A little over a month ago, or less than a week before the earthquake it was a beautiful afternoon so we drove out to the other side of Fuji to spend an interesting Sunday afternoon in a traditional Japanese restaurant Kominka.

My wife & Keiko had spent the previous afternoon there, talking with the elderly but very energetic owner - who'd been keen to share his experiences with renewing an old building. He'd restored this little old house in mostly traditional style, with some charming results.







We had a traditional Oodong noodle lunch and as the restaurant closed he came to sit with us and talk. The conversation led into traditional Japanese life and what he remembered as a child, which I couldn't help but find fascinating:

He described life during shortages of food & fuel, etc. In those days in this very village that was now pretty much deserted life had thrived. Small open houses built close to one another had been common in the village and each family knew it's neighbours intimately.
The father would be home from work early to eat with his family and they'd all go to bed at the same time, sleeping in the same room with futons lined next to one another. Because everybody lived so close, people had to be considerate of their neighbour as well as those in his family. The community spirit was strong. People would share their produce from the food they grew & they were humble, but it was a proper way to live. Marriage was usually arranged by the parents to someone they thought the best for their son or daughter. This kind of Japanese lifestyle existed for hundreds of years and it's not hard to realise this history was the cause of Japanese people's ingrained humility, considerate attitude and honesty in general today, especially amongst people in their 70's or even older.

He talked about today's young Japanese generations, who to him seem to have lost much of that tradition. Most young people choose to move to the larger cities for work and end up being in a much lonlier place as a result. Neighbours are replaced with talk shows on TV and people rarely if ever interact when out and about in city roads. Their best chance of meeting friends is through work.

It's as if what we call progress is actually going backwards as people are more stressed, less happy and in modern society often feel loneliness and a lack of sense of purpose. I couldn't help but agree that consideration of others we live near as part of a community is a lot healthier than caring primarily for oneself. Are today's modernised ways really progress?

Here's an interesting video of why today's two parent working families are much more likely to fail. Although it compares what families did in the 1970's to now, it seems traditional ways had better answers to cope with inevitable difficulties than modern society & dare I say it, western influences: The coming collapse of the middle class.

In the last few weeks I was remembering what he'd said whilst observing so much change in Japan from tsunami & earthquake damage with Fukushima now a main priority to get completely under control.

After the 2nd world war there was no food in Japan, so people then made it by working within communities thereby making a unified country to rebuild whilst sacrificing what they had to. Their collective efforts & resultant strength made Japan become truly great within a short space of time as a result. These ancestors knew life’s not about helping ourselves first & foremost – it's about grace to one another. Influence by example can be the greatest way of effecting change.

Watching & reading about progress in the North of Japan, I've been encouraged to notice these values remain within the Japanese from hundreds of years of Japanese civilisation. It was heartening to see it so evident in the face of life changing losses. In these food & fuel shortages there were no squabbles or fighting when supplies were short, even the worst hit areas in the North. Instead people have found kindness with food left on their doorsteps overnight from neighbours & help in rebuilding and picking themselves up. Many have helped one another despite enduring unimaginable grief & losses themselves. Who can but admire such attitude.

Compare with what happened in Japan when there were shortages to the States with Katrina or what would happen in the UK given similar circumstances of no supply & desperate people.
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In difficult times we can expect the Japanese to remain humble, helpful and self-disciplined, not riot, fight and climb over one another to be first. It’s response like this that the news should be reporting on and showing examples of, not scaremongering in order to sell news. If anything this low quality of reporting shows the state of today's media. Although it's meant to be there to inform us of the truth it doesn't always show an unbiassed opinion.

Days before completing we weren't sure, so Faith, our close friend suggested I prayed to ask God if it was the right thing to do. As I cruised the bike home on an empty highway one cold night I said a little prayer. The response I got was strong and immediate - a resounding "Yes" with encouragement. I smiled to myself, knowing we were safe and opened up the throttle in celebration. It was as if God was riding on my shoulders that evening.

There’s a lot of reasons for our buying this house & land. Luxury living isn’t the vision, although it’ll make a very nice place when it's done.

