Riding the Whirlwind

It's been an eventful few days since my last post on both a personal and a broader level, to say the least. First we saw London triumphant in the Olympic bid, only to be brought to a standstill 24 hours later by what seems to have been the work of Al-Qaeda or one of its offshoots. And it was also the Miyagi AJET Farewell party at Oshima, of which more later.

First, the bombings in London, which as of today are estimated to have killed 50-60 people and injured a scarcely believable 700. It's hard to know what to say in these kinds of circumstances without sounding trite, cliched or mawkish, and most of what I would wish to say has been said by many, many people already. So, I'll take some more time to reflect before I try writing anything in length. I'm obviously profoundly grateful that none of my close friends or family were affected in any sense beyond mild inconvenience and trouble getting home - it could have been much, much worse. The whole incident shocked me, to be sure, especially being so far from home, but right now I can view it in a rather more detached manner, as shocking but perhaps not surprising. Although that's very easy for me to say when I know everyone close to me is safe.

Anyway, as in London and the UK generally, life goes on, and one thing particularly notable in the JET community here was how little the events were discussed at the Oshima Leaver's party. A bunch of us had gone to Oshima during Golden Week in May, so this was the second time I had been there, but unfortunately the weather was not as kind as it had been two months ago, when we were lucky enough to have clear skies and reasonably warm weather. It rained more or less solidly throughout the whole time we were on Oshima, most of the time just a light drizzle, but later in the evening it really belted down and we had to take cover. Fortunately for us, there was enough cover to shelter most of the 100 or so people in attendance, and enough alcohol to ensure that one didn't really care about getting wet that much.

Pictures? Funny you should ask...