life

Always be prepared

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What a crazy day it’s been. The excitement in Japan never ceases. And by ‘excitement’, I mean natural disasters. A huge, intense typhoon battered central Japan today and now making its way up north…but not before passing through Tokyo. Everyone had been waiting in anticipation for it, and not in a good way. More bracing ourselves for it.

Yesterday/last night, both the Canadian and Australian embassies issued alert warnings via email. I’ve been living in Japan for 6 years and never have I received an alert for typhoon reasons…and there’s usually a dozen or so typhoons a year in Japan. This one was expected to be a doozy. We had some heavy rain overnight as the typhoon made its way east and north.

Today was windy, rainy…but for most of the morning…nothing too intense. By afternoon/early evening, the typhoon hit Tokyo. It was expected to hit between 3-6pm. And it delivered. Most companies were letting people go home early….but not early enough. Around 3-4pm is when most people who wanted to leave early left…but that was when all the trains shut down. So many train lines all went down around 3.30pm leaving masses of people stranded at train stations unable to get home. I, on the other hand was at work, in the office. One – there was a lot of work that needed to be done. It was crazy busy today. Not to mention that we’re shortstaffed at the moment. And secondly, no point in trying to leave the office only to be stranded at the station – this happened on the day of the earthquake. In my attempt to leave early and head for the airport…I was stuck underground at Tokyo station for 8 hours! Better to stay indoors. Quite a few people tried to leave, only to return back to the office and wait it out instead. Train lines were down, and even once they were back up, they were going to be delayed and backlogged by millions of Tokyoites all wanting to get home. Some intense crazy winds whipped through Tokyo. Even our office building was shaking from the wind! Ploughed through work which kept us busy, but was able to work shorter hours thanks to the typhoon. Didn’t want to be stuck in the office all night. Trains eventually started running again…albeit delayed and not to any schedule. Some are out of action altogether. Was lucky to get home without too much drama…apart from the fact that the trains were more crowded than usual! What an insane day.

The typhoon stuck around a few hours and is now headed north. That’s a cause for concern because it’s going to batter Tohoku which has had more than enough damage and wreckage. It also appears that I may be following the typhoon (or is it following me?) because I am actually due to fly to Hokkaido on Friday morning. I’m hoping that the typhoon is done with by tomorrow…but there is a possibility that it may reach Hokkaido on Friday. I think it will go out to sea though. The airports were in chaos with practically all domestic flights cancelled today. With the typhoon having passed, through Tokyo at least, I am expecting hot humid weather to follow for the next week or so. I’ve observed that intense hot days follow after a typhoon. I don’t know why (care to shed any light on that, Alex?!) Got home fine tonight after seeing out the typhoon at the office. But on my way home I saw a lot of abandoned umbrellas. They were no match for these winds. Not much later after I had gotten home…there was an earthquake! Geez. Never a dull moment in Japan. I had actually secretly been worried about this all day – I knew the typhoon was coming, but what if we also got an earthquake at the same time. We still get multiple baby earthquakes everyday. The apartment started shaking slightly…and at first, I couldn’t tell whether it was because of the typhoon winds (which had subsided) or an actual earthquake. Turned out to be 5.3 magnitude earthquake at the source. Not so bad in Tokyo though. I’ve become super, super sensitive to shakes and earthquakes. I can usually feel even the slightest of earthquakes. Sometimes my own heartbeat/pulse keeps me awake at night and I mistake it for a slight earth tremor. Central Japan has suffered a lot of damage as a result of this typhoon – the news footage has been intense – with much flooding.

These natural disasters are taking its toll on the landscape and the economy here. It’s been a wild weather day here, yet things in Tokyo, will go back to normal tomorrow. With all these natural disasters…it’s important to be prepared for anything! That’s why it’s necessary to have an emergency kit or emergency supplies on hand. I am a super organized person..bordering on obsessively organised. I’m a planner. I make lists to make lists. I have a very serious obsession/addiction to making lists! “Always be prepared” was the Boy Scout motto. I was actually a Brownie – of the Girl Guide variety and not the edible chocolate kind, when I was a young girl in primary school. Our motto was LAH – Lend A Hand. I much preferred the Boy Scout motto. So after the March earthquake, I made sure to prepare a little emergency kit. I kind of haphazardly put stuff together with stuff around the apartment, and haven’t really updated it since.