From what we plan to achieve, we hope it'll inspire others to do similar things and in a modern way, return to traditional values of growing natural foods (using modern permaculture – which is much less work intensive), help support a community and return to healthy habits and avoid the traps of eating supermarket foods that increasingly have growth hormones, antibiotics & genetic modification – since these would be a possible route to poor health in later years. Being aware of the main dangers, it would seem stupid not to do something… whilst we still can.

On 30th March we went to a small Sumitomo bank in Sakura town, Chiba and met the people involved with this transaction, taking care to ask all the questions I could think of that might be important. Within just over an hour the purchase had been completed.
It was a relief as finally the uncertainty ended and the action could begin.



First up is the task of rebuilding the parts of the interior which need improvement and restoration. Japan's not an easy place to update old houses and things don't happen as smoothly as they might in other countries - but our woodworking professional friends Yuki & Arnie both made what turned out to be excellent suggestions:

Arnie suggested: http://www.royal-hc.co.jp

My wife & I went there and were surprised at the variety of untreated flooring wood available. She quickly pointed out her dislike for pine with knots in and I was a bit shocked to see the price of premium quality pine. About 3 times the price of the cheaper stuff with knots in!

Yuki suggested: http://www.lumber.jp

Ah-ha! I researched and narrowed down our choice of woods to Ash, Maple and Oak. Prices didn't seem a lot higher for these than what Royal home centre were charging for similar sized pine. Result!

So we made an appointment and the following morning just a week ago today - went to the lumber yard in Chiba. We looked at the options including other flooring they suggested, but ended up choosing 105 m2 of solid oak tongue & groove floor boards - unfinished, so we could stain & varnish after fitting. We needed 1.5cm thick plywood, but were told this was in short supply since the majority of Japan's plywood stock was finding itself going North to help build temporary housing and they didn't know when they'd be able to supply more.
Whilst of course we would agree that's a priority of course - we need plywood for underboard if we're going to get this work completed...They suggested we buy some old C grade flooring and lay it underneath - but I wasn't convinced it would give us the strength we needed.

"Just the oak then please..."

I hadn't expected to be able to negotiate on pricing, but my wife asked politely and they gave way to a good deal, on the proviso we'd collect the wood ourselves from a warehouse in Ichikawa the following week.



Our next stop was the Royal home centre in Chiba-Kita, where we were able to order 135m2 of 1.5cm plywood. The storeman suggested we needed 60 sheets based on rough sizing from tatami sizes but I'd already calculated based on actual measurements & added 10% extra for offcuts, etc. so more was ordered. We left an order and were told it would be in the following week, but were asked to please collect it without delay - as plywood was in short supply and if it wasn't available for sale, but customers saw the stock pile they might be annoyed. Plywood really is hard to get right now it seems.



So yesterday I woke up at 6.00am. 45 minutes later I was on the bike, riding to Chiba where I'd meet Dai Chan to go together & rent a 2 ton long bed truck. By 9.30 we were at the warehouse having 64 boxes of oak flooring boards forklifted on, before stopping at the home centre to have all the plywood loaded. As we still had a little space to spare, we bought scaffolding equipment too.



In the meantime Arnie and his son Shinobu had been working since 7.30am Monday morning taking down ceilings, walls, removing old tatami mats (& saving the best ones for re-coveriung and use upstairs) and generally doing terrible work!


Spot the man on top of the ladder covered in black dust from head to toe, removing ceiling boards...

As we reversed into the drive Arnie came out covered from head to toe in black dust, which had accumulated over a long time from the kotatsu fires that used to burn in the house. A mark of a man not afraid of good hard labour as a means to get to the end result envisioned.

It was beautiful to see the big wooden beams exposed which I'd known were there from seeing the large upstairs room. What a serious roof!



They'd found newspaper that was 25 years old under the Tatami mats.



Between 4 of us, unloading the truck was fast work.



After discussing aspects of the build with Arnie, as this was his first time helping his father work on a house I asked Shinobu if he could envision the end result. He couldn't. I'm sure he's going to enjoy the results of his labours as transformation takes place, ha!



I spent some time with Dai Chan showing him the land and telling him our plans.
The following 2 pictures were taken in the chestnut orchard behind our forest.





The more people we show the place to, the more I'm realising that without experience in building / re-forming of houses - most can't see the potential of what we have in mind. Even my wife can't see it. Fortunately she has blind faith and trusts my judgement. Me, I've no doubt she's going to love the results of this work.


