RX7Club.com - Mazda RX7 Forum - To those in Japan

I am copying this message and pasting it to other PM's. I wish I had the time to write you all personally but cant at this point.

Thank you very much for the message!

I was in California at the time of the earthquake but my wife and inlaws were all in Japan. I live in Saitama, about 180km from the Nuclear reactors and about 250km from the quake epicenter. We had a bunch of stuff thrown from shelves and off of tables but it was nothing that we couldn't clean up in a day.

I returned to Japan on Sunday and thankfully had driven my car to Narita Airport when I left Japan. So I was able to drive home and also drive my brother in law who had just come back from a business trip. He and I are the only men from my wife's side of the family so it was pretty tough for everyone to not have us around when all of this happened. Due to my recently developed passion for smoking I had stockpiled a pretty good amount of foods for cooking etc. Before smoking we would usually only by food on a needed basis and otherwise eat out. I have plenty of non perishable foods and can go atleast 2 weeks feeding 3-4 people without any problems and also have a good amount of bottled water/ canned drinks. The current problems here are lack of Gas and Kerosene, as well as untimely and incomplete details from the Government regarding the situation.

I have two race cars stored at a racetrack about 35km from the reactors... so maybe they wont need a paint job after this incident since they will have a nice glow to them hahaha. My friend that owns the shop at that racetrack was able to flee just before the first reactor explosion. His shop was hit pretty hard and the hill it sits on crumbled away from the quake. Fortunately his most valuable cars did not fall down the hill but his tools did and his office now is sticking out over a cliff about 10 feet from the closest pavement/ ground. If anyone has facebook you can see his pics from his facebook group : Powervehicles.com

The night of the earthquake I had told my wife to fill up one of our cars and her mothers car. This timing was very lucky since the next day everyone else started doing the same and supplies quickly ran out and people waited in long traffic lines for half a day, a day and some even more, so they could fill up.

Yesterday I went to the supermarket and was pleased to see fresh produce, meat, and even bottled water was available. We did not need any so we left it and got some eggs and milk. The whole panic scenario seems to be calming down and people are returning to work even though trains into Tokyo are inconsistent at best. There is a lot to be said about the Japanese work ethic and after this disaster I think some of it may be even looked upon as borderline crazy. My wife works for an international copyright, trademark, and patent firm. The Japanese branch only has about 12 people working at it and the head of the Japanese branch had implied that anyone that did not come in to work would be fired (on monday). Half the employees agreed that being fired was better than getting stuck in Tokyo away from family etc. Today my wife went in to work and she will most likely receive a sincere apology from the manager but not from the head of their branch since this would be considered a failure on his part... Like I said borderline cray!

My daily life usually has me driving around a lot buying and selling car parts but with the lack of Gas I am stuck at home watching news and researching. Last night we left my wifes parents house after staying there for about 3 days and have moved back into our place. So I now have full internet access and am able to respond to you all!

Thanks again for your concern and prayers! I am currently asking people to pray for Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures since they were the hardest hit and still have a lot of ground to cover before recovering.

Tom