Safe in Tokyo

It's Sunday.....things seem to be pretty normal now. There are intermittent after shocks but nothing too major.

I met a colleague for lunch and he said he was returning to Singapore since the work scheduled for the next 2 weeks in Tokyo was called off. Another colleague was coming from China this afternoon. So I'm not the only foreigner here.

During lunch, he said he was pulling out because his parents in England were worried about him. But we acknowledged that there is a degree of guilt about leaving people "behind". I was concerned about giving the wrong impression that the company cared only about the foreigners.

The news has been depressing, showing signs of the most devastated areas. Sendai, the worst hit area, is very very far from Tokyo. This is the message I kept telling my family. It is about 230 miles away. That's almost 400km away. BUT...somewhere in between are 3 nuclear plants which are threatening to face a meltdown. 22,000 people have been evacuated from a radius of 22km from the plants. Tokyo's still very far away from that area. But it's difficult to picture it.

After lunch, my boss called me and asked me to make arrangements to go home if my family was worried, especially now that there were news of leaks at the nuclear power plants about 200km away from Tokyo. Then she called to say maybe I should bring forward my plans to China so that I don't create panic by pulling out.

I was actually having my nails done when she called. It may seem that I'm crazy to be doing something so frivolous when there were many suffering the aftermath of the tsunami and there is still a chance of another earthquake. One of my acrylic nails fell off in my sleep and I had to get my nails fixed. Sorry but it's just something that would bug me for the longest time until I get them fixed.

I will get my travel arrangements sorted when I go into the office tomorrow. I hope nothing major happens from now till then.

I cannot stand to watch the news because it's all in Japanese and those that are not in Japanese are simply too depressing. Which reminds me that I have to register with our Ministry of Foreign Affairs.....later.