From Emergency kit

Here’s what it contains:

– 4 small packet of tissues (doubles as toilet paper)

– wet tissue/wipes

– honey lollies

– packet of gummie bears

– plastic bag

– 2 mini bottles of water

– 2 packets of Calorie mate (nutrition bars)

– 1 packet Prune/dried raisin biscuits

– 2 bandanas (useful as a cloth, hanky, sling etc)

– A packet of sesame bars

– facewasher

– onsen towel (a small body towel)

– a pencil

– a pen

– notebook

– photocopy of my Gaijin card (identity card that is mandatory for foreigners in Japan)

– a little keychain watch (I don’t own a watch so I’ll need to know what the time is)

– Hokkairo (heat patch)

– Plastic cup

– a fork

– spare empty ziplock bag

– Rain poncho

– box of matches (but no candles…must add that to the shopping list and get me some)

– a tiny medical kit (containing: eye mask, face mask, bandaids, toothbrush, cotton buds, Advil, feminine hygiene products – I’ve put these into a little Qantas airline kit that you get free on airplanes.)

– Sudoku puzzles (pages ripped out from a Sudoku book – figured it was a way to kill time without being electricity-generated entertainment.)

This all fits nicely into one very small portable drawstring cloth bag (about half the size of a pillow) which is easy to pick up in a hurry should I ever need to evacuate. I keep it right by the door in the genkan, so I only have to pick it up on my way out the door.

From Emergency kit
From Emergency kit

I also keep 2L Bottled water by the door as well. I only drink tap water at home…but safe to have bottled water as well, especially after the radiation scares that we had. So that’s all the stuff that I would have in a pinch. At any given time, I also have a handbag and that also holds further essentials, like my iPhone, purse, camera, other bits and bobs, and a torch. I have a small torch wherever I go. It’s basically survival stuff that would get me through 2-3 days if needed before getting on a flight back home, if for example I was stuck in an evacuation centre or the airport for a few days.

Stuff like the laptop, clothes and all other possessions would most likely get left behind if needed. At the end of the day, it’s all replaceable. I have backed up the majority of my photos on online photo albums (I have just under 400 albums saved on Picasa!)…so things like my photos on my hard drive would be ok to leave behind. A lot of photos are also on this blog…so that’s kinda nice too to have. Other important docs I have saved in my email account and Dropbox – if I were to leave behind my computer. The laptop and the SLR camera would probably be the two tangible possessions I most care about. I also leave my passport in an accessible place to grab in an emergency. It’s better to be safe than sorry. Having an emergency kit though is only fine when you’re at home. But when disaster strikes…most likely you’ll be at work or out somewhere, and not in the comfort and safety of your own house. I really should also prepare a mini-kit for my desk at work.

After the March earthquake, I did put some small emergency things in place. I always keep a bottle of water on my desk that I don’t touch – it’s to grab in an emergency. I also keep a pair of old sneakers under my desk in case I ever have to walk home from work – not much fun in heels or work shoes. I keep a toothbrush and toothpaste and some snacks in my drawers (the furnitute kind not my briefs) as well. And again, my handbag will always be with me, so I’ll have my torch, purse, phone etc with me. I should put together a proper kit though…especially considering I’m always at work when all this stuff happens! There’s more stuff that I should add to my kit, but you’ve also got to keep it portable. The idea is to not take the whole apartment with you, as tempting as that is! I remembered reading this timely article (I am follower of this blog) and if you read through all the comments, there are some great suggestions in there. It was good stuff for me to consider. And yeah, I saw that movie too, so it really does make you think what is essential for survival but at the same time keeping it to a minimum. You’ve got to brace yourself for anything these days it seems. My kit is kind of a work-in-progress. Is there anything else that I must add to it??

