Peonies

Hi

Another lovely day and this time I headed a few miles south to the town of Sukagawa which is famous for its Peony Garden (須賀川牡丹園　Sukagawa Botan'en). This is a garden on a grand scale, 10 hectares (that's 25 acres) of mature trees, ponds, and flowers throughout the seasons. But the main attraction is the peony and according to the guidebook there are 7,000 plants in 290 varieties. The peony, known as the 'rose of the Orient' is a showstopper but the garden goes back a long way. It was started in 1766 as a medicinal garden for the roots of the peony were used as a medicine. Whatever. It's a nice place for a day out and the car parks were full.

Anne 

Wysteria for shade

This zelkhova (keyaki) is hundreds of years old.
Can you see the two bamboo shoots growing up near the base of the trunk?

Less flamboyant, these plants are 150 years old and the original  medicinal  plants.

Wysteria

Hi

Fukushima doesn't have famous wysteria like those you see in Kyoto. No exotic red bridges, as far as I know. But today I drove out to Ja no Hana Park about 20 minutes north of Koriyama where there's a wysteria 100 metres long and over 300 years old in the grounds of what used to be a daimyo's country residence. Here are some pictures but they only tell half the story. It was a multi-sensory experience: the wonderful scent, birds singing, bees buzzing and the loud croaking of a bull frog in the pond.

In England wysteria is generally grown against a south facing wall in an attempt to catch any warmth in the cold northern climes. But here it grows wild and one of the pleasures of driving around the countryside at this time of year is to see it everywhere, exuberant and prolific.

The fine weather is set to break tomorrow evening.

Anne

Wysteria trellis and pond at Ja no Hana park, Motomiya

Lovely scent. Lots of bees.

People out for the day. You can even buy one in a pot to take home. Cheap at 3,000 yen.

Wysteria in the wild. Can you see it clambering high up in the trees?

Wild amongst the undergrowth. Beautiful.

Newly planted paddy, graves and wysteria

Twisted round a telegraph pole

Climbing up a wire

Steady as she goes

Hi
Lovely, lovely day. Slight breeze here in Koriyama, the windy city. Perfect.

From the press accounts hitherto I thought it was a foregone conclusion that Tepco would be releasing groundwater into the sea from today but the fishing industry haven't agreed. They say their rank and file members don't fully understand the situation and have asked Tepco to hold meetings to explain. They also want the government or an outside organisation to be more involved. They're calling for an outside organisation to monitor the water going into the sea and for the figures to be made public. They have a point. What with the recent problems - the power outage, the leaking pools - they don't trust Tepco.

And this is the crux of the problem. They're worried about this being the catalyst for a fresh round of 'rumours' (fuhyo). This is the trouble with this whole radiation thing. You can't see it or feel it so it's a breeding ground for all kind of rumours, speculation, playing on people's fears. It's a psychological war. 

Farm produce is still not selling, or selling at well below market prices. Fukushima JA, the powerful agricultural cooperative has just enlisted the help of some 'Hula Girls' from the Hawaiian Centre in Iwaki to promote Fukushima produce nationwide. I had to laugh when I saw some of the staid executives lined up with the girls. And yesterday two girls were filmed dressed in cowboy boots and red stetsons planting rice by hand in the mud! But it's no laughing matter. These are desperate times. 

As for the fishermen (are there any women?), fishing for a few types of fish started last year but it's not back to normal by any means. For the past two years they've been living on compensation, and payments for retrieving debris and test fishing. Just when it's looking like they might be able to fish again, this happens. However safe it is on paper, they're worried it might start a new set of rumours. And it's not just in Fukushima; it could affect fishing up and down the coast.

Whilst this is going on, our Prime Minister, Mr Abe, on a roll from the success of his monetary easing Abenomics, is pushing sales of nuclear plants abroad. During the Golden Week holiday he signed agreements with Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, and in June he's to visit Poland to push sales to Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. Meanwhile in his own backyard, the Nuclear Regulation Authority has uncovered 10,000 (yes, ten thousand) omissions in routine checks of equipment at the Monju fast breeder reactor in Fukui and a 'lack of awareness of safety in the organisation'. Hmm. I wonder if the people in Poland or Turkey are aware of this? It certainly doesn't make sense to us.