Shinobu takes down earth & bamboo walls!


27 bags of straw, dust & soot on the floors.

At first I'd wanted my wife to play a very active part in the designing of the interior transformations, but as she can't envision the end result, it's difficult for her. So we've agreed I'll work out the building & alterations and together we can choose furniture and decoration together later.

The garden's blooming beautiful! Colours are beginning to show as blossoms of spring come out and flowers show. Cherry blossom trees that were seemingly dormant have become alive with petals and bumble bees are flying around collecting pollen and birds singing. The thought that this beautiful garden is only the beginning is exciting. Just walking around it is already relaxing.



















I want to start learning what all these plants are called in the garden.. both Japanese and in English.

Have been researching lighting design (The Lighting Bible by Lucy Martin is an excellent guide with tons of colour pictures!) and have nearly finished making plans for where we'll put electrical wiring as walls and flooring are laid. Will update plans for lighting soon and tell where we get the stuff from... Having looked at the stuff in home centres and not been too impressed with quality or price, I think we may be importing electrical components from the States soon...

We're about to complete on the purchase of the house!

Being in Shodoshima with my wife's family and away from the supermarket rushes, fuel shortages and uncertainty was worthwhile. Although we watched anxiously for news on Tsunami victims and the rising death toll + developments at Fukushima, we were thankful to be in a safe place that wasn't at all affected and took some time out to enjoy peaceful moonlit walks in the hills, Shodoshima village life and of course time with family & friends who had come to get away from Tokyo whilst watching the news anxiously & silently praying for all the people that were suffering terribly in the heart of the aftermath. I couldn't help comparing anguish and looking at the past to the alternative of looking positively at the future whilst watching the Japanese dust themselves off and lend a hand to one another to get back up as quickly as possible. This is of course still going on despite not being on the news in other countries as much now.

Looking forward has got to be the way ahead...

My inlaws have an old house they're planning to demolish this summer, so we've asked if we can have all the roof tiles which can be used on buildings we plan to make. I'll probably also ask for all the windows and perhaps some doors which will save more money too (Thanks for these recommendations Arnie!). So perhaps we'll be there again for Golden week. It's beautiful there that time of year.

Having read and watched various sources of news and looked at radioactivity readings from the MEXT website (Sorry, updates are Japanese only - but you can use Google translate) we learnt that Japanese sources although economic with the truth to begin with, had become more accurate than most foreign sources. Foreign news of Fukushima & Tsunami damage became over sensationalised, presumably because it sells. It served as a demonstration of how little faith we can really put into the mainstream media today, I thought...

Having looked at all the developments we decided on Monday 21st it had become safe enough to return as readings in Chiba, Tokyo & Shizuoka weren't dangerous to health, even at maximum recorded levels.
We've since also had other independent confirmations from people we know personally that have their own Geiger counters in the outskirts of the 30km exclusion zone of Fukushima.
I don't believe the authorities would falsify readings - but for our own safety have invested in a Geiger counter which I'm told is on it's way to us from the Ukrane.
We'll continue to learn whatever we can and take precautions, but my gut feeling is we over-reacted. I don't regret doing so, as we wouldn't want to risk our health - but if we were to buy this house, we needed to get back and our business also needed us to be in Shizuoka

We arrived back to Shizuoka from an overnight drive from Shodoshima in the early hours of Tuesday morning of 22nd March.
Today, being a beautiful bright day with crisp air I rode my motorcycle to Sanmu-Shi, to check on the house and make sure there had been no damage from the earthquake. I was pleased to find everything as it should be. A couple of loose things had shifted in the house and one lamp had partially fallen off it's fixing but everything else remained as before. This served as confirmation the house is strong. Even the rickety old out-buildings survived. It felt great to be there and see the garden beginning to blosom. A cherry blossom is nearly in full bloom by the Kabuki gate and there are many bulbs about to flower. The many trees were all whispering loudly in the wind. I called my wife and shared my warm feelings of being there before jumping back on the bike to continue my onward journey.

My wife got a surprise FAX this morning from our Fudo San with an invoice for 3% of the house purchase price. As this hadn't been mentioned at all before or during the provision of the contract we were both a bit alarmed, but after checking with other people who have bought used houses realised this wasn't funny business but actually normal procedure. Shogunai - Bugger!

