Friday, March 27, 2020

hoshi yasai

Over the past couple of days, there has been talk of Tokyo being on lockdown.

Apparently the numbers we have been seeing on the news are actually 2 weeks or so old because of the virus incubation period.

Wednesday, I went to the market to pick a few more items so that if they did lock us down, we would be ready.

I picked up some hoshi yasai which is literally dried veggies.

I bought some kiriboshi daikon, daikon leaves and spinach.

I also got a kinpira gobo mix and hijiki mix.

Unfortunately, over the past couple of days many people have been out in crowds because the sakura (cherry blossoms) are in bloom and also because it is technically Spring Break.

I have lived in Japan for 19 years now and feel social distancing is something Japan does not do well.

Wednesday night, the governor of Tokyo asked everyone to stay home this weekend to see if we can get our numbers down (right now Tokyo has the most infected in Japan).

Soon after that announcement and early Thursday morning you should have seen the krazy lines at the markets and drugstores.

Hopefully everyone will get the message and stay home this weekend because if they don't, we will be on lockdown...

Take care everyone.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wonder how 2 days could make a difference but then, Japanese people, especially in the cities with no huge refrigerator/freezers can last more than 2 days because they mostly only shop for that day's meal or am I making too broad a generalization?
Even though they don't practice social distancing, they are used to using masks all the time so I hope that helps the most.
At least we are allowed to go shopping for necessities and exercising, like walks, jogs and even swimming or surfing except it is hard to get to the ocean with the parks all closed.
v

Rowena said...

omigod Kat...info that is 2 weeks old? I can't even think of anything assuring to say, other than what everyone else says: keep safe. Italy, like everyone else, thought they couldn't be touched by the virus and waited in a sort of 'gamble' to see what would happen--look where we're at now. I highly doubt that the lockdown will be lifted on April 3rd as originally proposed; the daily count (around 5000) is still too high for new cases.

I saw the headlines for Spain this morning...10,000 new cases in one day - f*ck

K and S said...

V, the other weekend was a 3-day weekend paired with sunny weather, everyone let their guards down and acted like this virus was nothing. Hopefully this weekend will bring some of the cases numbers down. We are still allowed to go shopping for food, though I don't think the young people gallavanting around Harajuku is really acceptable.

Rowena, the numbers we are seeing is 2 weeks old because of the incubation period. like I told V, the other weekend was a 3-day weekend when everyone let their guards down, we should be seeing an increase in cases sometime later this week.

Take care you two.
Kat