This weather's too nice for working. The wysteria is in full bloom and smells gorgeous (there's even some near the station where I work), then there are azaleas and peonies. Roll on the weekend.
Love to you all
Anne

Update 11 May 2013

Hi folks

Time for my monthly update. You'd think things would be settling down at Fukushima Daiichi - after all, the end of the accident was proclaimed back in December 2011 - but there's just one problem after another. It doesn't affect us here in the middle of the prefecture but it all adds to the uncertainty for those who've been evacuated. More of them later. First, let's take a look at progress at the site.

Dealing with the ever-growing volume of contaminated water from the reactor buildings continues to be the main priority. It's increasing at a rate of 400 tonnes a day. The fuel in reactors 1 to 3 still requires cooling but that water is in a self contained recycled system although some water does leak out of cracks in the reactors. The main problem is groundwater pouring into the base of the buildings. This is pumped out and stored in cylindrical tanks covering large areas of the site. One solution was to construct large storage pools but last month there was a serious leakage so they're currently being emptied. The latest is that Tepco has sunk 12 wells at the top of the cliff behind the row of reactors to pump up some of the groundwater and divert it via a separate channel into the sea. This water has been tested and found to contain only 1 becquerel/litre of radioactive material so the local fishing industry is likely to agree. After all, this will reduce the overall volume of contaminated water from 400 to 300 tonnes/day.

On the other hand, the fishing industry have said they won't agree to water that's been through Tepco's other trump card, the ALPS cleaning plant, being dumped in the sea. This system removes 62 kinds of radioactive material but no amount of filtration, desalination or distillation will rid the water of the isotope tritium. So this water will have to be stored in more tanks.

There's also talk of building a wall underground on the inland side of the reactors to contain the groundwater. But this could have the adverse effect of altering the flow: if levels inside the building were higher, contaminated water would start to leak out into the soil and eventually into the sea. All very tricky.

There's been progress on the reorganisation of the evacuated areas. Futaba County was holding out for the whole county to be put in the 'difficult to return' zone ( the mayor resigned over the issue) but in the end they towed the line and went along with the government's plan to divide the county according to radiation levels. So by the end of this month all 11 counties that were in the original exclusion zone will have been 'reorganised'. 76,000 people are affected.

You'll recall that the exclusion zone, evacuated immediately after the disaster, was a crude semi-circle 20 km around Fukushima Daiichi. But the plume travelled north west and the new zones reflect actual levels of airborne radiation. The new 'difficult to return zone' (levels of over 50 mSv/yr) spreads in a band 30 kms in a north westerly direction. The area is barricaded. 25,000 people used to live there. Next there are areas of 20 - 50 mSv/yr, some to the south of the 'difficult to return' area but mostly in the north in Iitate County. These areas are 'restricted residence'. The 19,000 people affected can travel in and out freely but not stay overnight. Then there are the so-called 'areas being prepared for having the evacuation order lifted', where radiation is under 20 mSv/yr. 32,000 people used to live there. Businesses are allowed to function in this area and people can go to work - but the evacuation order is still in place, they can't stay overnight.

The terminology used to describe the new zones is clumsy (glossary below). As one man said, 'It's gone from four syllables (keikai kuiki) to six syllables (kinan konnan kuiki) but nothing's changed'. For those who used to live in the worst affected areas of Namie, Futaba, Okuma and Tomioka that may be true. The area is barricaded, they can't go back and don't know when they'll be able to return. There are still questions about the location of the interim waste storage facilities (though surveying has started), but no talk of buying land and property, and nothing definite yet about establishing 'new communities' elsewhere.

For those in the other areas, there is progress. Decontamination is well underway and most of the infrastructure is back to normal. People can go back and start to tidy up - although they're not allowed to stay the night. But in spite of the reorganisation, 150,000 people have evacuated (either because they're in these three zones or voluntarily) and they still have no idea when they'll be able to return home. And with the series of troubles at the nuclear plant, the power outages and problems with water, the accident is far from over.

