Posted by Jess
13 April 2011
I haven't written an update on life in Tokyo in a while and what's been going on with us, so here goes.
Life in Tokyo is OK. This week has been a big week for aftershocks in the city. We don't even stop meetings for them now which I'm not sure is a good thing or a bad thing. I guess it's just a little sad to me that we just say, "This is how it is!", but knowing that they are going to go on for a while, what else can you do? Food and water is all reappearing at the stores, but packaging for the food continues to drive shortages in some things. Since some manufacturing plants for packaging materials were destroyed in the disaster and still there are power outages, it is hard to get a steady stream of supplies. Things that are in short-er supply: beer, coke, yogurt and milk come to mind, mostly because cans and cartons are hard to come by. We are still saving power here although not as drastically as before, for now. Baseball night games have been moved to day games, Disneyland will be opening again next week but not open at night, billboards are still not on, some escalators are turned off, and only every few streetlights are on. It definitely takes away from some of the city's buzz. The streets are much quieter these days. This will continue to be what life is like here for a while and may actually be more somber in the summer months. The situation at the power plant is not as big of news these days it seems like but I feel like they haven't made much progress one way or the other. Hopefully there's some big steps forward there soon. I believe the last count was 13,000+ confirmed dead and 15,000+ still missing.
After our Spring Break, Jason took the girls back to Minneapolis and I returned to Tokyo. That was about 2 and a half weeks ago now. Our parents have been wonderful in helping him out and letting him and the girls crash in their houses over these two weeks. Last week, Jason and I had many long talks about when it would be right for our family to be back together again - should they come here? Should I be there? We deliberated for hours on end. It was so difficult to figure out what the right thing to do was. We knew the 1,000 reasons that we wanted everyone to come back to Tokyo and finish out this adventure into the summer, yet I still could never hang up the phone and book the family plane tickets. And that, I guess, was what finally made me realize that my gut was telling me not to bring them back here and that I needed to follow that instinct.
A few days ago, I spoke to my company about ending my assignment here early. Jason and the girls will not be moving back to Tokyo, although Jason will come and visit for a bit at the end of the month to wrap some things up and to say goodbye to friends, and have one last Asia adventure together, just the two of us.
So now I am in the process of working with our human resources department to figure out what's next. My next role will be a permanent position, so not just a year wherever we go. My company has many locations worldwide so it is hard to say where we might head next. As with finding a new job for any reason, I know that this is going to take a little while. I don't know when I'll find the position and move on, but I'm hopeful it is in the next two months.
Other than that, Jason and the girls & I talk as much as possible on Skype, but the girls only last a few minutes. Jason is keeping busy between Green Bay and Ellsworth and has signed the girls up for swim lessons. He's shopping for cars for us so that we have two vehicles when we get set up again and because with the Japan automaker plants shut down here, supply will be getting tighter in the next few months. That's never a good time to buy a car. He'll be taking the girls back to our house in the next few weeks to settle in there and leave our parents alone! Ella will be so excited to be reunited with her dollhouse.
I'm working a lot, getting in some travel and very slowly getting our apartment cleaned up. By that I mean returning things to Ella's school (a tough morning for me and her teachers), finding good homes for our bikes, and starting to set some things aside that I won't need between now and summer. I'll be heading to Green Bay for Easter to see them and next weekend cannot come fast enough. It will have been a month since I've seen them all, which is waaaayyyyy too long.
When I know something about our next adventure, I'll definitely post it here, so stay tuned...
Kanpai,
Jess
13 April 2011
I haven't written an update on life in Tokyo in a while and what's been going on with us, so here goes.
Life in Tokyo is OK. This week has been a big week for aftershocks in the city. We don't even stop meetings for them now which I'm not sure is a good thing or a bad thing. I guess it's just a little sad to me that we just say, "This is how it is!", but knowing that they are going to go on for a while, what else can you do? Food and water is all reappearing at the stores, but packaging for the food continues to drive shortages in some things. Since some manufacturing plants for packaging materials were destroyed in the disaster and still there are power outages, it is hard to get a steady stream of supplies. Things that are in short-er supply: beer, coke, yogurt and milk come to mind, mostly because cans and cartons are hard to come by. We are still saving power here although not as drastically as before, for now. Baseball night games have been moved to day games, Disneyland will be opening again next week but not open at night, billboards are still not on, some escalators are turned off, and only every few streetlights are on. It definitely takes away from some of the city's buzz. The streets are much quieter these days. This will continue to be what life is like here for a while and may actually be more somber in the summer months. The situation at the power plant is not as big of news these days it seems like but I feel like they haven't made much progress one way or the other. Hopefully there's some big steps forward there soon. I believe the last count was 13,000+ confirmed dead and 15,000+ still missing.
After our Spring Break, Jason took the girls back to Minneapolis and I returned to Tokyo. That was about 2 and a half weeks ago now. Our parents have been wonderful in helping him out and letting him and the girls crash in their houses over these two weeks. Last week, Jason and I had many long talks about when it would be right for our family to be back together again - should they come here? Should I be there? We deliberated for hours on end. It was so difficult to figure out what the right thing to do was. We knew the 1,000 reasons that we wanted everyone to come back to Tokyo and finish out this adventure into the summer, yet I still could never hang up the phone and book the family plane tickets. And that, I guess, was what finally made me realize that my gut was telling me not to bring them back here and that I needed to follow that instinct.
A few days ago, I spoke to my company about ending my assignment here early. Jason and the girls will not be moving back to Tokyo, although Jason will come and visit for a bit at the end of the month to wrap some things up and to say goodbye to friends, and have one last Asia adventure together, just the two of us.
So now I am in the process of working with our human resources department to figure out what's next. My next role will be a permanent position, so not just a year wherever we go. My company has many locations worldwide so it is hard to say where we might head next. As with finding a new job for any reason, I know that this is going to take a little while. I don't know when I'll find the position and move on, but I'm hopeful it is in the next two months.
Other than that, Jason and the girls & I talk as much as possible on Skype, but the girls only last a few minutes. Jason is keeping busy between Green Bay and Ellsworth and has signed the girls up for swim lessons. He's shopping for cars for us so that we have two vehicles when we get set up again and because with the Japan automaker plants shut down here, supply will be getting tighter in the next few months. That's never a good time to buy a car. He'll be taking the girls back to our house in the next few weeks to settle in there and leave our parents alone! Ella will be so excited to be reunited with her dollhouse.
I'm working a lot, getting in some travel and very slowly getting our apartment cleaned up. By that I mean returning things to Ella's school (a tough morning for me and her teachers), finding good homes for our bikes, and starting to set some things aside that I won't need between now and summer. I'll be heading to Green Bay for Easter to see them and next weekend cannot come fast enough. It will have been a month since I've seen them all, which is waaaayyyyy too long.
When I know something about our next adventure, I'll definitely post it here, so stay tuned...
Kanpai,
Jess
10:18 AM |
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