere and the government has promised to build houses and roads but no one's quite sure how this 'town within a town' would work. Who'd pay taxes to who? Which authority would collect the rubbish? Etc, etc.

Koriyama continues to prosper. The bars and hotels are full, the department store is doing well I hear. There seems to be a lot of money swishing around. Construction obviously. Those buildings that didn't survive the quake have been demolished and some rebuilt. Many people are having work done to strengthen their homes. (An old couple I know is having the traditional tiles removed from their roof and replaced with a lighter roof, not the kind of work you'd normally contemplate in your 80s.) And then a lot of compensation money ends up in the pachinko halls which continue to do good business. It's a mini-bubble. The funding for the big recovery projects isn't in place yet.

Another radiation measuring office opened on Station Road (Ekimae-dori) - they're taking over empty premises like charity shops on a UK high street. Levels still at 0.59 μSv/hr here in Koriyama but people are a lot less worried than they were. If you came here you wouldn't think anything was amiss.
Cheers
Anne

Kodomo no Hi (Children's Day)

Hi

Yesterday, 5th May, was Kodomo no Hi, Children's Day and a national holiday. Girls Day is on 3rd March and this one is mainly for the boys. A Japanese helmet on display perhaps in the tatami room and for a very lucky little boy, carp streamers flying from a flagpole in the garden. Driving round the Koriyama countryside this holiday week I saw lots of these (koi nobori 鯉のぼり)  though oddly hardly any in the Aizu area. I don't know the reason and neither did my friends. No kids? Custom dying out? Can't be bothered? Pity as the kids must love them and they're a joy to see. Around here you also see splendid banners (のぼり） made by craftspeople based in Sukagawa.

Sadly, the number of children in Japan is diminishing year by year with Fukushima seeing a big drop last year. Nationally the number of children (under 15) has been falling every year for the last 31 years. In Fukushima prefecture it has been falling about 2% a year but figures for 1 May this year are 15,494 down on the same date last year, a fall of 6%. Koriyama's seen the biggest drop - 3,800 less than last year. (And these figures don't include those who have moved away but have remained registered here.) 

Although the authorities are doing their best to make the place child friendly through health checks, free medical care, free breast milk testing, the provision of indoor play facilities and community care, there's still so much uncertainty. The clean up hasn't really got going yet and it's not clear what's going to happen to the evacuated areas. 

I know a few people who've put off starting a family for the time being and if this is a trend it will keep the figures depressed for a few more years yet.

May 5th was also a milestone in the nuclear saga. The last nuclear power plant (the Tomari plant in Hokkaido) was shut down for 71 days of routine tests, to be followed by 'stress tests'. Japan now has no nuclear reactors in operation - they used to supply nearly 30% of the nation's power. When will they re-open? The discussion goes on with no conclusion yet. The government is to announce a plan for supply and demand this next week and an energy saving appeal. It's going to be another hot summer.

Goodnight

Anne

Koi-nobori carp streamers and banners at a farmhouse between Koriyama and Miharu  a week ago.

Takizakura

Hi

I got up early today to try (again) to see the famous weeping cherry. (The things I do for this blog!) I got there at 8:30 am and had only a 20 minute wait for the car park. Cloudy sky so pictures (below) not as good as the other day. When I first came to this area many years ago you just pulled up in the car right next to the tree. This was the first time I'd battled the crowds in the new set up and I was amazed. There are two huge car parks, a tunnel connecting them to the site, a 300 yen entrance fee and a paved approach, lined with local farmers and nurseries selling their wares, to rival a Kyoto temple. The tree itself was in full flower at the top (mankai 満開）but further down the leaves were beginning to appear (hazakura 葉桜).  Wish I could have seen it floodlit. Tonight is the last night. In the night pictures it really does look like its namesake, a waterfall. Maybe I'll make that next year's project.

Then on for coffee at Aoitsuki. Lovely house looking out onto woods, calming. Speciality of the house - home made cake and pumpkin creme caramel. The proprietor gives readings of Miyazawa Kenji stories once a month. Like me, she's used writing as a means to come to terms with the nuclear accident. Check out the blog (Japanese only). And if you want to visit, be warned it's very difficult to find. Print out a map before you set off.

http://www.d3.dion.ne.jp/~aoituki/top.html

Next stop, the Tofu Cafe in Miharu no Sato near the lake. This is run by local tofu maker Oh-hataya, famous for their thick triangles of fried tofu. But you can get anything there: quiche (made with okara and soy milk) 1,050 yen, fried tofu pizza 680 yen, or a big lunch plate of assorted tofu goodies with rice, soup, dessert and coffee for 1,250 yen.