On a brighter note, I saw on TV that Tachibana Primary School, which is in one of the areas in Koriyama with the highest levels of radiation, had its sports day outside for the first time since the disaster. Little by little there is progress.
All the best
Anne

警戒区域   (keikai kuiki )  The original 20 km exclusion zone.
帰還困難区域   (kikan konnan kuiki)  The 'Difficult to Return' zone, 326 sq.km with airborne radiation over 50 mSv/yr
居住制限区域   (kyoju seigen kuiki)   The 'Restricted Residence' zone, 143 sq.km with airborne radiation 20 -  50 mSv/yr
避難指示解除準備区域   (hinan shiji kaijo junbi kuiki)   The 'Preparatory Lifting of the Evacuation Order ' zone, 418 sq.km with airborne radiation under 20 mSv/yr

This and That

Hi,

I added a few late photos to the last post on Children's Day so if you missed them scroll back and take a look. They're of Pep Kids, the indoor play centre here in Koriyama which I visited a couple of weeks ago with a visitor from England. She's a teacher and was really impressed. The equipment is first class, there's opportunity for all kinds of play, and it's super clean. Centres such as these have been set up here as children's growth was getting stunted through not being able to play outside but she thought London (and probably other cities) could do with them to tackle the growing problem of obesity. The kitchens for cooking lessons and rooms for counselling also got the thumbs up. And of course it's free. Who could we persuade to build one in Tower Hamlets?

I signed off the accounts of a subsidiary yesterday. There's a new tax which started on 1 April. Companies have to pay 'recovery tax', 10% extra tax. The system will last for three years (whereas the extra 2.1% on personal income tax will go on for 25 years). That company made a loss and had no tax to pay so we weren't affected but I thought it was a bit off that even companies in the disaster areas are liable. 

The government's announced that the tsunami debris on the coast will be cleared according to schedule by March next year. That's in Miyagi and Iwate. Of course here in Fukushima it's different. Some debris in the exclusion zone hasn't been touched yet. Still, taking three years to clear the debris is an indicator of the scale of the disaster.

Tepco has a new plan for dealing with the problem of contaminated water which is increasing at a rate of 400 tons per day. One of the problems is underground water that pours into the bottom of the reactors and gets contaminated. I hadn't realised but the nuclear plant is at the bottom of a cliff: land was excavated to build the plant at sea level (in retrospect, after the tsunami, seems a stupid thing to have done). As a result, water pours down in underground streams towards the sea. The plan is to sink wells at the top of the cliff and pump this water out. Then, after testing it, to dump it in the sea, probably starting next week. Apparently the water is no more radioactive than the rivers in the area and 100 tons per day could be diverted reducing the daily increase of contaminated water to 300 tons/day. At the moment the fishing industry seems inclined to accept the proposal. Certainly something needs to be done.

In a separate development, the emptying of those leaking pools of contaminated water has raised levels of radiation at the site to 7.8 mSv/year when it was below 1.0 mSv/year. 

It's been a lovely day today with clear views of Mount Bandai and with the snow capped peaks of mountain ranges further away seeming to float in the sky. Then in the evening a bright pink sunset. This is the best season of the year.
Anne

Childrens' Day

Hi

I'm back in Koriyama after 10 days in England. It's Monday, the last day of Golden Week, and a holiday for Childrens' Day. The weather's sunny and warm - it would count as a summer's day in England. Here's a picture taken this evening of the koi-carp streamers over the river in neighbouring Sukagawa. Boys are supposed to grow up strong, like the carp, able to fight a way through the raging torrents of life.

But before I get back into the swing of things, let me mention a few things that struck me during my visit to England - things that you wouldn't see here in Japan.

One day I was changing lines on the London Underground at Oxford Circus and saw this guy with a bright red Mohican about 4 inches high. At first I thought he was in fancy dress but, no, he was a London Underground official, checking the train doors and whistling the all clear. You would never see anything like that in Japan. How would he wear his hat of office, for a start? I felt a kind of pride, confirmation of Britain's respect for diversity. 

Other good things included Wifi which was widely available for free in pubs, stations, even on the London Underground (though there was a small fee on mainline trains). You used to be able to get Wifi in Starbucks here but not any more. Then there was the multi-storey carpark which, to my daughter's bemusement, I much admired. You see it was built in brick to match its surrounds, and a rather handsome building, I thought. Here such buildings don't attract the eye of the planners and are eyesores. I also noticed that Japanese food and sushi was widely available. Sushi and salad seems to be a lunchtime staple. And I saw 'chocolate edamame' and 'wasabi peas' being sold as snacks!