I had an interesting conversation with Phil at lunchtime, who is an active permaculturalist in Southern Chiba and a close friend of Paul Murray who runs the Rongo backpackers and the peace project in NZ, another permaculturalist.
Phil has a young family and we shared our thoughts, learning and concerns about the still incomplete situation at Fukushima Dai Ichi. As Phil said, uncertainty sucks - but as we concluded we both agreed that a decision from the heart (To complete the purchase) was more powerful than a decision of fear (To cancel). I was already completely set on buying this property anyway, but it was good to get some of Phil's wisdom and encouragement. Later on I spoke with Arnie, our carpenter - and he's ready to get to work...

So the plan is Monday 28th March we'll finish preparing finances and Tuesday 29th we'll complete all payment for the purchase. It's a big move for us, but it feels very right now. What's life for if not fulfilling our greatest dreams. I'm looking forward to the transformation that will slowly take place piece by piece.

We haven't completed on the house purchase yet - and now I'm wondering if it would be the right thing to do. We have until the end of this month to complete - so there's still some time and we shall see.

With the earthquake shaking our world in Japan on Friday afternoon, followed by the developing difficulties at the Fukushima powerplant I can't help wondering how dire consequences for the Japanese economy can now be avoided.

In the 12 years I've been in Japan, altthough I've felt some fairly large earthquakes, none of them have been as long in duration (Close to 3 minutes in Oyama-Cho, Shizuoka), nor had anywhere near as many aftershocks (Now well over 300, when usually there's perhaps 1-4 at most).

Watching events unfold here, is very saddening. As if the earthquakes haven't caused enough grief, loss and damage... If this nuclear disaster causes a permanent & very significant health danger it might change Japan forever.

The fuel shortages continue and things are changing fast. Today we have been helping friends leave Tokyo with the loan of our remaining unused cars, organising syphoning of fuel, Yuko's been organising accomodation (Here in Shodoshima) and we're doing our best to offer assistance to those that need it. I fear things may get worse, but we're here to help - I don't see us leaving Shodoshima the time being. God bless the Japanese people.

I love this country and it's people as if it were my own. It makes me so sad to see these events unfold. We're off shortly to stock up on essentials, in case shortages stretch this far away.

Fukushima Dai-Ichi Power Station.

Following the 9.0 earthquake yesterday 60km off the north eastern coast of Japan near Sendai and the resulting nuclear plant failure at Fukushima I spoke with our friend Dino, whose father is a Nuclear Physicist (PhD) & worked in the research field in Japan for many years. He’s advised Dino & friends to get as far away as possible.

Nuclear stations work like this.
Each reactor at Fukushima had a diesel generator which would have been used to control the cooling water pump – but some of the fuel tanks & engines have been damaged beyond use by the Tsunami so TEPCO staff have no way of pumping water to cool the reactor cores that went into Auto-Shutdown but still have a lot of residual heat & a fire has broken out.
Without cooling some reactor cores have been overheating and eventually superheated steam needed to be released or begin to leak. When superheated steam is released it breaks down into Hydrogen & oxygen, which is highly flamable & radioactive, albeit with a half life of around 30 seconds.
One of the reactor's roofs has already been blown off today, so now we have a fire that’s releasing at least radioactive hydrogen into the atmosphere. If there is Caesium & Iodine, these are by products of nuclear fishion which would occur in the event of partial meltdown. Click here for further explanation.
Iodine 131 has a half life of 8 days, but Caesium 137 has a half life of about 30 years and it's salts are all very soluble in water and both of these are produced in the event of a partial meltdown. The dangers of leakage as serious.

Another danger with meltdown is that the temperatures are so high, that such a fire is extremely difficult to put out. As there are 5 other reactors there’s a very good chance some of these reactors may overheat and possibly experience at least partial meltdown.

Chernobyl’s disaster caused fallout to spread very large distances because it exploded with no containment, but this is a boiling light water reactor, which is apparently never likely to explode, so the chances of particles of uranium or plutonium being released into the atmosphere are very slim...

Dino’s father has advised being a distance of at least 500km from the power station & further if possible. Mark, his family, Mike, his family and ourselves are heading to Shodoshima, leaving tonight. We'll be approx 900km away there, which is much safer. No point in taking chances.

