japan:"kyoto, japan"

6th email from my friend, Stella, who went to japan with her husband for her son's graduation...sent 17 march at 8:38am

"kyoto, japan"

"we arrived here yesterday to a blanket of snow. it has been snowing off and on all day today. quite beautiful actually.

last night was the first time in 6 days that we were able to sleep all night without getting jolted out of bed and hanging on for fear of being tossed out of bed.  every night we would get at least 4 - 5 aftershocks that would wake us and freak us out.  by the time we relaxed and fell back to sleep, another would come! 

here in kyoto life goes on.  it is a wonderful old city in japan.  our hotel is right across the street from the original imperial palace.  it was here that the emperor and empress of japan lived before a new imperial palace was built in tokyo (in 1868).  we got "special permission" to tour the interior of the palace grounds.  coincidentally our hotel in tokyo was also across the street from the "new" imperial palace.  

for the first time since we have been here, we can watch tv in english.  our hotel has the BBC channel.  it is comforting to hear about doom and gloom in a language you can understand. we are glued to the tv whenever we are in our room.  it's hard not to feel guilty when i see the images of the people just a few hundred miles north of us.  yes we both experienced the earthquake but we are in a warm and clean hotel room while they are homeless, hurt or worse...

i guess that's why it's called survivor's guilt.  

we did extend and pay for our hotel room for a week before leaving tokyo and asked the management if anyone from up north came thru and needed a room to please offer it to them on our behalf.  they were very gracious in that they told us that if the room was used they would bill us, if not, they would not bill our cc.

now we hear that there maybe a radioactive plume hitting southern california late on friday?!! wtf?!!  so it feels as if we're damned if we do or damned if we don't!

tomorrow we travel to hiroshima.  i guess we are keeping in the doom and gloom tour.  

i'm hoping that by the end of this trip i can convince gene to come home with us.  even if just for a month or so.  i know that it would make my dad very happy to have him home.  

so for now, with a heavy heart but i full belly (did i tell you the food here is AMAZING!) good bye from japon".

stella