It's Summer....and the creepy crawlies are out.

Based on the following information, I have decided that it must be summer here in Misawa:

1.  I don't want to wear my slippers in the house anymore
2.  I want to run the A/C in the bedroom at night
3.  I am trying to avoid all "hot" cooking (using the stove/oven)
4.  Spiders have decided that they want to live in our house.
                  ....and apparently some peoples food.

The spiders here are terrible.  Big ones, little ones, long legs, short legs.  I'm at my wits end.  I dust!  I sweep...  but this house has holes in it.  Travis and I figured that out this past winter when we used to watch our nice heat seep out of the cracks under doorways and the spaces in windows.  Now I'm pretty sure that those little gaps are letting in critters. On a positive note, I've become the best duster in the east!  Travis and I have also worked out a deal - I'll kill the spiders with long legs and tiny bodies, but he's in charge of the big bodied short legged ones.  (They freak me out!!!)

Now I find out that I may have to avoid produce all together!  Below is a picture of what someone on base found in the green grape bag when they got home from the grocery store.

Gives me the willies!  I may never buy grapes again.... certainly not from the grocery store here!  Travis and I have slowly been moving towards buying more local produce from Japanese grocery stores, but I think that ?little? guy just clinched it.  If that's what you get by buying the American produce, I think I'm going to take my chances on the local stuff.  After the Earthquake and Tsunami we had moved away from buying that stuff because of a fear of radiation in the vegetables.  Now that things have been contained and regulations have been put in place, we are enjoying the Japanese lettuces, tomatoes, mushrooms, strawberries, and corn.  We even got a Japanese watermelon (regular price $40) for only $5!!!  It's delicious.  No more spider infested American grapes for this household.

Internet through Poe

As I wrote in my previous post, both Travis and I are very thankful that we experienced the March 11th Earthquake and subsequent Tsunami with very little damage. Travis lost his favourite coffee mug, and one of my scrapbooks fell off the bookshelf one to many times and the cover was ripped off past the point of an easy repair job. We were unable to get the internet on March 14th as originally scheduled because of the disaster, and although we were disappointed we understood. Other much more vital things had to be done in areas south of us - those that had been hit the worst.

Japan has proven itself to be incredibly resilient. It took only two days for power, cellphone service, and clean water to be fixed and brought back into our area. A friend of mine from England posted this article from the Daily Mail, commenting "In England, this would have taken 6 months!".

Japanese Road Repair

I have to agree, in Canada there is no way that the road would have been repaired within a week! This is a country that knows it lives on a major fault line. A tragedy struck and within hours the Japanese were working to clean up the mess and repair what had been broken.


That being said, after a couple of weeks, we were wondering what the problem was. Eventually I called the internet company, explained that we had been waiting for internet since December, had had an appointment scheduled for March 14th, and was wondering if I could reschedule the appointment for sometime soon. It was a long frustrating phone call that amounted to "We will help you when we start doing appointments again, we don't know when that is. The company that we liaise with will tell us, and then we will let you know. We don't know when that will be. Don't call us, we'll call you."

Seriously, it took them 6 days to fix the major road ways - what on earth could the INTERNET company be doing for so long? Power companies, water companies, etc. I could understand - they were needed desperately down in Sendai and Fukushima. But the internet people?

By the time our new appointment was scheduled (for April 15th - that is 109 days after we originally paid the company to come and do the installation!!!!) I was so pessimistic towards the entire thing I was convinced that when April 15th rolled around they'd either not show up at all, or call and tell us they were unable to make it - and try to reschedule for mid-May.

When they finally did show up to do the installation yesterday I was completely nonplussed about the entire situation. My utter lack of excitement brought to mind the first stanza of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven":


Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door —
Only this, and nothing more." [exc. "The Raven" Edgar Allen Poe]


When the internet guy rang the doorbell, and I was half convinced he was just here to say "Sorry, you can't HAVE internet!" laugh maniacally, and run. Possibly while kicking small puppies out of his way.


That being said - once the modem was finally connected I was extremely excited. It took them 2 hours, a power drill, and one guy up on a cherry picker working on the electrical lines outside the house but it's HEEEEERRRRRRRREEEEEEEE. Hopefully within the next few days I'll be able to get some pictures up onto the internet and share them with you all! (Along with much more upbeat posts I'm sure. :D)

Living in the Land of Earthquakes

Travis and I were North of the earthquakes epicenter. We were very lucky, not seeing any water. The Tsunami didn't reach our little area of the island at all.

(We live in Misawa, which is in that unlabeled section in the north eastern part of the country).


We did experience a 4 minute 9.1 magnitude earthquake, followed without an hour by two aftershocks of 7.5 and 7.2 respectively. I was at home when they happened, and after sitting in a bathroom door frame for a minute or two, stayed outside across the street with some neighbours waiting for the house to stop moving. Travis was at work, his first day back after being in Korea for two weeks.

We immediately lost all power and gas. This meant no lights, no heat, no cooking. About an hour or two after the quake we also lost cellphone and 3G services. We were notified that tap water was no longer potable (bottled water only), and that we should not take showers. (Without a water heater we weren't that tempted anyway... just washing our hands it felt like their were icicles stabbing us.) This lasted for about 50 hours. Late on Sunday night we got power back, and on Monday morning phone and 3G was back up and running. It wasn't a fun experience, but both Travis and I count ourselves extremely lucky. We had bottled water, crackers, granola bars, and other food that didn't have to be refrigerated or heated. We were safe, and had lots of blankets to keep us warm. Travis was even able to get a message out to family (from work) that we were safe.

Even now we have aftershocks pretty much daily. It's sad that we've begun to ignore them really. I have a barometer. Unless the bar opens and pop cans start rolling across my living room floor again, or the books fall out of the bookcase, the earthquake isn't worth worrying about.

Everything seems to be working its way back to normal now, and we're even planning on traveling next weekend! Hopefully we can make it up to Hirosaki for their cherry blossom festival. That sounds like a much better thing to experience while in Japan!