Paper masks! Toilet rolls!!

So, the collapse of civilization and rapid descent into anarchy will be marked not by bloodshed and wanton destruction, but by the panic buying of toilet roll.
Today, in a first I suspect for any of the OECD countries, the government of Japan officially announced that the toilet paper situation was ... okay! The NHK news showed warehouses stocked from floor to ceiling with rolls and rolls of paper and a man in a hard hat tried his best to convince us that there was enough in the warehouse for a country of 128 million people.
'Cheese', I replied.
'What?' said Cian.
'Cheese', I repeated. 'What the Japanese need to do is eat less rice and consume more cheese. Makes you constipated. That and, eh, persimmons.'

Some other random observations:
* Cian is now finishing his first week of enforced holidays (he stopped school last Wednesday). And he is bored. Completely and utterly bored. He is effectively banned from meeting his friends, rugby has been stopped for the foreseeable future, public facilities like parks, swimming pools and libraries have all been closed, and he has no interest in computer games. And 5 more weeks to go of the same.
* Partially, I suspect, in response to the above, Cian's school have contacted him to say that from Friday, homework will be posted on his school's homepage. And it will be regularly updated. And that, currently, he should be studying at home every day from 9:00am to 3:00pm just like a normal school day.
* In response to both of the above, I am taking Cian skiing tomorrow.
* I am supposed to be traveling to Myanmar next week for work. I am supposed to be flying from Sapporo to Yangon on Korean Air via Incheon. Korean Air emailed me earlier this evening to say that my initial flight has been cancelled and the rescheduled flight means that I will have to spend more than 24 hours in Korea.
* Korea has now close on 5,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus.
* Ergo, I will not be flying with Korean Air and spending more than 24 hours in Korea.
* Today the University announced that they are canceling this year's graduation ceremony which was due to take place in two weeks time.
* The new academic year is due to begin on April 8th, but I reckon Paddy Power wouldn't give you particularly good odds on that happening.
* As of this evening, Hokkaido still tops the domestic COVID-19 league table for most confirmed cases. We're at 79, nearly twice the total of second placed Tokyo (on 39).
* No cases in Muroran so far, though Sanae sneezed a couple of times this evening ...

Defiance or irresponsible?

"Anyone buying or selling the toilet rolls?"

Eerily quiet, or quietly eerie?

That's Yotei-zan in the background.

So, I went for my jog yesterday morning and the streets were indeed 'eerily quiet'. I might go so far as to say that they were in fact, 'quietly eerie'.
Though to be honest it's hard to know if the streets were any different than normal. Muroran is not exactly renowned for its metropolitan joie de vie and vibrant, urban lifestyle.
The supermarket did seem quieter than usual but that may well be because they had sold out of toilet roll and the crowds had charged off elsewhere in their desperate search for extra-absorbent two-ply tissue. A number of cities around Japan are undergoing a, (cough), 'run' on toilet paper at the moment. Somebody somewhere claimed that all of the toilet paper in Japan is made in China and we wouldn't be getting any more. This naturally got on social media and before you could say the Japanese for 'Fake news', the panic buying had erupted. We're not too worried as, well, we have snow. Nothing purer. Admittedly a tad chilly, but refreshingly clean and zesty.
Anyway the governor of Hokkaido had asked us this weekend to stay at home and refrain from going out unless absolutely necessary. The governor of Hokkaido is only a whippersnapper of 38 and I'll be damned if I am going to let some young fella tell me what I can and can't do.
So we took ourselves off for a walk as it was a nice day and there is only so many times you can count rolls of hoarded toilet paper before the feeling of superiority wears off.

Hokkaido and the Coronavirus Part 4

Man with a max holds up a sign: panic ensues!

Not to be out done by a mere prefectural governor, yesterday Japan's prime minister "strongly advised" all elementary, junior high, and high schools in the country to close until the start of the spring holidays (the school year here runs from April until March).
This was a bit of a bolt from the 青い, catching the Ministry of Education by surprise, not to mention the millions of parents across Japan who are now faced with the prospect of their children being at home for the next 6 weeks.
You can only imagine how distraught Cian is at the prospect of having no more school until the beginning of April.
Then tonight the governor of Hokkaido upped the ante by issuing "an Emergency Declaration". An 'Emergency Declaration' that will be in effect for the next 3 weeks. During this time we are to refrain from leaving our homes unless absolutely necessary and not engage in any public gatherings.
Being the bad ass gaijin that I am, I'll be going for a jog tomorrow morning and I will report back on the undoubtedly "eerily empty streets of Muroran" in this very blog.

Hokkaido and the Coronavirus part 2 (3?)

Cian, praying for school closure. Unfortunately, the stress of his end of year exams has aged him somewhat.

I don't know if there is a patron saint of school closures, but some nondenominational deity answered Cian's prayers. Yesterday, Cian's school sent out an email to all parents notifying them that the school would be closed from today until (at the moment) Wednesday of next week.
Obviously the powers that be considered the immediate effects of the Coronavirus (no known cases within 100 kilometers of the school); past trips by students and staff to Wuhan (none in living memory); ongoing international relations with China (no trips to the country by anyone in the past year); and, ehh, next week's weather forecast (predominantly westerly winds!), so they promptly hit the panic button.
In truth, the school was just obeying orders; yesterday evening the ever busy prefectural governor had issued a request to the municipal boards of education across the island to consider school closures. To strongly consider school closures, which is a typically opaque Japanese way of saying 'close the fecking schools or I'll box the fecking ears off you'.
Sanae's school has also decided to close for a week but in Japan teachers are assumed to be naturally immune to the Coronavirus and so she had to go to school anyway.
More critically, the Haru Ichiban Date Half Marathon has been cancelled! Yes, cancelled!! And that was supposed to be my qualifying race for the Tokyo Olympics. I was feeling in better shape than last year and pretty confident I could get my PB under 1:45, well, maybe under 1:50, definitely under two hours, which would have easily qualified me as Team Ireland's representative for the Olympic Marathon. Which isn't actually being held in Tokyo, but rather Sapporo. Yes, Sapporo. I could take the bus up on the morning of the race - think of the thousands of Euro I'd be saving the Olympic Council of Ireland. But alas, that dream seems to be in tatters.

