one_surreal.

we were a little apprehensive but after arriving, everything seems alright. fortuntely we took the airport limo and skipped the trains. when we walked past shinjuku later in the early noon we saw that the queue to get to the platforms were right at the entry turnstiles. so today we stayed right in shinjuku - we were dead beat anyway after the flight and the hotel didn't allow us to check in till after lunch. in the early evening when we ventured out for dinner, the big malls had all their facade lights switched off and were closed early, some even at 3pm - i think there was a lot of clean up/stocktaking/restocking to do; compared to the normal times, shinjuku was quiet and not as brightly lit for energy conservation. the mood is sombre but things are going on as usual. we're at home here, having been here before so it's okay. maybe we're doing our bit for the jap economy by being here.

in the convenience stores, there was still food, drinks and stuff but there were empty shelves so i presume those were the preservables.

some groups were on the streets, basking or holding boxes to collect funds for the quake efforts. we read that some areas, including tokyo would have 3 hours of electricity shut-down each day but when we checked our area was not included. tokyo's so big - i think it was the residential areas that had to follow that rule.

after a ramen dinner we walked around the blocks back to the hotel and stopped at a bottle shop along the way. the shopkeeper saw us looking at a beer mug and gave us 2 free! just like that! we were really touched considering we didn't buy anything expensive.

on thursday i'm going to visit the house i'm writing for. that's still on so i'm excited.