What I didn't like was the way train tickets are priced. I knew I had to book in advance to get a good deal so on Friday, for a journey the following Wednesday, I looked on the internet and saw the price was 30 pounds. I went to the station on Monday to buy said ticket only to find that by then it cost 137 pounds. I went back to the internet, and in the end bought a ticket for 39 pounds by selecting a train that left three hours earlier than I'd originally intended. So visitors to Britain, beware! Don't pitch up at the station on the day to buy a long distance train ticket. You'll pay an exorbitant rate. Book in advance. The website you want is Traveline. 

Anyway, back to Japan. What's been happening in my absence? I see there are more claims for compensation from Tepco.  The prefecture is going to apply to the ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) for compensation for money spent to deal with loss of consumer confidence and for loss of tax revenue. And bizarrely, Tohoku Electric (the electric company in this region) is to sue Tepco (Tokyo Electric) for loss of revenue in all those areas that were evacuated and don't use power any more. Crazy. It's hard to see an end to all this compensation. Will it bankrupt Tepco? Bankrupt the country?

The papers have pictures of a relaxed Crown Princess Masako attending the inauguration of the King of the Netherlands, her first overseas visit in 10 years since she got ill with depression. Now people will want her to resume duties in Japan. But how will she be once she gets back to the suffocating atmosphere of the Japanese court?

Back to Childrens' Day. There seem to be lots of events round and about. Japanese have always adored children but now they are a precious commodity. The number of children has been falling nationally for the past 32 years and there were 150,000 less children under 15 on 1 April than a year ago. The situation is worse here in Fukushima. It had been falling by about 5,000 a year but fell dramatically after the nuclear accident (from 281,000 in 2010 to 257,000 in 2012). This year the figure is 7,500 down from last year at 249,000, more than the usual fall of 5,000 per year but sort of stabilising.

Here are some pictures of kids having fun at the Pep Kids indoor play facility in Koriyama. An unused building was donated by the supermarket chain York Benimaru at the instigation of a local paediatrician worried that kids weren't getting enough exercise. It's run by the City and is a fantastic place.

This is the dedicated sand and water play area.

Make believe shop

Bouncy castle

Bike area

External View. Inside there are also kitchens for kids to learn cooking
and counselling rooms for parents.

I had a super holiday meeting up with my family in England. No earthquakes. No worries. But tomorrow it's back to work. I'm just hoping the next few months remain reasonably tranquil.
Love to all
Anne

Happy Golden Week!

Hi

Woke up on Sunday to snow, heavy snow that continued until noon. Tourists were treated to the sight of cherry blossom weighed down with snow (the second time this season) though fortunately neither the flowers nor the trees seem to have suffered any adverse effect.

We've also had a spate of earthquakes. Last Wednesday night, just as the 9 O'Clock News was expounding on a day of earthquakes on Miyake island south of Tokyo, the earth shook here. Followed a couple of days later by the strong earthquake in Sichuan in China. The ones in Japan we were told were aftershocks from the big one two years ago and not connected but they're unnerving.

Yesterday saw another power outage (for four hours) at Fukushima Daiichi, and two more dead rats(!). It was also the day the IAEA team gave a preliminary report on their week checking decommissioning work there. They said the reactors and spent fuel pools have been made stable and there's a good plan in place but stressed the difficulties in the long term, for example the need to develop robots and ensure workers' safety in view of high levels of radiation. They recognised that dealing with contaminated water is the most pressing problem at the moment and said more permanent facilities were needed. Finally, they stressed the need for better relations with the public especially as the decommissioning is going to take decades. Quite. We're fed up and worried by the catalogue of troubles at the plant. 

An old lady I know, a friend of a friend, is in excellent high spirits. Not because it's spring, but because her nest egg on the stockmarket, after years in the doldrums, is rising in value with each passing day. It seems to be the best medicine there is! But Abenomics hasn't affected my life yet. New figures show that the population for the prefecture as a whole, which fell below two million after the disaster, has now fallen below 1.95 million. (The actual figure will be lower as it includes people who have moved away but are still registered here.) April 1st figures show 7,000 fewer people than the previous month. When the population goes down, the economy shrinks, and it's harder to sell goods and services. Apart from construction and decontamination work, business remains tough here.

