Hello Tokyo

Well, my travels have certainly started with a bang. Or at least a very large rumble.

The travelling itself went suprisingly smoothly. Flight from Heathrow was on time, landing at Narita at 9am. Bought a bus ticket at the desk right opposite the terminal exit, got on the bus at 1005 directly outside the terminal and had an uneventful 2 hour bus journey from the airport to Hon-Atsugi Station. Since the weather looked pleasant enough (and I'd been stuck in a tiny space that BA call a 'seat' for 11 hours or so) I decided to walk to Marthe's flat directly from Hon-Atsugi. After reconfiguring my luggage into one large rucksack, fiddling with the straps and getting my bearings I set off across town. Again it was a pleasant enough walk although I realised that I needed to fiddle some more with the straps as I found myself having to lift my shoulders slightly to keep it in a comfortable position.

The walk took 20mins and I was soon at the flat.

So far, so good. I sorted out some of my stuff and retrieved the items destined for Marthe, mostly intact (the Ginger Cake now had a slightly 'interesting' shape to it).

Then I proceeded to the most important part of unpacking, getting online (I mean, how is the world going to survive if I wasn't available via various digital means). After sending a couple of emails I made a start on the second most important thing, food. Marthe had kindly provided me with all the things required to make a delicious Italian lunch, pasta and sauce.

So there I was, boiling my spaghetti, when all the mugs start swinging on their hooks. Now I thought this was rather odd, but that thought didn't really last long as I was soon struggling to stand up properly. After a couple of seconds I realised I was in Japan. Where they have earthquakes. Having never really experienced one before, I wasn't sure what to expect. Thankfully Marthe doesn't have lots of loose stuff lying about, so the mess was kept to a minimum, but I was still rather disconcerted. Should I jump in the bath, under a table, stand in a door frame, try and make it downstairs? After 5 minutes or so of what felt like being on a boat in choppy seas, it stopped. Now clearly my first response to an earthquake is to look it up online. Initially there was nothing, but eventually it came up as a 7.9 (later revised to 8.8) which is pretty damn big. Wow.

After a walk to stretch my legs and take a couple of photos I came back to all the news being full of the earthquake and potential tsunamis. There have also been quite a lot of aftershocks, but nothing compared to the quake itself. Thankfully they too seem to have calmed down now. Most of Tokyo seems to have survived reasonably unscathed and apart from the lack of transport things (at least in this area) seem to be going along normally.

So here I am waiting for Marthe to get home (all public transport in Tokyo has been suspended) with the BBC and the cricket for company. Hopefully not every day will be quite as 'exciting' as this.