::::::: y a n o s h s...winterwonderland...(t r a u m) s t u n d e n :::::::

nicht, dass schnee anfang oktober (oder auch schon im september oder august. also eigentlich im ganzen jahr.) hier soo ungewoehnlich waere. aber soviel so frueh im jahr ist dann wohl doch nicht ganz gewoehnlich. als ich heut morgen aus dem fenster blickte, war ganz offensichtlich wieder winterwonderland angebrochen:
passenderweise (voll unterbewusster vorahnung?) hatte ich gestern abend das fahrrad in den keller gestellt. eigentlich als schutz vorm regen und nur ueber's wochenende, nachdem ich gestern morgen noch bei sonnenschein und ohne handschuhe radelte. schaun mer mal, ob's dieses jahr nochmal raus darf, oder ob das "wochenende" bis mai naechstes jahr anhaelt...

ja, und damit nun auch ganz offiziell gleich mal die umstellung des blogs. von japanischen auf (ganz-jahres-)winterliche traumstunden.

ha det trevlig. vi ses!
(um auch meine lokalen sprachkenntnisse angebracht zu haben. die jedoch nicht weniger rudimentaer sind als die japanischen.)

last night, after more than 40 hours travelling i arrived back home in sweden. fortunately everything worked without problem - no luggage lost, no transfer missed (i had to re-check-in twice. for a sane price i could only book piecewise flights...). when i got home i had another mail from the swedish embassy urging people to leave tokyo area and people who are staying to derive and take iodine pills (was not clear, whether this only for people within a certain area around fukushima, or all people in tokyo area...). yasuko on the other hand sounded fairly collected - she's back at her home in downtown tokyo. contradicting signals - it continues to be hard to judge, where is the truth and what is the proper way to act in the current and lasting situtation.

i'm just sitting at the gate of my hongkong flight at kansai airport (hej, they have free wifi!), boarding is starting. so there i good chances that i will be out of japan in about 1 hour.
yasuko will go back to tokyo today. at least that were the recent plans before we parted at kyoto station. she was fairly worried and, accodring to my feeling, indeed felt a little left alone. :-( i hope she will be fine and hope that tepco gets the reactors under control soon. at least today's news sound promising. i had a short talk with some friends of us who live northwest of ustunomiya. we haven't heard from them before after the earthquake. and i was reliefed, that they are fine, too. though he, who is a pottery artist, was a little depressed since his pottery oven has been broken by the quake. i also had some short words with yasuko's mom (well, she doesn't speak too much english, i don't speak japanese. so telephone conversations are really, really short) and promised to come back for new year as planned before. i'm looking forward and cross my fingers that japan will be on the up by then again.
ok, time for boarding. see you soon again, japan!

if everything goes as (re)planned, i will leave japan (for this time. i really hope i will be able to come back in not too far future. leaving friends in this situation really feels uncomfortable. rats leaving the sinking ship - i am afraid that this is the message i/we give to the japanese) this evening. since we have to check out the hotel during the morning and i will not have access to another internet connection, there will be no further blog entry until i arrived back home in sweden. which will be around 1am monday morning (and maybe then i will rather go to sleep. well, i'll try to put at least a tiny message here, such that all of you can stop holding your breath. at least regarding me. my friends and colleagues here will still need it...).
as you can get from this post - i am fine. but, i have to admit, all this waiting and monitoring the development of the situation and trying to stay reasonable myself and calming down people in europe made me quite tired. please, don't misunderstand me - it's nice to see that people worry about me, it's good to get encouraging mails and calls from you. but it also costs quite some time and nerves to answer them. that's the reason, why there hasn't been posts here during the last 2 days. beside the fact, that there was not too much too report. cause i basically also only get the news you get - i don't speak japanese, hence i am reading/watching german and english news. and, all this up and down and suspense around the reactor issues are waering me out. i stopped watching news thursday afternoon. cause in the end it wouldn't change anything - i am here, i will likely be away sometime soon, the japanese will have to stay and live with it. whether it stays the way it is now, or whether it gets worse.
however, once more (i wrote that several times before, i think) i wanna say that i have great respect for the way the japanese took this stroke of fate, how they stayed calm and quite organized and polite and friendly and unegoistic. i used to struggle with this kind of stoic mentality when i was living here. but i think, in this situation it largely kept the country going and remaining a civilized society.