Life is Pretty Close to Normal Here

March 14th was White Day! For those for you caught unaware, White Day is a completely made up holiday that acts as a counterpoint to Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day in Japan is for women to give men chocolates. Then, a month later, the men give the women white chocolate or marshmallows or lingerie.

In spite of the disruption to our normal lives, Husband made me a white cake with cream cheese frosting!

It's a real work of art.


This morning, it became part of our Breakfast of Champions along with citrus green tea.

Then we went out to see how the stores are doing. The grocery store that had been closed after the earthquake is now open and almost completely stocked. There was no milk and a limit of one bread loaf per customer, but almost everything else was at normal levels. Out of a full aisle, maybe one section of shelving would be empty. The produce and meat sections looked the same as they always have.

The evening news may be concentrating on "How bad could it possibly get?" but life is almost normal. There are rolling blackouts, but we still have all the comforts of home. We're not running the heater as much as we used to (I could see my breath in the living room this morning, boo!), but we have hot water, we can charge phones/laptops, and cook dinner. The trash still gets picked up in the morning.

The flowers are still blooming, the sun is still shining.


People are still out walking and riding bicycles, crossing streets at crosswalks.


Mister Donut is fully stocked and selling bear-shaped doughnuts.

I'm not going to say there isn't anything wrong with the Fukushima plants, and I appreciate the concern of everyone suggesting we get out before we need to, but we're sensible people and we're paying attention.