http://www.oohataya.com/cafe.html

And finally, back to Koriyama and one of my favourite places, the Sato Sakura Museum. It was built a few years ago by a prosperous local car dealer to house his collection of post war Nihonga, Japanese style paintings. The pigments are made through mixing ground coloured stone with deer hide glue to give a mellow, textured finish but it's the scale of these paintings that surprise. The owner commissioned five paintings of the Miharu Takizakura from different artists and each painting is in four sections, each section the size of a tatami mat! The gallery, as usual, was empty of visitors which is a great pity. The huge pictures of tigers and elephants, cats and monkeys would stop a child in its tracks. The museum has opened a branch in Tokyo, in Naka Meguro so you can see one of the Takizakura pictures there. (Tel: 03-3496-1771)
http://satosakura.jp/

So the season is over. The cherry blossom in town has gone, the Takizakura will soon be green and look more like a weeping willow than a cherry. This year there were only two days, Tuesday and Wednesday last week, when the flowers were out and the weather warm enough for picnics (hanami 花見). The petals fall like snow (hanafubuki 花吹雪）and it's gone. That's what it's all about: catch it while you can. I was once in England when the cherries were in flower but come rain or wind the cherries (admittedly they were double cherries) seemed to stick on the trees for weeks. Here the Somei Yoshino variety is fragile and symbolises the  uncertainty, transiency, impermanence of things - or as they say here, mujo 無常. Yes, in this country of earthquakes, tsunami and volcanoes, when you never know what's round the corner, the sakura are very special. Enjoy the moment.
Goodnight,
Anne

The 1,000 year old Takizakura (Waterfall Cherry) in Miharu

9.5 metres round the trunk. Lots of support for the old dear.

A little shrine at the foot of the tree. I was surprised to see people bowing their heads in prayer.
Shinto in action? (The national religion that believes there is a spirit in every living thing.)

I was once told off for taking a photo from this angle! (The tree is supposed
 to be seen from the front like ikebana.) But who cares?

Aoitsuki cafe

The Tofu Cafe in Miharu no Sato

Three paintings of the Takizakura in Sato Sakura Museum.

Detail of painting by Hayashi Junichi.

Sakura, Sakura

Hi

After a week of cold, wind and rain, today at last we had warm weather. Time to go cherry blossom viewing (hanami 花見）. Already past its best in town so I drove out to Miharu which has scores of weeping cherries most of them saplings of the famous 'Takizakura' (waterfall cherry) 1,000 years old and one of the 'Three Great Cherry Trees' of Japan. I knew it would be crowded so headed first to my favourite, the 'Fudo-zakura' which is uncommercialised and has a small shrine at its foot. Drove around trying to get to the Takizakura by the back way but the police had it blocked off. Faced a wait of an hour or so (and that was from a shortcut; there was a jam of 5 or more kms from the expressway side) so gave up. I'll try again another day.

Headed back to Koriyama where people were having picnics or sampling the food from stalls. There's a saying 'Hana yori dango' (花より団子), sweet cakes rather than the flowers. A cherry blossom equivalent of  'I'm only here for the beer', perhaps.

Golden Week has started. Nine days holiday for some lucky people. I have Sunday and Monday off. Back to work on Tuesday and Wednesday,  then four days off, returning to work on Monday.

Happy holidays!

Anne

The Fudo-zakura, 350 years old

Five metres round the trunk, this guy seemed to be an expert

The little shrine. The dull thud of the gong echoed out over the countryside.
Other  sounds: the  singing of the nightingale and croaking of frogs.

The flowers - dark pink and delicate

Another ancient tree, the Kaisan Yakushi-zakura.
Can you see the huge camelia tree growing alongside the trunk?

Delightful countryside to travel through. Scenes like this not uncommon.

Back in Koriyama at the Kaiseizan shrine.
Wonderful smells: yakitori, grilled corn, pancakes, candy floss 

Picnic in Kaiseizan Park

Notice: 'This area decontaminated. Before 2.49μSv/hr. After 0.55μSv/hr.  18 April 2012.'

Four Green Bottles

Hi,

Many times in this blog I've referred to Japan's 54 nuclear reactors. Well, now there are 50. Units 1 to 4 at Fukushima Daiichi, which you might say 'accidentally fell',  have been officially closed.

But this has caused new problems for the authorities in the area and serves to highlight the symbiotic relationship between the nuclear industry and local authorities in this country. The prefecture and local authorities have refused the extra handouts they used to get but Okuma where the reactors are situated is still wanting its property tax. But what are the facilities at the plant worth? How do they get in and value them? And what's the value of all the new decontamination equipment that's been put in place? It's all got to be worked out.

While Fukushima's 10 reactors (the fate of Units 5 and 6 and the four reactors at Fukushima Daini have still to be decided) were the main source of nuclear power for Tokyo Electric, there is another cluster of four nuclear plants (13 reactors) on the Japan Sea coast in Fukui prefecture which supply Kansai Electric (Osaka).

These are constantly in the news but everyone was surprised yesterday when NISA (The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency) announced that the Tsuruga plant in Fukui has a fault running right alongside it and should never have been built there in the first place and, worse still, there are mini-faults running right underneath Reactors 1 & 2 which might move if the main fault ever moved. This coming from a government agency is a first. Further tests are being done but the plant (built in 1970) might have to be decommissioned.

