My recent trip to Japan, page 1

I usually go to Japan once a year I just got back from Japan a few days ago and thought I would share my experience. Honestly I'm tired of seeing a lot of threads about how Japan is completely destroyed and this will hopefully clear up some misinformation.

I arrived there 4 days after the quake, flew in through Narita airport which is the main international airport located East of Tokyo. From there I took a domestic flight to Nagoya which is Japan's 3rd largest city and about 200 miles SW of Tokyo. I came back the same way.

Tokyo/Narita:
They are having brown outs and some of the powered walkways at the airport were turned off to save power, but food and supplies are plentiful and people are still going to work. It's not the ghost town some in the media are portraying. My flights in and out Narita were mostly full, the same as when I visit any other time and really other than the walkways not having power and some of the lights turned off you couldn't tell anything was wrong there.

News Coverage:
For the first week there was constant coverage about the disaster. Advertisers pulled their commercials. Slowly they started to resume normal programming.

Earthquakes:
I felt a total of one while I was there. I know there are a lot of aftershocks, but the whole country is not shaking every day.

Food/Gas/Panic:
People are worried about getting contaminated food, but Japan is not even letting food grown where they found radiation be sold domestically. Plus when was the last time you bought milk from Japan. Probably never unless you're in Japan. They don't export much food and what they do is usually specialty items. Even before the radiation that part of the country wasn't a big fishing area. If you're suddenly worried about eating seafood, I've got news for you, it's already full of things that will mess you up just as bad like mercury.

Grocery stores are full of food, restaurants are busy and life is normal for most of the country. I actually went to 2 different buffets while I was there. I did feel guilty but the problem with getting food to those in need is more of an issue of access as opposed to availability.

I didn't see a single line at a gas station. All of them were open and people were driving as normal.

One electronic store was out of flashlights because they sent them all to the disaster area. Some places had limits on how many batteries or bags of diapers you could buy, but I think that was because they were trying to send most of them to NE Japan. I only saw hoarding two times. Once 2 women bought a bunch of baby wipes at 100 yen store (a dollar store) and an old lady bought 5 liters of bottled water. I was really disgusted by those acts, and happy to see that most people were not being so selfish.

Final thoughts:
Yes the devastation is horrific where the tsunami hit and the nuclear power plant is very concerning but most of the country is operating just fine. Trains are running on time, people are going to work and living their lives. The news portrays Japan as just being Tokyo but they have almost half the population of the US and most of them don't live in Tokyo and aren't affected by the disaster.

I'm not a nuclear scientist so I have no idea what will happen with the power plant. They are trying everything they can to cool it and contain the radiation. As soon as they started using seawater the plant was toast so cut out the augments about them not doing everything possible because they want to use the plants again.

Sure I wish the government and power company were sharing more information, but just as bad is the media that makes it sound like Japan is in a nuclear winter. You may get a lot of flags for finding some rant on how Japan is doomed, but panic, fear mongering, and unfounded rumors shouldn't be what ATS is about.

If anyone has any questions about what I saw over there I would be happy to try to answer.

Peace