But if you'll excuse me I'm taking a holiday from nuclear and seismic fallout. I'm off to Blighty to see my folks so there won't be any Fukushima blogs for the next ten days. I return to Japan on 5th May.
In the meantime, take care and enjoy the Golden Week holiday.
Anne

Sakura

Hi

Everywhere you go the cherry is in flower. The weather's been mixed. A couple of warm days but for the most part on the chilly side. 

My son was visiting and was intrigued by the idea of making a special trip to see a tree. He enjoyed the festival atmosphere - stalls selling everything from cherry pink cakes to cherry tree postage stamps to cherry tree saplings. And after visiting a few of the famous trees he got the hang of it: 'You could spend a whole day going round these trees'. Then we just enjoyed driving around the countryside, fluffy pink with cherry blossom.

Currently there seems to be a movement to plant cherry trees all over the Tohoku area. They're a symbol of hope and recovery.

Here are a few pictures I took this last week. 

Anne

The Waterfall Cherry (takizakura) in Miharu exactly a week ago.
 Flowers open at the top of the tree but the lower branches in bud and deeper pink.
A sign proclaimed that it was 50% in flower. Very scientific!

The same tree a week later. In full flower

Night cherry blossom in Kaiseizan Park, Koriyama.
Floodlit and stunning against the black sky.

Jizo-zakura in Miharu.
 You line up to say a prayer in the little  shrine at the foot of the tree.

My favourite tree. Fudo-zakura in Miharu.

And this is the 'fudo',  Buddhist deity Acala, inside the shrine.

Beautiful tree over 350 years old.

You might also like to see the light show on Aizu castle which took place on the 2nd anniversary, in terrible weather. It's a new technology: 3D projection mapping. Have you seen one of these shows? They're astonishing.
Projection Mapping Tsurugajo

New Koriyama Mayor

Hi

The cherry blossoms are in full bloom and spring is here. The light is bright and all of a sudden I need sunglasses. The air is warm and soothing. Things are looking up.

The election for Mayor of Koriyama was held on Sunday. It was the first election since the disaster and with a population of over 327,000, Koriyama is one of the largest cities in Fukushima. You'd think people would  be interested in deciding their future at this important juncture but the turnout was an abysmal 45%. Admittedly the two candidates were the same as last time so the campaign lacked freshness. And a lot of people are disillusioned with politics and think that it doesn't make any difference who the mayor is. But even within Fukushima prefecture turnout is low. Some people put it down to Koriyama being a city of outsiders (it's a relatively new city and developed with the railways) so people have no strong allegiances; and they're unwilling to get involved, preferring to stand on the sidelines and watch. Whatever the reasons, the outcome is that the new Mayor with 61,000 votes was voted in by only one in four of the electorate.

Masato Shinagawa (68) had a career in the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, an independent  candidate who pledged to do more for children and speed up the recovery. Hara Masao (69), backed by the LDP, asked the electorate to judge him on his two terms in office but decontamination of houses is behind schedule and people probably just wanted a change.

But that's not all. There's a rather unpleasant aspect to the campaign which I wouldn't have mentioned but it's been in the papers today so is in the public domain. About a month ago Shinagawa started using the phrase nigenai' 逃げない (meaning 'won't run away') on his posters, e-mails and campaign cars. He says it means that he won't shy away from taking tough decisions. But everyone knows it's a reference to the rumour that Hara was not in Koriyama at the time of the disaster. Hara himself said in his literature that he thinks this rumour started because there were no lights on in his house: it had been so badly damaged in the earthquake that he moved in with his daughter. He decided against responding to the accusations during the campaign but his sense of propriety may have lost him the vote. The whole incident doesn't reflect well on Koriyama. But it also highlights how touchy this issue is. Koriyama has quite high levels of radiation. People try not to show it but they've suffered a lot and there's still plenty to be worried about. Even a hint of betrayal in a leader is inexcusable.

