The Japan Tourism Agency released its 2010 survey about who spends the most vacation money in Japan. Guess what, tourists from the United States didn’t even make the top three (probably a sign of how bad our economy is).
The survey looked at foreign spenders as groups, and as individuals.
In the group category China came in first, followed by South Korea, then Taiwan.
In the individual category the French came in first, then the Russians. The Chinese and Indians tied for third.
In the case of the Chinese, 49% go to Japan just to shop.
What’s the most purchased item, by tourists? Japanese confectioneries.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan has told quake-hit Miyagi Prefecture that 70,000 temporary houses will be built ASAP.
The Prime Minister met with Miyagi officials on 10 April 2011. They expressed their concerns for how they were going to rebuild after the 11 March disasters. Kan said he’s putting together a panel to address that, and that the temporary housing was just the beginning.
The recent huge aftershock, in Japan, has resulted in one thousand ATMs being shut down.
Japan Post Bank blames it on the power outage caused by a big aftershock on April 7. The power outage caused a computer glitch that shut down the Automated Teller Machines.
More than 14,000 people are still missing, even after a massive three day search by military and police forces. Local governments are begging for another large scale search.
The search will be conducted on April 10. It will involve 22,000 personnel, 50 vessels and 90 aircraft. It will not cover the radiation danger zones.
People of Japan have been driving into the 20km evacuation zone, violating their government’s orders. It’s all because so many people being affected feel they are not being told what is really going on with their homes and animals they left behind. I have links to 2 videos people should watch.
In a 12 minute video journalists enter the area, find packs of dogs, and surprisingly, people driving around.
At the 17km point their Geiger counter alarm goes off. They then pass armored semi-trucks with the drivers wearing gas masks. At 15km the radiation levels go up. They are then stopped by massive quake damage to the road. Driving down another road they come across cattle eating radioactive grass. More earthquake damaged road. We’re only four minutes into the video. Driving through seemingly abandoned cities with quake damaged buildings. Another car with people wearing surgical masks. Tsunami damage. Geiger counters still sounding the alarm. Seven and a half minutes into the video Fukushima DaiNi nuclear plant. Someone’s vegetable garden. At 2.5km radiation spike. A lone dog, they feed it. At 1.8km radiation increases. Cattle loose in the town. 11 and a half minutes in Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. 112 micro sieverts per hour on their counter, 1.5km from plant. This means radiation sickness will show up after 92 days, if you stay. Could be cesium.
There is a 10 minute video where they go right up to the Fukushima Daiichi gates.
They actually walk around the destruction taking Geiger counter readings. They pass road repair crews wearing full contamination suits, how’d you like to patch pot holes dressed like that. Just like the other guys, the Geiger counter goes up the closer they get to the nuke plant. At 1.5km from Fukushima Daiichi their counter goes into the yellow zone. At the gate they are waved off by people in full nuke suits. They drive around the perimeter of the nuke plant, their Geiger counter staying in the yellow zone. At one point it goes over 100 micro sieverts per hour. This video ends with a trip to Chernobyl, in Ukraine, in which they demonstrate that even 25 years later everything there is still radioactive, and, that people are still dealing with genetic mutations in their children (it begins with the scenes of snow and old Soviet tanks).
And the Japanese government wants the media to stop “sensationalizing”? Video’s speak louder than words, Baka!
In Aneyoshi there is a one hundred year old stone tablet that gives a dire warning: “High dwellings are the peace and harmony of our descendants. Remember the calamity of the great tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this point.”
The families living in Aneyoshi are glad they headed their ancestors advice. But thousands of others suffered the wrath of the tsunami. There are hundreds of these stone tablets all along the coastal areas of Japan. Some are 600 years old.
Many tablets are not as specific as the one at Aneyoshi. Some simply say beware of tsunami, or were blank. Some of those stone tablets have been washed away by the March 11 tsunami, which is an indicator of that it was probably the mother of all tsunamis to hit Japan for the past thousand years.
The trucks are made by a German company, Putzmeister, for building skyscrapers. The Soviets also used eleven of them to help dump concrete on the failed Chernobyl nuclear plant about 25 years ago.
The 26 wheeled trucks can be operated by remote control. You know the situation at Fukushima Daiichi is bad when so many other countries get directly involved to help control the crisis.