Jinja and Shoga: Life in the Land of the Rising Sun

 To be honest, I don't really feel like posting. It seems callous to write about mundane occurrences when others are suffering, hungry, or hoping and praying for the safety of their loved ones. Maybe getting back into a routine will help combat the sadness that everyone in this country is facing right now, however.
  It was rather hard to try and continue on as normal this weekend too, knowing that so many people were suffering in other areas of the country. But sitting at home and staring at the news just kept inducing anxiety and feelings of helplessness. I didn't really sleep on Friday night and could hear our neighbor's tv on at 4 am, so I obviously wasn't the only one with insomnia.
 To get away from the awful scenes on the news (if we were at home, it was impossible not to turn on the tv), we decided to get out and do a little shopping on Saturday. Or rather, Keila and I window-shopped while Yuki got a haircut. It felt so surreal to be out and see everyone carrying on as usual downtown; I kept thinking that we all should be mourning. But maybe everyone else was feeling the same way and didn't know what to do with themselves, either.
 Whatever the case, I was once again reminded of just how peaceful and safe Japan is when I came across this scene at Cold Stone Creamery in the bottom floor of a department store:

               If you were focusing more on the guy slouching all over his seat in the background, look again and note the purse sitting on the table. Leaving one's purse out to save a table is an entirely common occurrence here. Crazy, huh? But it's exemplary of how Japan is reacting to this awful disaster: as so many people have pointed out, you aren't hearing anything on the news about rioting, stores being robbed, women being attacked, etc. Why not? Because it's simply not happening here. Maybe there are some cases that I don't know about, but so far all of the stories are of people cooperating peacefully, forming lines for food and water, and trying to help each other. Amazing, but entirely how people SHOULD be behaving after such a catastrophe.
   Moving on to another area of the basement, we came across the chocolate counters. Which were frequented mostly by men this weekend, seeing as yesterday was White Day, and I guess people were still celebrating it.  If you have no idea what White Day is, you're probably not alone. Basically, it's a day in response to Valentine's Day. Here, women give men chocolates on Valentine's Day, and on White Day, one month later, men are supposed to respond with gifts more expensive than the ones they were given. A chocolate company's dream.
           


On Sunday, again to get away from the tv, we used the White Day excuse to go to a nearby cake shop, Nave Noel. It's located close to the Nihondaira Zoo if you're interested. Wonderfully tasty heart-clogging chocolate cake. I'd say that I've lost my appetite due to the stress of the past few days, but to be honest, I'm a stress eater and have been running for snacks every time I hear the words 'nuclear reactor'. That cake went down like water! And then I felt guilty for being able to eat chocolate cake while so many don't have food or water right now.



            If you want a temporary mood enhancer, then this is the cake to buy!


  One last note...if you want to help but aren't sure what to do besides pray, then I'd suggest donating to the Japanese Red Cross. I'm getting my credit card out as soon as I finish posting this. Here's the Google link to it: http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html
Even $20 will help, and to be honest, are you really going to miss $20? Yeah, I didn't think so.