The debate over whether to open the Oi plant in Fukui continues. Kansai Electric forecast  a 20% shortage of electricity this summer if it's not opened. But their figures were based simply on an increase in demand equivalent to that of the sweltering hot summer two years ago.  This has been challenged and an independent enquiry is being held which will take other factors into consideration, for example how much can be saved by economising like last year, and using hydroelectric to cover the peak. The problem is that trust in the government and the electric companies is at rock bottom.

Pity then the new Chairman of Tokyo Electric, Mr Shimokobe, a lawyer and currently heading the compensation board. Various business leaders had been approached but no one would touch the job.  Businesses have to make a profit and how can Tepco be made profitable with so much conpensation to pay, and latent decommissioning costs? The basic question of how much responsiblity the state takes and how much the electric companies take still hasn't been addressed. But at least the new man will know that Tepco needs to make drastic cuts to meet its obligations. A word you often hear these days in connection with the electric companies is tono-sama shobai (殿様商売）, 'running a business like a daimyo', i.e. complacent, not trying hard enough.

So the government's plans to reopen the closed reactors are not proceeding smoothly. At this rate, there'll be no more green bottles (sorry reactors) left hanging on the wall.
Anne

Still waiting ...

Hi folks

I was hoping to tell you that the cherry blossom's out and it is in some sunny sheltered spots but it's been cold these past few days. The famous weeping cherry trees in Miharu won't be in flower till the end of the week. NHK had everything set up prime time Saturday evening: a one hour live programme under the floodlit 1,000 year old Takizakura (literally 'waterfall cherry'). Genyu Sokyu, priest at a Zen temple in Miharu and Akutagawa literary prizewinner was there sitting out in the cold. But the tree wasn't in flower. It's a venerable old tree and wonderful  in any season but it's a pity it didn't bloom to order.

Had some interesting comments from Diogenes (thank you!). Check them out at the end of previous post Food 1. In addition to the serious points, lots of interesting trivia. Did you know that all lead exposed to the air since Hiroshima is radioactive and there's a market for pre-WWII lead from sunken ships and old buildings to use in measuring equipment? And here's another. A 70 kg human being contains 8,100 bq of natural radioisotopes. That works out at 116 bq/kg - over the new levels of 100 bq/kg - making people too radioactive to eat! And finally, calculations to show that the odd high radioactive food doesn't matter that much. It's the cumulative average that's important. So maybe I'll break my fast. Actually I have to admit to having succumbed recently to the local strawberries. 

If I'm really worried I could always pop into a new clinic that's sprung up on the main street （駅前通り）calling itself The Radioactive Premium Dock Centre. It offers whole body counter testing and thyroid testing. It looks very modern and the boards in the window which sport flags from Belarus and stress international connections give the impression of an international semi-official organisation but a search on the internet identified it as an IT company called The Japan Third Party Company, listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. I suppose it was inevitable that enterprising businesses should capitalise on people's anxieties and maybe there is a demand. They opened a clinic in Tokyo in January, one in Sendai in March and now one here in Koriyama and another in Iwaki. Normal price 12,600 yen but special price for Fukushima of 5,250 yen for adults and 3,500 yen for children under 15. I certainly wouldn't pay the full price. Will I be tempted to have a go? Last summer I would have said yes. But now I'm feeling better informed and a lot calmer. Probably not, is the answer.

Did you hear about the football and volleyball washed up in Alaska? Owners (a teenage boy and girl) who lost everything in the tsunami are delighted to get them back.
Cold and rainy today but better weather forecast from tomorrow. The start of the cherry blossom season at long last?
Bye for now
Anne

Ban Lifted in Minami Soma

Hi,

The evacuation order has been lifted in the southern part of Minami Soma. People have been able to make quick visits but from today they're allowed to go in and out freely (though not stay the night). 4,000 people went in today - including teenagers who weren't allowed on the earlier visits. It's as if time stopped. Everything's a mess from the earthquake and there's a lot of tidying up to do. The TV showed one man clearing out his fridge. Stuff had been in there for a year!

There's still no water, roads are in a bad way, some houses collapsed and on the coast the debris from the tsunami is untouched. It's hoped to get the water supply going and emergency repairs to infrastructure completed by next March.

It's the start of the spinach season. Lovely stuff that's grows through the winter snow and cold and is thick, very dark green and sweet (unlike the pale, lanky stuff we're getting from elsewhere). But some on sale at a farmers' market was found to contain over 500 bq/kg of caesium. Turns out some stupid idiot used last year's plastic to cover the ground. Can you credit it? While some farmers are going to extreme lengths to monitor their produce and put information out daily on the internet some idiot does that and gives everyone a bad name. JA (the agricultural association) hurriedly sent round a memo and is holding meetings in an attempt to limit the damage.

After cold and rain on Saturday we've had two days of warm weather and suddenly it feels like spring. Warm, pleasant, and the light is dazzingly bright. The cherry trees in town are tinged pink - the buds are swelling - but they're not open yet. A few more days. This year the cherry blossom will be very special indeed.

Anne