Daddy duty

In the weekend of 6-Aug we stayed in Tokyo for the first time in many weekends.   I did the regular routine of looking after Hannah abd taking her to the park and sports center.

I was glad to see that the swimming pools at the sports center have reopened again first time since the March earthquake.

Hannah goes to the sports center each week with Shimada-san, who has clearly taught her how to use the balance beams and use the trampoline.

Hannah has a very firm routine of trampoline, then snacks in the resturant,  then more trampoline.  She is pretty good at making friends with the other kids and their parents.  So it is easy to just go with the flow (just don't expect her to share her ice-cream).   

This weekend for the first time we saw 'samurai' practicing in the gym with real swords.

When I take Hannah to the park I often check the radioactivity with the Russian geiger counter we bought in July.   So far our measurements always confirmed that the radiation level in our area of south-west Tokyo are elevated but broadly safe, with no signs of 'hot-spots'.    Average measurements are around 0.1 micro-siverts per hour indoors and 0.15 - 0.25 outdoors, occasionally 0.2-0.3 after rain.   Individual measurements are much more variable with higher and lower readings - maximum of 0.75 and minimum of 0.00.

Having the geiger counter is worthwhile for our piece-of-mind, since there have been reports of  'hot-spots' of high radioactivity even within the Tokyo area, although mainly on the north-east suburbs.  

 The community organization 'Radiation Defence Project' recently released the results of their soil testing project (http://www.radiationdefense.jp/en/investigation).    The reading nearest us was 20k Bq/m2  in Uuehara, Shibuya-ku on 1-Jun.   The highest reading in the wards near us was 70k Bq/m2 in Ichigaya, Shinjuku-ku.   The average Tokyo reading was 30k Bq/m2 but the highest reading was 240k  Bq/m2 in  Edogawa-ku.  Averages and maximums were higher in Chiba and Saitama prefectures bordering Tokyo to the north and east.   

For comparison, thresholds set during Chernobyl were 37K Bq/m2 to define a Zone 4 'Radiation Protection Area',  187k Bq/m2 Zone 3 'Preferred Evacuation Area',  and 555k Bq/m2 for Zone 2 'Obligatory Relocation' Area.         

We are following the nuclear crisis carefully on alternative media like enenews.com.  Like many people in Japan we are concerned that the government is not facing-up to the scale of the crisis, and may be managing or withholding information to minimize costly disruption.   In particular we are worried about 'hot particles' in the air and contamination through food.    Internal radiation caused by eating or breathing radio-active particles is more dangerous than ambient external radiation, especially for growing children like our Hannah.  And unfortunately we cannot easily measure this with our geiger counter. 

We are not confident that a comprehensive and reliable system of testing has been put in place to ensure contaminated food is not sold to consumers.  So we expect to see more stories of contaminated food being sold and exported, especially after the harvest season.    In the meantime we have tried to limit Hannah's consumption of domestic dairy products and are trying to buy food from south-west Japan.  But we are still eating out frequently and have no control over the source of that food.