I’m getting fed up with being told that people in Tokyo should go about their daily life as normal.  I realise that this is probably being said to prevent panic but life in Tokyo at the minute just isn’t normal.  And people know that.  Why else would petrol and food be selling out? I had only started to write this rant when I received a notification about another aftershock.  Earthquakes are common in Japan but the earthquake on Friday has led to a large increase in the number of shocks.

I enjoy living in Tokyo.  It is an incredibly convenient city with a public transport system like no other I have ever experienced.  It has amazing restaurants, bars, and shops.  It’s a great place to go on holiday and I have a friend staying at the minute who arrived on holiday last week.  On a normal holiday I would take him sight-seeing, we would have hired a car and gone to see the snow monkeys, we would eat out, and we would probably have gone to karaoke.

Instead we stay within walking distance of the apartment.  We haven’t been on a train since the day of the major quake.  We aren’t going to hire a car and go sight-seeing as that would be a ridiculous thing to do.  We aren’t eating in restaurants as we haven’t seen any that are open.  We are spending hours looking at news channels.  We will consider going to the grocery store today but we are aware that we won’t be buying bread, rice, or dairy.

There are trains running but it is a limited schedule and we don’t want to go out only to get stuck miles away from the apartment.  Walking to the apartment after a major quake isn’t terrible but we’ve already done that in the last week.  We also don’t want to use the trains if we don’t actually need to as we would rather people who need to travel were able to do so.

My week also isn’t normal.  I’m still online but mainly to answer queries about how I am.  I’m not sleeping well because the aftershocks keep waking me up.  The language school has closed, my clinic has cancelled my appointment and I haven’t been able to visit my friends.  I’m not able to go to the gym.  We haven’t even washed the towels as it seems to be a waste of electricity and water.  We are expecting the power to go out on rolling basis and we are conserving electricity.

Marty has been going to work, but that’s not happening in a normal manner either.  He takes longer to get there and to get home.  (And the apartment is shaking again, this is another strong quake.  So I’m going to stop ranting for a while.)  His work is providing lunch because of the limited number of restaurants that are open.  Yesterday he attended a seminar on nuclear technology.

None of this stuff is overly important.  I am incredibly fortunate to be safe and warm.  But it just. Isn’t. Normal!