Monday, January 18, 2016

Has it really been that long?

Wow. I was looking at another blog today that is part of blogger and noticed my dashboard. Oops, it has been over 4 years, very nearly 5 years since I last posted anything. I have no idea if any of you will read this or not since it has been so long. But, here's the short of the long of it.

Since I last wrote, we were in the big earthquake in Japan in March 2011, my Grandmother passed away, we made a trip to climb Mt Fuji, another trip to Tokyo Disney Land and Disney Sea, a trip to Hiroshima, moved to Washington state, survived breast cancer, became a godmother, our family retired from military service, we moved again and bought a house! WHEW!! That is a whole lot going on in the past few years and that is just the cliff notes.

So, I will start small and just talk a little about the earthquake in Japan. In March 2011, there were many things that happened that kept me from my blog. The big earthquake in Japan hit and that is where we were living at the time, so it made for a couple of crazy months! The earthquake lasted almost 5 full minutes, which is to say, the shaking lasted that long too. If you would like to see a video of what it was kind of like, National Geographic put together a bunch of clips that people had posted to youtube and the like. It will give you a little bit of an idea of what it was like:
Tohuku Quake 2011 Mash-Up

At first, the kids and I just went about things as usual. But after about 30 seconds, it should have stopped. When it didn't, and things started falling off the entertainment center, the kids and I got in the door way as we had been taught. As we hung on to the frame and the house rocked back and forth on the rollers, we could see daylight on either side of the door as we continued to be shaken. At the end of that initial big quake, we looked outside to see the Japanese nationals who had been at the grocery store across the street from us, standing in the parking lot, looking up at the light poles and seeming rather fearful (Understandably so). Glass bottles had been knocked off shelves during the quake and had made quite a mess. The light poles were still swaying back and forth, the street was still rolling with the seismic activity and in some places sidewalks and streets were opening and closing like something out of a science fiction movie. There were aftershocks that lasted for days. The weeks that followed were filled with what were called rolling black outs. Basically, scheduled periods of time where we would have no electricity for hours at a time. During those times of blackout, it became very cold in the house we rented out in town. They have little to no insulation and it got so cold in the house, you could see your breath. The kids and I would cuddle up on the couch under a blanket and read books or play a game and wait for the power to come back on. Needless to say, it was very interesting cooking food for meals. Our meal schedule and menu changed to fit the times that power would be on. When it became apparent that the rolling blackouts would continue for an undetermined amount of time, the Fukushima radiation could become a possible threat to our area, my husband was going to be working most of the time, and I received news my Grandmother was not long in this world, we discussed and agreed that the kids and I should go back to the states for a couple weeks.

I will continue to catch you up as I get back into writing here on my blog.

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