Swimmer’s block

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I hadn’t swum in over week, which is a little bit of a record for me, because I always swim at least, at a minimum – once a week. Today, after doing a 2km swim this morning, I remembered why I had taken a break from swimming….shoulder pain.

In just a few weeks, I will be swimming around Turkey – a 30-35km swim over 6 days. On average swimming 5-6km a day. I should be training more, me thinks. But with all the swimming I had been doing over the summer, my upper shoulders and upper back/neck are getting sore. Subconsciously I had stopped swimming for about 10 days to give my shoulders a break. I’ve also taken up jogging as well, which meant that I had swapped the pool for the treadmill. I am actually getting into the jogging a bit now … even bought myself new jogging shoes! I’m in need of swimming motivation considering I had slacked off a bit. I’m also getting worried about the swimtrek. I feel underprepared to swim that much, day in, day out. The thought of sore shoulders and back is a little unnerving. Swimming laps in a pool also gets a little boring.

Last night I came across an awesome blog of a gal who a few months back did a swimtrek. Hers wasn’t so much a holiday as it was a swim bootcamp. She had signed up for the Gozo (Malta swimtrek) – this swimtrek is a swim camp used mainly by those who want to swim the English Channel. It’s a full-on long distance ows swim camp, working up to a 6-hour swim. (My limit is 2-hours). It’s a really interesting read of the training and mental endurance of open water swimming training in cold water (15 degrees). I highly recommend reading her three entries on her swimtrek. Start reading from here. And work your way to post 3 of her Malta swimtrek. Her last post is the most inspiring and motivating. Her blog gets brownie points because she makes reference to Haruki Murakami. It was a re-quote from someone else, but I’m pretty sure that Murakami said that in this book, “What I talk about when I talk about running”. (Murakami is a prolific marathoner). One of the quotes that always stuck out in that book for me was: “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional”. (I think it was also a re-quote from someone else as well). But after reading that book – that quote always stuck in my mind. I think I should re-read that book. Good motivation for mental endurance and perserverance, especially since I’m also hoping to get accepted into the Tokyo Marathon. It was a good insight into what I can expect…although not as full on as that. It will be a similar routine. Up early, breakfast and then hitting the water everyday, swim for a couple of hours, lunch, swim a few more km’s, dinner, a couple of sessions on technique and swim analysis, and then sleep. Thankfully, it’s also a holiday, and not a race, and not a swim bootcamp, so hopefully it will be a little more leisurely.

After reading that last night, I thought it was time for me to HTFU. So even though I desperately wanted to sleep in longer this morning, I changed into my cossies, got onto the train, jumped into the pool and swam 2km. The first 1km was easy enough. Felt good to be back in the water especially having not swum for a while. Between 1-1.5km my shoulders started to get sore. My lower neck, upper back and shoulders are getting really tight and sore though. It doesn’t help that I sit in front of a computer all day at work either. I think I’m gonna need some deep tissue massaging. In my last ows race (the 4.5km one) I remember my arms being incredibly sore, especially around the 3km mark. To the point where I could barely get the, out of the water and they were just pretty much skimming the top of the water, floundering. Should I be pumping iron? Do I have weak arms? I think sore shoulders and arms is normal? The recommended swimming training program provided by Swimtrek seems pretty relaxed to me. Maybe, I am swimming too much. When you also eat as much as I do, there’s no such thing as “swimming too much”. I went back over the swimming training program – which spans 3 months in the lead up to the actual swim.

I leave in 3 weeks, and I feel as though I haven’t done enough training, despite being on track with the program. I barely swim 5km a week, let alone 5km a day for a whole week! They recommend a certain distance per week = target km. I have then recorded my actual distance swum for that week.

