April 23, 2011 - Tokyo report - 23 Apr
I told myself that i should make it a point to post a report everynight, but by the time i rch my hotel and get to my computer, i will be dead tired, cos i had SO much fun every single day we are out. lots to see, buy and eat.
As far as i can tell, nothing is too devastating here that can cause damage to any other human being.
Today is Saturday, it was raining the entire day, but Shinjuku and Shibuya area are still packed with human crowd. its unbelievable so many pple are actually out on a rainy day.
Some stores operates on a shorter hour basis, but tts usually until about 8 pm? I still do not see any shops closing at 5 pm due to saving electricity. I guess this pple need to revive their business. Plenty of food places ard Shinjuku and Kabukicho operates till late night, some 24 hours. Every night we end up hanging out till at least 10 pm.
Supermarket & mini marts - most of chilled section of mini marts are not lit up, but they have the chiller on. There are many variety of food, snacks, drinks u can choose from. everynight we pop by the mini marts, we will have a v hard time deciding on what drink we shd buy back. :) Needless to say, the major super markets are well stocked and plenty of food available.
Aftershocks - other than the first day we reach, we encounter a shock of abt 5 - 6 secs, we encounter another 2, tts like less than 3 seconds, which is v negligible (my bf didnt feel it).
Neon lights - Only the big ones are off, if u go to Harajuku & Shibuya, most of them are lit up.
Train stations - to save electricity, some stations have shut down operations of lift or escalators. from wat i see, they will usually have one in operations, either the lift or escalator, for convenience of everyone. they just didnt operate everything they have. and anyway, most of the locals take the stairs. good exercise.
Like every other visitors who have decided to go ahead w their travel plans, we didnt regret coming.
So if u are still in a dilemma, i cant promise u the level of radiation nor the aftershocks, but from what i can tell, everything cannot be more normal than what is is here right now, and i tink u shd take the leap of faith and come.
We had so much fun & we cant bear to go back to homeland tomorrow :(
But our heart still goes out to those pple who are affected in 311 disaster.
