Yoyogi Hachiman Matsuri

During the long-weekend of 24-Sep, the Yoyogi hachiman matsuri was held.    This year they celebrated the shrines 800th birthday.   As usual Hannah participated in the Yoyogi-5-chome event, helping to drag the taiko drum around the neighborhood.

CAT Scan

On the evening of Sep-24th we went to see the Hatsudai Awa-odori festival.    Before watching the dancing we had dinner in a new hamburger resturant.  Hannah was fooling around on the chairs and fell over backward smashing the back of her head hard on the metal foot of the table.   She wasn't able to cushion the fall much and there was an an awful 'crack' when she made contact.

Hannah screamed and went white, and a spectacular egg appeared on the back of her head,  but she didn't develop any of the other signs of concussion.    But we immediately went home and Rika started dialing around for a hospital, while I googled 'concussion', and quickly learnt about hemotomas, 'talk and die' syndrope and other scary things.    

The emergency service provided Rika with a list of hospitals with neurological units.  Most were busy with accidents, but on the 4th try,  Toho University Ohashi Hospital  agreed to look at her.   We went down around 11pm.

After a short wait Hannah was seen by a Neurologist.   It turned out ??-sensei had studied english in Dunedin () and his professor had worked at the Otago Hospital.   He quickly arranged a head x-ray and CAT scan.   We took Hannah down to the radiology department where the strapped her onto the bench in front of the donut of the CAT scanner, told her to stay still, and then everyone left the room while she was scanned.

 

The results were soon available to the neurologist.  Fortunately they showed no fracturing of Hannah's skull and no signs of bleeding.

I was immensely relieved to be able to see the pictures and get such a quick confirmation that Hannah would be alright.

But afterwards, when I read-up about CAT scans on Wiki,  about I was rather horrified to learn how much radiation Hannah had just received.    The typical does for a head CT is 1.5mSv,  about 1 years worth of normal background radiation.  It is likely the hospital uses a lower dose for children, alhough they didn't give details and we didn't ask.    Also estimated lifetime risk of cancer from one scan for a child is just under 1-in-1000.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray_computed_tomography).

Neco Sampo

At Hannah's insistence we took Minimi for a neco sampo (cat walking) to Yoyogi Park.

This is Minimi riding happily in Hannah's sling.

Typhoon Roke

On Sep 20-21 Japan was hit by a strong typhoon 'Roke'.    It caused 13 deaths and substantial damage as it made its way up Japan.  

One million people in Nagoya were advised to evacuate and 500,000 people lost power.   (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Roke_(2011))





















I was very busy on the day it hit tokyo.   Although most people followed the advice to leave early before the trains stopped I stayed inside and kept working.   The winds were strong enough to rock our huge building and we could hear creaking noises for some time as the joinery adjusted to the movement -  a sound Id last heard in the Mar-11 quake.  

By the time I left work at 11pm, the storm had passed and I didn't even need my umbrella.   But the damage to trees was extensive.   We counted 5 trees down in the corner of Yoyogi park where  we normally visit.

 I was sad to see this tree damaged - I remember having a picnic under it a few years ago and minimi sitting happily in the gap between the 2 trunks.

This tree fell over the path up into the park from the gate we use.