Hokkaido and the Coronavirus

Number and location of Coronavirus cases as of February 24.

Yesterday evening, the Governor of Hokkaido in conjunction with the prefectural Board of Education sent an email to all the parents of school children on the island. So far, there have been 30 confirmed cases of the virus and 7 of those have had a direct connection with different schools.
The notification was about how families should take various preventive measures. Lots of washing of hands, liberal use of disinfectant spray, taking your child's temperature every morning and if your son or daughter should develop symptoms of a cold, keeping them out of school for 5 days.
Upon hearing this, Cian immediately started coughing.
Starting from tomorrow he has his end of year exams and well, let's just say that the boy's probable scores will be decidedly on the left side of the bell curve.
This morning he had a temperature of 63 degrees Celsius.
"So, I can't go to school", he triumphantly declared.
"No, you can't", I agreed. "Because you are now clinically dead. Here's a shovel. Go outside and bury yourself."
"Can I have breakfast first?"
"No, you're dead and dead people don't need food."
Hunger got the better of him and he admitted to holding the thermometer under the hot water tap. Something he learned from reading a Horrid Henry book.
Unfortunately, Horrid Henry doesn't feature on his English exam on Wednesday.

Birds of Muroran

In my middle age I have become a bit of a, ahem, bird fancier. Yes, yes, stop snickering down the back. I am of course referring to the feathered variety, the descendants of dinosaurs (though that could well describe our neighbours across the street).
By Hokkaido standards Muroran has a relatively mild (albeit extremely windy) climate. In winter the city and its hinterlands host a rich profusion of birds that you don't get to see in the rest of Hokkaido - principally because we don't get much snow and the temperature doesn't usually drop much lower than minus 6 to minus 10 (and this year winter it has only managed that once).
We live in a valley so that the effect of the wind is negated. Our house faces south-east so we get a fair bit of winter sun and there are no houses opposite us. Rather, there is a mix of trees: maple, white birch, alder, and a great big pine tree, all of which provide sustenance to different varieties of birds. Combine these factors and you have a bit of a hot spot for, well, 'spotting' our avian friends.
The photos below I took today and are the most common birds we see around the house. I have three feeders out at the moment and they attract a fair bit of attention, and squabbling too.

Great Tit (more colloquially known as 'Brian'

Hawfinch

Daurian Redstart (excited about this bird as it is quite rare in Hokkaido)

'Brian' and the rare bird.

A clatter (?) of sparrows. I'm not sure if this the correct group noun, but it sounds about right.

Marsh Tit

Varied tit

Nut Hatch

We have also seen Waxwings, a Japanese pygmy woodpecker, Bramblings, Dusky Thrush, Goldcrest, Bullfinch, Winter Wren and rather spectacularly, a Sparrowhawk attacking the clatter of sparrows. Go for a wander around the wider neighbourhood and on a good day you can spot a peregrine falcon, buzzard and our winter visitor, the white-tailed eagle.

Muroran and the Coronavirus

"Hello, Muroran!!"

 I was rereading some of my old posts (89 in 2011! None in 2019!!!!) and it seems that what really gets my fingers all a tapping on the keyboard is the prospect of imminent doom. We had the earthquake in 2011 and now it seems that the four horsemen of the apocalypse have saddled up again are raring to go. I am of course talking about the coronavirus, or COVID 19.
No doubt you are all aware of the Diamond Princess, the cruise ship turned floating virus incubator - I think we all know what not to do should something similar happen again. The Japanese Government have belatedly come to realize that "a problem out of view is a problem solved" and are letting passengers disembark (though in truth the only started doing this after pressure from the US government). Their policy is to only let passengers who have been tested and found not to have the virus to leave the ship. Unfortunately, this approach isn't quite working as a number of passengers who returned to Australia were subsequently retested and found to have the virus.
Last Thursday I was out for a few beers with some of my Japanese colleagues from the university. We have just finished the end of the academic year so the few beers turned into many beers and it was after two a.m. before I staggered home.
But I digress.
From one of my colleagues I learned that 4 people from Muroran had been on the Diamond Princess, they had tested negative for the virus, been allowed disembark and returned back here on Wednesday evening.
We were at that imperceptible stage of the evening when the beer count was heading for double figures and all our ideas were fast becoming great ideas. So, upon learning of the medical crisis potentially affecting Muroran, we had a few moments of calm reflection and decided that the thoughtful, considered response would be to go to our four, fellow citizens' homes and plant burning crosses on their lawns. And then tell them they had until sun-up to leave or we would run them out of town.
Or, as the senior professor suggested, we could just go to karaoke.
We went to karaoke.
And if Muroran becomes a post-apocalyptic wasteland with abandoned streets, empty buildings and a pervading sense of hopelessness, then, well, actually it already is a town with abandoned streets, empty buildings and a pervading sense of hopelessness.
So no change there, then.