Month 1/July

Week 1: Target: 1km Actual: 10km (includes 3km OWS race, plus additional training km’s)

Week 2: Target: 1.5km Actual: 10.6 km (This was the week I competed in the 4.5km ows race, plus additional training km’s)

Week 3: Target: 2km Actual: 1.5km (this was my recovery week after two back to back weekends of ows races)

Week 4: Target: 2km Actual: 1km

Week 5: No target. Actual: 1.7km

Month 2/August

Week 1: Target: 2.5km Actual: 4.1km

Week 2: Target: 3km Actual: 5km

Week 3: Target: 3.5km Actual: 3km (did more cross training instead of swimming – 3 jogging sessions)

Week 4: Target: 4km Actual: 3.5km (lazy week. No jogging either)

Month 1/September

Week 1: Target: 4km Actual: 1km swim (but 3 jogging sessions)

Week 2: in progress Target: 5km Actual (so far): 2km ….but the week ain’t over yet.

Here’s what I need to cover over the next 2-3 weeks…

Week 3: Target: 5km

Week 4: Target: 3km Moral of the story. No pain. No gain. And must find good masseur.  I also need to fit in another open water swim session (instead of laps in a chlorine box), so I signed up for another race (my last one for the summer) which is in a week and a half away, and I’ve not done much training for it. It’s a 3.84km open water swim race. If you’re thinking 3.84km is a weird distance, it’s because I will be swimming the length of a bay somewhere in Chiba prefecture, and apparently that’s how long the bay is.

August by numbers

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August. 31 days. 31 blog posts. … Sorry about that. I should have warned you. That’ll teach ya to sign up to my RSS feed!

From August 2011

My challenge/project for the month was to write a blog entry everyday for a whole month. Success! What a mammoth effort! And time consuming too. Don’t think I’ll be doing that again in a hurry. It was a good opportunity though to finally getting around to doing a backlog of posts.

August by numbers: 31 days. 31 blog posts.

23 days worked.

16km swum (training). 25km jogged/walked (training).

1 marathon application entered.

1 high tea.

0 ows races. (Sadly no ows races competed in this month. The only two races on this month were in Shiga and Hyogo prefectures. Way too far to get to. But I have signed up for another long swim race in September and even a short run race too).

A quick setsuden update. July’s electricity bill was 2360yen – without using the a/c at all. Totally switched to an electric fan and was using it liberally as well (it was on for about 12 hours a day). Compared to last year’s July bill where I used the a/c liberally, my bill was 3,853yen.

From August 2011

During August, it got ridiculously hot, so I took to turning on the a/c for a few hours a day, as well as liberally using the fan. So my electricity bill went up a little. This month’s bill was 2689yen with using the a/c sparingly. A huge difference from last year’s August bill where I was using the a/c on overtime. Last year’s August bill was 5,657yen! Safe to say, August is the hottest month of the year.

From August 2011

My setsuden project was successful too. By switching over to an electric fan instead of using the a/c – really does make a difference! Up to 50% reduction in electricity bill. That’s impressive. But I will admit, sometimes a fan ain’t enough on a 35 degree day! But we didn’t suffer any brownouts because, collectively, Japan was able to reduce electricity consumption over the summer. Every business over the summer had to cut electricity consumption by 15% from last year by government order. That regulation will end on Sep 22.

Glad that August is no over. Way too much blogging! Now I can have my life back! And back to my sporadic blogging whenever I feel like it. September is gonna be a very busy month! Have heaps of stuff planned. So there will still be plenty of my alventures to read about. I’ve got to live in order to blog it about it, I suppose.

Passport to the future

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Where have you been and where are you going? One of my most precious possessions is my passport. Travel is not so much a right, as it is a privilege. Most of us are fortunate enough to have travelled abroad at some point in our lives. These days it’s almost a rite of passage, but there are plenty of people who don’t even own a passport! This year, I had to renew my passport and get a new one. Firstly, because it was full! And secondly, because it expires this year. So I got it renewed a couple of months ago at the embassy here. I got one of those shiny new e-passports. An ordinary passport lasts for 10 years, and it occurred to me that my old passport was a memento, a record of all the places that I’ve been to over the last decade from age 20 to age 30. I thought it was really cool that my passport timing coincided right on with each new decade of my age. Same goes for my new (current) passport. It will expire in the year that I turn 40 (that’s a scary number!). My new and old passport:

From Passport

So my old beloved passport is a thumbprint of how I spent my 20s.

