A typhoon & a concert

It's typhoon season here. It's seems like today has been the first fine day for ... ages.  It's hard to remember that a couple of weeks ago I was thinking of finding out where the fire hydrant water supply could be accessed so I could water the azaleas in the neighbourhood which were giving up the ghost with the relentless  hot, dry summer.

Last weekend there was a typhoon forecast, Hiro received free tickets to a Kesennuma concert in Hamamatsucho and were umming and ahhing about whether to go.  I figured we should, typhoon are never very serious in Tokyo, the concert was starring Ikumi Kumagai, whom we had met through mutual friends in Akita, and I wanted to support  Kesennuma was hit badly by the tsunami, ( and is just south of Rikuzen Takada where I spent time last year).

So despite the typhoon, we went.  I assumed was a fund raising concert with Ikumi Kumagai,  as the main draw card,but in fact was a documentary screening / chat about the earthquake / Ikumui Kumagai concert. The chat session was a group  of classmates from Kessenuma,  One was the MC, one Ikumi Kumagai,  one was the silver medalist fencer from the London Olympics and one was a representative of the Japan national rugby team.  Amazing to have 4 such high achieving classmates in a small country town...

 I knew Ikumi was relatively well known, but was quite surprised at how good she is.....
(see below)  She mostly writes her own music. As far as I know this is one she wrote for some NHK drama.


The trains were all on reduced services.  The map below shows the whole system yellow - it's not meant to be....   Despite the disruption, it was easy to get home.  I guess most people stayed in or went home early.

I've been predicting this

I've been predicting this for years. With Japan's aging population, it's a matter of time before all the seets on public transport are "silver seats" (priority seasts).  On Sunday I took the Minato ku "chii-bus' which winds up and down the back streets of Azabu as it makes its way from Hiro-o to the Minato local govt. office.   Every seat on the bus was a priority seat.  The tricky thing is deciding which eligible person should be the one sitting down...
The "chii-buses" are actually a great way to see Tokyo, winding through residential areas and shopping strips, ferrying mostly local oldies around the local govt. area.  It might be time for a chii-bus challenge!

Consideration & self restraint

The other day I went to the airport to meet Mum and Dad who were here for a brief visit.  Qantas arrives bright and early - at 6am - so I took the first train for the morning from Nippori (5:07).  There was a woman sitting opposite me, sleeping, like most people on the train.  But she had her bag on the seat - a serious breech of train etiquette. This is fine if there is no one standing, but there were quite a few.   She sat the whole way from Nippori to Narita City.

In the whole hour and a half, not once did anyone attempt to shift the bag or wake her so they could sit down. I am simultaneously impressed by the self restraint and appalled by the lack of initiative.

89 years on - the Great Kanto Earthquake

Hiro's parents were down last week for the week to attend oldest aunt's funeral. Although it breeches norms in some parts of the extended family, they also did their best to do sightseeing in Tokyo and enjoy themselves, as far as possible.

Hiro's father has a thing for the Edo Tokyo Museum. I used to be impressed by the museum, but was less so this time, the history was less cohesive, less comprehensive, more piecemeal. There used to be a wonderful display of Edo newspapers that has been removed to make way for odds and sods that the museum has acquired. The English also seemed lesss than before. Much of the section on the Yoshiwara, which was new, did not have English. I wonder whether there is someone new at the top...

Anyway we wandered out of the Edo Tokyo Museum and I thought it might be interesting to take a detour via the Kanto Earthquake (1923) Memorial Hall in Yokoamicho Park. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokoamicho_Park. By sheer fluke it was the 89th anniversary of the earthquake - 1st September 1923. The earthquake, which struck just before midday, must have felt apocalyptic, even in a country accustomed to earthquakes. The earthquake struck at a time when people were cooking and the fires that followed the earthquake were devastating. More than 140,000 people were killed in the earthquake and fires that followed.  Many of those who died, died in the place where the memorial hall is located.  Residents crowded into the defuct Honjo Army Depot hoping to escape the flames and instead were engulfed...

There is no mention inside the hall of the massacre of Koreans that followed the earthquake - spurred on by false rumours that Koreans were poisoning the wells.  The Tokyo metropolitan govt site says there is a memorial to Koreans. I didn't see it - it's certainly not prominent.  Next time I am back there I'll see if I can find it.

The memorial temple built by Ito Chuto, who also built Tsukiji Honganji.

A memorial to child victims of the earthquake

In the shadow of Skytree (and the ipad case)

Inside the temple were memorial wreaths - we were there just prior to a chanting session.

Unusual to have seats in a temple positioned like a church.

Wreaths on the other side with pictures around the wall memorializing the quake.

Graphic scenes of the flames engulfing people

In memory

A floral display, underneath is a repository, see below.

This part has me quite conflicted. The memorial hall has a section where all the names of
those who were killed in the Tokyo air-raids are kept.  The eastern part of Tokyo
was disproportionately affected by both events.  For the person on the street
whether the fires and deaths came from aeroplanes or an earthquake may not make that
much difference, it seems like naive, lazy, or mischievous history depending on your
degree of cynicism.  I don't condone the bombing of civilians at all, but
by placing them together, the imperative for analysis of reasons evaporates.

 

Inside the museum - a seisomgraph that is well...
almost off the Reichter...



A badly taken photo, but you can get some idea of Ginza after the quake and today.

1 Sept is Disaster Prevention day, to commeorate the earthquake.
Local people were handing out onigiri  - to get people used to the idea of what
emergency supplies might be like.  But Tohoku is any guide, it might be a fair bit more than
the anticipated 3 days before food becomes available.

Emergency food corner

Hiro's parents lined up for onigiri - Hiro & I were aghast - though to be fair,
I guess they were just old enough to remember
the war and post war deprivation.  Unsurprisingly they were not very tasty...

Memorial

A Japanese garden. One of the lessons of the Kanto earthquake was the need
for public space as evacuation areas.

The back, though it looks more like the front.