It happened at 14:26pm in Japan time. The earthquake hit northern part of Japan then followed by huge Tsunami.

I can't believe it's been 1 year. I still feel like it happened recently.

This time last year, I discovered the news when my mother rang. She lives in Kyoto so she was safe but she was panicking.  I didn't realise how bad the damage was until I checked news online.

I thought it was some kind of movie scene or some kind of bad joke... I couldn't believe what I was watching.

For 2 weeks, I kept watching Japanese news online. I felt so frustrated and useless. The only thing I could do was donating money and get involved in fund raising events. 

People in northern Japan are still suffering from the affect. If you are in Sydney, there are couple of events you can join to help earthquake victims.

There is a Japanese volunteering group which runs fund raising event. The website is mainly in Japanese but you can still check out the information of up coming events.

http://sites.google.com/site/helpjapansydney/

There is also a market in Manly. It's on every 3rd Saturday of the month.  This is running by Sydney Rainbow Stay. Their website is below:

http://sites.google.com/site/sydneyrainbowstayen/

My hear will go to everyone who was and still is affected by the earthquake.

New Product

 I just came back from Melbourne trip. I had a fantastic time there with friends and it was very nice of them to worry about Japan earthquake.


Fukushima nuclear power plants are largely under control so I'm not too worried about it however people who have been evacuated are now facing serious issues of not having enough support.

They still don't have enough access to gas, electricity, water, food and medicine.

As I mentioned in previous blog and twitter, there is only so much I can do from here.  So I will keep doing my best with running Kyo Modern so that I can  make more donations to Japan!

From Australia, you can donate through Red Cross or Yahoo Japan.  Japanese communities, including take away stores are raising money for the earthquake victims as well.

As for what's new with  Kyo Modern, I started selling handmade Temari (Japanese style thread ball). I only uploaded one Temari so far but I will be uploading more soon!

http://sites.google.com/site/kyomodern/

Do what I can do

As everyone knows, the earthquake has hit north of Japan really badly. I couldn't believe the size of Tsunami I saw on the footage.

I'm from Kyoto which wasn't affected by Tsunami but small size earthquake was safe . But I have distance family members in Sendai and they are currently missing....

There is not much I can do for now but donating money and do my best at selling my products from Japan. I sell imported products from Japan so I am helping Japanese economy in that sense.

USTREAM (in Japanese) is showing the most updated information of current condition of Japan.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/tbstv

My heart goes to all those people who were affected in Tohoku regions.

If you are in Sydney, hope to see you tomorrowe (13th of March ) at Kirribilli market!