So the new Mayor takes office in a couple of weeks. He's an ideas man. He says he wants to re-think the way decontamination is done. He wants to set up storage sites for the waste (at the moment all the waste is stored on site, i.e. they dig a hole in your garden to dump the stuff). He wants more nurseries close to where people work and he wants them to be free. He wants Koriyama to be a convention city, a musical centre, a focus for inward investment (including companies from overseas). He wants the city to grow to 500,000 people. As I say, lots of good ideas. Let's hope he can deliver.
Bye for now
Anne

Update 11 April 2013

Hi

Time for my monthly update.
More trouble at Fukushima Daiichi. After the case of the rat shorting a switchboard and halting cooling for a day, the latest is leakage of highly contaminated water from two storage pools. Contaminated water from the bottom of the reactor buildings continues to increase at a rate of 400 tonnes a day and two years on the remedies still seem to be makeshift with no solution to the basic problem. Where does this water come from? Water continues to be injected into the three reactors to keep them cool and circulates within a system. But some escapes through cracks in the containment vessels (they need to be repaired but high levels of radiation prevent the work getting done). Then there's underground water which continues to seep into the buildings from outside. Wells have been sunk and underground water pumped out but still it pours into the buildings. A relatively new water filtration system (ALPS) is cleaning the water, nonetheless, much of the site is given over to hundreds of tanks storing contaminated water and, it turns out, seven covered pools, five or six metres deep, lined with plastic. A few days ago there was a leakage from one of the pools - 120 tonnes of water containing 7.1 billion becquerels of radioactive material - and a much smaller leakage from another pool.

So again we're treated to the sight on television of the prefecture hauling Tepco bosses before it and eliciting a stage-managed apology. Then the CEO was summoned by the Minister of the Economy who gave him a dressing down in front of the cameras and told him that Tepco must not dump contaminated water in the sea. Necessary gesture for the fishing industry (which has just started trial fishing) and to reassure our foreign neighbours. The Nuclear Regulation Authority has put its oar in. Not before time. And the IAEA has said it will send a survey team, the first one to do with decommissioning. The latest is that Tepco has said it won't use the pools after all and all the water will be moved to tanks. But when they started moving the water, one of the pumps sprung a leak ... It really doesn't inspire confidence. The accident won't be over until all this water is properly dealt with - and the spent fuel rods are removed from damaged Unit 4. These are the two priorities at the moment.

Let's look for some good news instead.
Here's some really good news. A research team at Tokyo University has analysed the data of 33,000 people who've had their radiation dose (internal exposure) checked in whole body counters and reports that since March 2012 radioactive caesium was detected in only 1% of cases and that since May 2012 none was detected in the 10,000 under 15 year-olds tested. Professor Hayano commented, 'Compared with the nuclear accident at Chernobyl in 1986, chronic internal dose in Fukushima is extremely low. Testing of food in the market would appear to be working effectively'. This is great news. The rigorous testing has been vindicated, the dangers do not seem to be anything like as bad as at Chernobyl, and at last there is data on which experts can form an opinion. (In addition, the team reports that although a UNSCEAR report in 1988 suggested a correlation between internal dose and contamination levels in the soil, this new data does not support such findings.)

Also some good news for those families living apart. Voluntary evacuees (estimated to be about 30,000 people) can travel free on the expressways for the next year. The proposal was in this year's budget but wasn't to be debated in the Diet until later on in May. It's been brought forward to start from the coming Golden Week holiday end April/beg. May. Nice to see something being done right.

Finally, three more local districts have been re-zoned. This means that instead of the whole district being in the exclusion zone, it's been divided according to levels of contamination into: areas over 50 mSv/year which remain out of bounds (and re-named 'difficult to return areas'); 'restricted residence' areas and 'areas being prepared for having the evacuation order lifted'. Up to now residents could only visit under special conditions (bussed in and wearing white radiation suits) but under the new system residents in the latter two areas can go in and out freely (they have a code for the security gates) though they can't stay the night. Work will also start on decontamination and getting infrastructure working again. Only two of the 11 districts in the original exclusion zone to be re-organised.

Still cold in Koriyama but bright and sunny. The cherry blossom is out. Loudspeakers blaring out all over town this week as it's the election for Mayor tomorrow.
All the best
Anne