From Passport

Over the last 10 years I have accumulated lots of stamps and visas (mostly a gazillion entries and re-entries in and out of Japan).

From Passport
From Passport
From Passport
From Passport
From Passport

Here is map which highlights all the countries that I’ve been to:
visited 19 states (8.44%)
Create your own visited map of The World or Free iphone travel guide Those countries would be Australia, Fiji, NZ, Japan, South Korea, China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, France, Germany, Netherlands, England, Ireland, USA, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, 19 countries visited in 10 years. Not a bad effort (I thought I had done more), but still not enough, I say. I haven’t included stopover countries where I didn’t leave the airport. If I did, I would also include the UAE and Malaysia. My passport also includes a Russian visa (but I never made it to Russia even though I got a tourist visa). I haven’t included my upcoming Turkey trip because that’ll go in my new passport! There are soooo many more countries that I am dying to go to!!! Travel is my life, my 生きがい, my raison d’etre. I’ve not done any of South America, and I want to do way more of Europe! Here’s what my bucketlist of countries to visit looks like (they’re highlighted in red):
Create your own visited map of The World

Yep, I wanna go everywhere! Okay, I’ll be a bit more realistic then. Now that I have a brand new passport which will see me through my 30s, here is a list of countries that I would to like visit before my 40th birthday and upon the expiry of this new passport. So this bucketlist will cover the next 10 years. Ideally I’d like to do more, but this is a bit more realistic:

visited 35 states (15.5%)
Create your own visited map of The World

Hmmm, I just realised that was 35 countries! Maybe not that realistic after all! Me thinks I might have to live in a winnebago (coolest word ever, along with ‘haberdashery’) and eat catfood for the rest of my life to support this habit! Check back in, in 10 years and see how I’ve done. I’ll then make a bucketlist for the next decade. You can play with the interactive map and create your own travel bucketlist here or here. I used the first site, because I can embed into this blog. Fun, right!

So back to my original question: Where have you been and where are you going?

Looking ahead

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One of my little life’s philosophies is: Always give yourself something to look forward to. It can be something as simple as a dinner with friends, watching a movie, getting a massage or manicure, or something as big as a holiday, trip overseas, a big function or event.

These Open Water Swims (OWS) throughout this summer have really given me something to look forward to. Surprisingly, I enjoy competing, and I look forward to race day. Even though it’s challenging, it’s keeping me fit and focused during the week. It’s also made me realise how much I love swimming. Swimming has always been there in the background of my life, but lately it really has occurred to me that’s a huge part of my life, and it’s kind of nice to take it up more seriously. I’ve been really obsessed with swimming lately, in particular long-distance swimming. I really want to push myself to swim longer distances and get up to 5km, 10km swims. I think this is something that I really want to pursue – yes, long distance swimming. It’s kind of my niche sporting activity at the moment. I’ve been obsessed with looking up long distance swims on the Internet and I’ve got some goals in sight with some swims over the next year or so in some exotic destinations. Having something to look forward to is an important motivation. Lately, it feels though my time is counted by the number of swim races I can do.

Tomorrow, I’ve got a 2km open water swim in Shizuoka. I feel ok with the training I did this week to do the distance comfortably. I was more focused on being comfortable with the distance rather than speed. Since last Sunday’s race, I managed to do the following: Monday – 2km swim in about 45min

Tuesday -1km swim

Wednesday -4km jog, 1km walk (total 45min cardio – cross training)

Thursday – rest.

Friday – 2.2 km in about 45min

Saturday – will be rest.

And tomorrow race day.

My motivation at the moment, is my upcoming trip to Egypt. I’ve got three weekends, and two swim races to get through and then I am treating myself to a nice holiday.