Earthquake Update 2

Here's the latest from Japan. We spent the week working hard to keep the factory running. We have been able to produce and export our product. At the moment we are using raw materials that arrived before the earthquake. I suspect the challenge now will be to keep the materials flowing to site. We already have problems at a couple of our suppliers. The threat of power cuts seems to be reducing. This caused us a lot of downtime last week but the power is yet to be switched off at our plant or in Tokyo. This has got to be a good sign. The people of Japan are doing what they can to reduce power consumption. I walked around town to day and lots of lights are swicthed off. The TVs in the electrical stores are even switched off. The lights are reduced in the train stations and the convienience stores. We have been doing the same at work.

Fuel shortage has also been a problem for anyone that relies on cars to get to work. Some of our staff have had to wait 2 hours to get petrol. The media have also calmed down a little this week and the tone of the articles is a little more sensible. The work continues at the power plants to get the reactors under control but we are not feeling threatened here in Tokyo. The aftershocks have also reduced. I have only noticed one small one over the long weekend.

The train system has remained operational all week. Time table is a little bit disrupted but I have had no problem getting to and from work. On one day my train struggled to leave the platform as there were so many people waiting on the platform for the trains in the other direction. The next day they had set up a queuing system to stop the platform getting over loaded. The Japanese are better at queuing that even the British so it was alll working well.

This weekend has been a bank holiday weekend. We ran on Saturday but they gave everyone the rest of the weekend off. I suspect that the infrastraucture will have settled over the holiday weekend with train and fuel companies gettting chance to get their systems sorted out.

Mark our Journalist neighbour reappeared on Friday having been on the northwest coast all week reporting. It seems that all the Aussie guys have been left alone in Tokyo by their wives and kids and they don't need much excuse to take advantage. For Saturday lunch we headed over to a Bar B Que organised by the guys from Macquarie bank. It was interesting talking to them, they have just had their biggest trading week in 10 years. They were saying that some of their competitors let their customers down by leaving Tokyo but not them. They stuck it out (and presumably made lots of money)

After the bar b que we headed back to Shibuya to meet up with a load of ABC reporters and camera men for dinner. Most of them flew in last Saturday to cover the story but they were all expecting to depart in the next couple of days. I think the story is over. The local guys can handle it now.

Seeing the papers and internet today it looks like we have been pushed off the number one spot by Gaddafi.

Julie and the kids have been having a good time in the UK. They spent the first few days with Jo and Simon in Bedford, then headed to Emma and Richards in Basingstoke. Today they were on the way to meet Julie's dad and to see Mia and Luke before ending the week at Guy and Vicki's. They have booked flights back Friday 25th so they should all be back in Tokyo on 26th. It will be nice to be back to normal again. The school is scheduled to repopen on 28th March. I hope they don't change their minds at the last minute. We have been a very disappointed with the school and the original decision to close.



The restaurant had a traditional Japanes table for us. The room is only about 4ft tall. We are all sitting on the floor and look how close the ceiling is to our heads. You had to crawl to get out of the room. Very cosy!