Still Here with New Pictures Coming

For anyone checking in, I'm still here. I've been busy and unable to post anything, but I'll be back soon. Part of the problem is that I took too many pictures recently. My time is limited, so something had to go. Then I started thinking about how I'll be managing all the accumulated pictures I've taken a year from now. That got me thinking about finding a better way to handle my gallery pages. So to make a boring story mercifully short, next time I post I should have new and improved gallery pages.

Today my wife and I managed an escape from the kids. We went to the "super sento" near here. That's a very large bathhouse I've mentioned before. After really relaxing that way, we went to a nearby 100 yen sushi place. We had a LOT of sushi, free tea, and payed about $7 each! That was pretty cool. I just wouldn't want to eat there all the time. I'd be worrying about the mercury level in my blood rising.

I've been thinking about the earthquake each day. It's always in the news, and the images and stories are compelling. I don't know if this traveled far outside Japan, but a couple of days ago I watched a two year old boy rescued from a car after four days of being buried and utterly lost in a landslide. Actually, they spotted the car on the third day, but they waited to come and check inside until the next day. Sadly, his mother and sister died, probably on impact or early on. When the rescuers found the boy, he was standing up in a crawl space between the crushed walls of the car and boulders. Four days alone in the dark. Four cold nights. Surrounded by the silence of death. A lonely breath exhaling and a heart beat that won't quit -- didn't know enough to quit.

There are so many stories and tragedies. 80,000 people are still homeless tonight. Thirty-five people have died, and almost half of those after the quakes. Five have died in their cars from sitting in cramped space too long (they call it "Economy Class Syndrom" or, I think, Pulmonary Thrombosis). You realize that the population in Niigata is very old. And I keep thinking that it shows how just a couple of hours outside of Tokyo you have a part of Japan that still has one foot in the third world. But that's material for another time.

I did appreciate one image. Four older ladies were all sitting around a low table with a big quilt draped over their legs. One was serving some food, and they were having a lively conversation. Another lifted the quilt, slid out an old iron-looking box, opened it and put several fresh brickets of charcoal inside. Then she slid it back into place underneath. She explained that it keeps their legs warm when they sleep at night. Those are some tough women who REMEMBER how to deal with the cold with our without electricity or gas. Winter is coming fast. It's going to get much harder for many in Niigata before it's gets better.