After serious thought, we decided to keep our plans to travel in Japan. We had been planning to fly into Tokyo on April 4th since the end of February. Instead, we flew into Osaka late last night.
The decision to come to Japan was a difficult one to make, partially because the news coming from the affected regions, particularly concerning the badly damaged Fukushima-Diiachi nuclear power plant, was so varried and consistantly evolving.
We considered a few points of view:
On one hand, Japan is still very much a country reeling and recovering from the 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Sendai on March 11, 2011 and the ensuing tsunami, and the distruction they both brought. It seems inconsiderate and selfish in some ways to visit a country just after such a severe catastrophe.
On the other hand, Japan could probably use a little love right now. It is a small show of support, sure, but keeping our plans to visit Japan would inject a few tourist dollars into a weakened, uncertain economy just as many tourists are crossing Japan from their itineraries.
We ended up deciding to visit Japan, but with an altered schedule. We changed our flight from Tokyo to Osaka, and we swapped destinations in order to visit southern Japan first and keep an eye on the situation in the north as we do.
The hotels and inns we are staying with, and those we hope to visit later in April that we canceled our initial reservations with, have expressed their gratitude for our still coming to Japan.
We hope the situation at the power plant stabilizes soon and that the people affected by the unbelievable destruction caused by the natural disasters of early March have a much better April.
Our thoughts and hearts are with Japan, even as we travel through it in person.
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