Today marks two years since the devastating Tohoku quake and tsunami in Japan. This week also happens to mark my one-year-anniversary of moving back here to live. Unlike my mates here, I wasn’t in Japan when it happened, but I remember the events of 11 March 2011 very clearly. To put it mildly, things were pretty shitty for me on a personal level. Feeling sorry for myself, I remember switching on the news and seeing the horror unfold. Immediately my own problems disappeared. My heart went out to the country I fell in love with many years before.

Everyone knows what happened next: the panic, the rising death toll, the radiation – so I won’t go into that. I don’t usually like to get sentimental with posts but for me this week is also a reminder that no matter how bad things seem you can always fight back stronger. Japan has proved that too. There is still a lot of work to do, but massive respect to the people that are still fighting to rebuild, and my friends who chose to stay here as opposed to leave.

Lastly, not only do I dedicate this post to everyone who lost their lives in the disaster – or the ones who are still having to rebuild what lives they have left – I dedicate this post to my dad who got me interested in Japan in the first place. I first moved here when I was 22, and he also lived in Japan when he was about the same age.

My dad turned 65 this week.

Happy Birthday, squire. x