Saturday, March 19, 2011

Update from Osaka.

I'm in the lobby of the hotel/hostel that I'm staying at.  Not quite sure which one it is, since it has some clear characteristics of both.  I have my own room, but bath and bathroom are shared.  The joint has a Japanese style bath with what we will refer to as a hot tub and sauna. It's not really a hot tub, but I don't really know any words in English that would specifically cover a Japanese bath.  Maybe just Japanese bath.

Anyway.  The nuclear situation seems to be stabilizing.  The news hasn't gotten noticeably worse for a couple of days now, which is a big relief.  The drumbeat of ever-worsening news has been nerve-wracking, despite the fact that it has been generally acknowledged that the worst-case scenario is not particularly dangerous outside of a fairly small radius.  I'm considering going back to Tokyo in the not-distant future, although I had planned a trip to Fukuoka, which is further west from here.  The return trip to Tokyo would be a serious pain in the ass, though, and I'm not sure I want to spend the time/energy to make it happen cheaply and painlessly.  It would involve spending a lot of hours on either a bus or a local train.  I could take the shinkansen (bullet train), but they are pretty ridiculously expensive, and, even then, it would be a 6 or 7 hour trip.

So...we'll see what happens.  I can probably stay in Osaka or Kyoto for a few more days, as well.

Going to try to get a few more hours of sleep, all the people checking out woke me up earlier than I wanted.

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