Some pics from daughter's first time at USJ
12 days after the tsunami hit up north in Tohoku, the local day care/kindergarten which our daughter attends still has the flags at half mast. Life goes on, especially for those of us here who are not so directly impacted by the crisis, but the whole nation stands with the people up north who must deal with such great difficulty everyday. No one is forgetting. Supplies are beginning to reach even the isolated areas in Tohoku and temporary houses are already under construction even as rescue and recovery operations continue. Tens of thousands are still in shelters (usually schools or community centers).
Besides donating money to various organizations in Japan, there is not much we can do down here. But one thing the city is doing is collecting non perishable food and many other items including clothing. All of these items will be accepted here locally next weekend and then shipped up to people who are living in evacuation centers. Most of these people lost everything, including clothes and so on. My wife and I were able to fill two boxes of brand new clothes. Used clothes are not accepted. We needed to provide clothes that were like new or never before worn. I had a lot of brand new items from companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Firefox -- t-shirts and sweatshirts -- that I was going to give away at a future tech event but this cause is better.
Though everyone's heart is with the people up north, life goes on down here in Kansai pretty much as normal. Since our daughter will have her first birthday soon, we took her to Universal Studios for the first time (about 30-40 min drive from our house in Nara). As you can see, everyone had the same idea. The day out was a welcome diversion. The place was full of smiling children; their joy has a way of influencing the spirits of the adults. Our daughter loved it and was walking all over the place -- she loved the wide open spaces. She especially loved Snoopy!