We want to get a good head start in case they really cannot put the fire out – because once the word gets out (Media & government are being very quiet about this whole disaster – the prime minister’s speech a few mins ago basically said nothing) tommorow or so, the roads could become chaotic and this may be more dangerous than being at home. Without knowing what's in the air we don't want to be caught in rain.

At the moment the winds at the power station are offshore (Towards Hawaii) but come sunrise there's a good chance they'll turn in another direction.

Our prayers are with all in Japan.

The purchase is due to complete at the end of March and interesting pathways to knowledge have continued to present themselves.

2 weeks ago I met Aaron, who is an experienced carpenter friend of Mark's.
We spent an entire morning in his workshop looking at woodwork machine tools where I learnt what a router is, why wood warps, how soft Japanese Cedar (Cryptomeria) is and why it's not good for flooring but is useful for building structures and cladding (Insects don't like eating it!), how stained wood can be matched and much more. Exciting stuff to learn how stuff is done - especially being taught by the very person who will be working on our new house!

At lunch time, we drove to the house so Aaron could take a look at the property and I could bounce my ideas off him...

Just after we arrived, a red Honda Fit pulled up on the drive and an inquisitive Japanese man wanted to know what we were doing there. After politely explaining I'd bought the house, he revealed that he was a retired policeman and wanted to check we weren't Yakuza...

Yakuza? - What was he saying? Slightly alarmed, I enquired why he'd think that - and he explained that the abandoned house next door had a debt to the Yakuza from a long time before (9 years) and he wanted to be sure they weren't up to no good with this property. He did assure us there was no problem with the property legally and that the Mafia has no claim on it, but I wasn't sure we could trust him. Eventually, satisfied we were who we said we were, he left.

Aaron & I then looked at the house. We found some woodworm on one of the beams which would need repair and looked at other work we planned, so we could begin to work out material costs. The plan began to hatch - where we'd have the floors re-done with wood boards on all rooms currently covered by tatami, replace ceilings on two rooms (To make the lounge), have the electricity meter moved to the North wall and increase power to 75 Amps, build two wardrobes, repair walls where there are cracks and re-wire before moving in. The wiring could go under the house, so that fitment of wall / floor plug sockets would be as unobtrusive as possible. Aaron wasn't as enthusiastic as me about the trees on the property, because Sugi can take a long time to dry but then again he's quite a calm person. I did feel a sense we'd found the right man for the job, so a good day spent.

After returning to Oyumino where I'd be staying the night at Mark's house, I couldn't help be concerned about the chance meeting with the retired policeman. What it he was involved with the Yakuza? I tossed an turned in the bed that night wondering...and made up my mind Yuko & I would go to the land registry office the following week and check who owned the properties around us and what the histories were, in addition to checking our land's registry details were all correct.

So last Tuesday that's exactly what we did on our way to Mark's place where we'd spend the next 3 days as I had work to get through in Chiba for business that week.

We were joined by Hiromi, a neighbour we've befriended who has about 30 cats, 5 dogs, is half Italian American and half Japanese but has forgotten how to speak English. She was curious to know if the Yakuza has any stake on the farm land surrounding her house. After spending 90 minutes there learning who owns what and the histories of debt on properties, etc. we learnt that the land of the house next door had a small debt secured against it 9 years ago and the house on the property is still owned by some distant relatives of the couple who used to own our house.
Hiromi and other neighbours knew the debt was from the owners having borrowed money to run for local elections, but had then lost. As they hadn't paid and the interest rates were high - the land is now owned by the Yakuza. But it's clear they pay no attention to it. It's one of those properties that cannot be developed that's falling apart now. Interesting to learn.

The following day, having some hours spare, we went there with our daughter, garden tools and step ladder and had fun trimming about 8 trees and realising there are far too many of them! We'll eventually remove some to make way for orchards of fruit & nuts - but for now we'll just take care of them.

Garden features.

This stone ornament would have been used to put candles inside at night:



Facing East, looking from the house:




A beautifully prepared bonsai.



A flowering tree:



A cherry blossom:



A Yuzu tree (A delicious fruit I'm told - but yet to try it!):


A Kaki tree (Delicious sweet autumn fruit):


Fungus growth in places:



My two greatest loves, with who I look forward to sharing the experience of making this Kominka a beautiful place to share our lives.