Hello everybody!

First of all, I want to thank everybody who sent comments, messages, e-mails etc.! I'm so happy so many people are worried about us people here in Japan!
I really appreciate it! Thanks so, so much!
I'm so busy at the moment, and also extremely exhausted, that at the moment I can't reply to all your nice comments, msgs etc., please understand!
Actually I wanted to write another update 2 nights ago already, but I just didn't have time to do so.

There's so much going on and so much I want to write about, but again I don't have that much time and I don't know how to express what's going on!

Still, things are completely normal and safe where I live. Not a single one of the earthquakes or aftershocks have reached Western Japan yet.
Although tsunami warnings were for whole Japan, no real damage anywhere but close to the epicenter.
Meanwhile everybody knows that the real problem is not the earthquake or the tsunami, but the atomic power plants that are still not under control and the radiation leak that already has been confirmed many days ago.
As most of you probably follow the news anyways, I won't repeat what happened in the last few days.

I think a lot of the foreign media (esp. Europe and America) are totally exaggerating, though!
The reasons for this are clear:

1. They want people to stay in front of the TV, watch their programs, listen to the radio, buy more newspapers etc. If it sounds like the biggest disaster in a long time, people will care and stay tuned!


2. Partly they also wanna get people to donate money to Japan and you reach more people if you exaggerate like this! "Poor Japan will be doomed!" "A second Chernobyl" etc.


3. I think that it also might be partly a political reason as this is a good option to finally get other power plants out of the way in other countries "thanks to" what happened in Japan. If they exaggerate with wild worst case scenarios, people will freak out and ask to shut down more and more power plants.

That said, it's not like I'm saying it's completely safe and not dangerous. ( Read more... )

As I already mentioned, life goes on as normal here! You don't notice anything bad has happened at all, although the weather is extremely strange, gray, foggy ever since ... scary!
Here some random photos from yesterday:



Funny sign in the toilet.

( +4 )


Random: People keep saying in Western countries that "13" is an unlucky number. In Japan it's "4" and "9".
Some people start thinking now, that "11" must be the real unlucky number! September 11th! March 11th 2011! I don't wanna imagine what might happen on "Pocky Day" (11.11.2011)

Anyways, thanks so much to everybody who's worried. I'm still here, I'm still somewhat okay, just extremely tired as my day consists of getting up early and preparing to leave Japan if necessary, checking the news, working over 8h/day, preparing my trip to Osaka, calling my family every night etc. .... not enough sleep and no time at all in this chaos.
I'll try to keep you up to date, though!
If you don't hear anything in the next few days, then only because I went to Osaka!!

Thanks so much friends!!!!
If you're worried, you always can read on my Twitter what's going on