Apocalypse

For the most part, my life has been only mildly affected by the catastrophe(s) hitting Japan right now. As far as I can tell, all of my friends are well and accounted for. I just heard facebook confirmation from the one friend I had living in Miyagi, and everyone else seems to be no worse for the wear.

Personally, I have been hardly suffering at all. My company has told me to stay home from work for the rest of the week - if it wasn't a result of a truly national distaster, I'd be pretty stoked for a windfall like that - and we finally had a black out today. The government had been warning about blackouts for the last two days, but it wasn't until this afternoon that my town actually lost power. There has been some panic in the stores and most of them seem nearly empty of food. However, in truly Japanese fashion, I feel it is pretty organized panic. Kids were playing at the park today (so was I: no power, no school, why not?) and 7-Eleven, though shelves were partially empty, and there was no power, was still open. I guess the cash register was running on battery power.

The biggest shock for me was the gas stations. Since yesterday afternoon, gas stations in my town have been closed, and as the last few sold the last of their gas, lines easily 10 cars long were lining up down the street to buy gas for prices equivalent to about 7$ a gallon. Now, gas is nowhere to be found, and we're pretty much stuck in Kimitsu. Not a bad thing, but trains have been suspended and buses are running irregularly.

My friend Joe came to visit right after the earthquake, and hasn't been able to get home because of suspension of train services. That sounds more doomsday than it is, because he could get home - it would just require an outrageous taxi ride or a 40 km walk. But its cool, I've got spare futons, and we've just been hanging out, playing frisbee golf in the park, scrounging up random meals. Really, its not much different than what we would be doing anyway, its just now there's no sense of choice. And whats the fun in acting like senseless college students when its actually the sensible thing to do.

Now the reports of imminent nuclear apocalypse is adding some apprehension to the whole spontaneous vacation feeling. Its hard to know how I feel right now, but the whole experience is starting to just set me on edge. Its getting harder to just brush it off. Could just be tired. Maybe I'll write a more positive update tomorrow. Maybe I'll write an update tomorrow. Maybe I'll write...tomorrow?