Blogs

Peter Stevens has been known for creating rain for farmers in Australia during the drought…but he would never admit to it, not wanting to be held responsible for other incidents that arise from tampering with the weather.

For some it might be hard to believe, but yet we are more than happy to believe and allow humans to create nuclear fuel, reactors and dangerous substances that have indeed caused trauma to the greater population of mankind.And what about the Americans playing with the weather…what, just because they are a big company means that what they’re doing is for real, but a smart man from Casino in NSW can’t make a few raindrops too?

Regardless of what you think, Peter has a few other inventions up his sleeve, involving natural water purification. His tests on active nuclear waste in Australia came back with radioactive readings of zero. Think what you like, but it’s either guys like him or trusting in TEPCO and the Japanese government…I know which way my vote is heading.

Read more

Since the nuclear situation has been slowly unfolding in Japan with no signs of a quick fix, it is now accepted by most Japanese that they are indeed consuming a certain percentage of radiation in their bodies. In past blogs I have mentioned about the increasing numbers of surfers getting back into the water here on the east coast, despite the fears that the contamination in the water is above the safety levels. Although I am not encouraging anyone to grab their kids and head down the beach everyday here in Chiba this summer, I understand that surfers just gotta surf, so I am dedicating this blog today to handy health supplements/foods related to reducing the amount of radiation in your body.

Potassium Iodine

As we know, the release of radioactive iodine is very dangerous to humans, particularly children and unborn foetuses. Radioactive iodine can accumulate around the thyroid gland and cause thyroid cancer. In 1982, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved potassium iodine to protect the thyroid glands from radioactive iodine involving accidents or fission emergencies*. It should only be taken if there is a general concern that large amounts of radioactive iodine have been consumed.

Read more

It has been one month now since Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) released their 6-9month cold shutdown plan for the Fukushima nuclear power plant, and not even the first stages of the plan have been put in motion. Perhaps the plan was only really published to the public for some peace of mind, but it seems since the start of this whole controversy TEPCO and the government have done nothing but feed the public false promises.

Kuni went up to the Fukushima area last week and was able to meet with some of the nuclear power plant workers along with local surfers and hear the real stories, the real truths. It was said then that the shutdown plans were totally unreachable and should never have been promised to an already wary public. According to the workers interviewed last week, areas outside the 30km exclusion zone have detected radiation levels higher than the evacuated zone of Chernobyl, and only now in various international news sources is this kind of information being made public. To the majority of the Japanese public, such honest truths remain hidden. The workers interviewed expressed their concerns for the health of women, children and each other, in both the short term and long term, within the 30km radius and throughout the rest of the Kanto area.

Read more

You can only keep surfers out of the water for so long. Recently goregous weather and very nice waves have had Japanese surfers on the east coast of the island itching to get their feet wet, and many have given in to the wait despite the ongoing fear of radiation contamination.

Here in Ichinomiya, Chiba, we are close enough to the Fukushima plant to be concerned about drifting currents bringing highly contaminated water to our breaks. For the first few weeks after the Great Eastern Japanese Earthquake, tsunami and outbreak of the Nuclear disaster at Fukushima, we were lucky to see one or two brave soles entering the waters despite the obvious risks. But as time has passed, despite the ongoing desperate nuclear situation and constant release of radioactive material into the air and ocean, warm weather and very attractive surf have lured the Japanese back into the water.

Read more

We keep counting the days as more than two weeks pass by since the Great Eastern Japanese Earthquake and subsequent Tsunami and Nuclear disasters hit our island.

The Tohoku region was hit hardest, however the whole country has felt the pain.

Surfers lost their lives up north, and as the rest of us mourn for our community we are also running or anxiously waiting for the outcome of the ongoing nuclear emergency at Fukushima.

Read more

A quick break from my pregnancy posts, but more to come I promise.

As many of my readers know, my husband, son and I are based in Japan, in a surfing village called Isumi city, in Chiba prefecture. The earthquake hit us hard on March 11^th, whilst our little son was at kindy, but as our self-built wood cabin house and studio remained in one-piece during what was the most intense serious of earth movements you will ever feel in your life, we were never to know what the nation was in for next.

We were safe, our boy was safe, but the tsunami warnings started coming over the town’s loud speakers and everyone was in panic. We evacuated, taking almost nothing with us, got our son from kindy and threw the dogs in the car, and got up high for the rest of the day and night. The tsunami did hit our waters, but the majority was up north, so aside from a few boats strewn into the port’s carpark, most houses including ours were spared. We were lucky. Friends up north weren’t.

Read more

For me it was hard to take. My cousin had surfed right up until she was seven months pregnant, and being my personal surfing inspiration I had planned to do the same. But when my bulge started poking out well beyond my own control, at around 4½ months, I had to give up a hard surfboard and look for alternatives.

I still remember that day. The sun was shining, Japanese spring had approached and we were all out of 5mm semi-dry steamers and into 3mm jerseys. Torami, one of our local breaks here in Chiba, was offshore, small and glassy-perfect for the new twin fin Kuni and I had received as a wedding present from shaper Ryosuke Hori. Trying to ignore needing to stretch my wetty far more than I had predicted, I kept reminding myself surfing is my key to a happy, healthy pregnancy and nothing would stop me dancing along those waves on my feet, right up to delivery if possible.

Read more

There’s only so long a beach girl can survive Japanese mountain life. A year was the limit for me.

I was thrown into the middle of Japan when I first moved there for work 6 years ago. In the literal sense, the town next to me held a belly button festival every year as evidence to its central placement on Japan’s main island, Honshu. I pulled through thanks to rock river jumps, canyoning, hiking and snowboarding, but being the beach baby I am Japan’s waves were calling me.

12 months into my working holiday I set off from the mountains and toward the black sandy beaches of Ichinomiya, Chiba, to experience the Japanese surf scene. It didn’t take long to meet my new neighbors. My 1LDK (=as small as your bathroom) apartment was situated adjacent to a set of six beach-style cottages. The entire block was nicknamed mura by the locals, meaning ‘village’ in Japanese. Residents of mura included surfers who lived there full time, and surfers who came down on the weekends from Tokyo. We were all young, we all loved to surf. Every weekend was a party.

Read more