Special thanks to:
(edited) Mommy Sheila of Milestones,Simply Happy Life,Worth's World,E!Fashion Talk,Life Mix,Life & Family Online,In Pursuit Of Success,Oh! Gosh Goodies,Shy's Mixed Thoughts,"Hey Babe! What's For Dinner?",Ea$y Money Blog!and Pinay SAHM
Mommy Willa of Postcard Perfect,Food Trip Friday,Smart Mommy,FickleMinded,The Smart Shopper,My Everyday Life,Pixel Minded,Happy Meals, The Blogging Traveller,and Smart Boys.
Mommy Peachy of The Peach Kitchen, Peach and Things , The Wandering Peach and The Mommy Who Never Sleeps
Mommy Tetcha of Pensive Thoughts and Delight My Appetite
Mommy Rossel of Topics On Earth, Moms Ups And Downs and Kitchen Essentials
Mommy Jade of Momma Finally and Life Of A Filipina Blogger
Super Mommy Jem of Experience Of A Super Mommy and Life's Learning Of A Filipino Work At Home Mommy and Online To The Fullest
Mommy AC of Happy Home Working, Cheecky Munchkins, Come Dine In and Join My Stroll
Mommy Marita of Kid's Turf,Amazing Grace,Gracia Fashionista and A Walk To Remember
Mommy Gen of Life's Journey With Foodies, Wonderful Things In Life, Made By Gen,SAHM's Hangout,Mom On The Move,Chris Adventures, The Love Bug, Gengen Studio, Nakina Blueberry Farm, My Life's Adventure, Rewards Stationand her etsy shop at Momgen's Corner
Vernz of On This Side Of Town, Ang Sandayong, Consumer Mom Talks, Anything Davao, Chalk Dust, Some Things Are Free, Vernz Daily, Woman Elan Vital
Mommy Lulu of Daily Snippets, Mouth's Delight, Bitz 'n Pieces Of My Life and Musings Of Life
Mommy Yami of Mom Writes Health Stuffs, Yami Kitchen, Travel And Musings, Sketches, Yam's Files, Pen,Paper,Pan, Mom Writes For A Cause, Yami Online and Neru Online.
Mommy Ruby of Proud Mommy Of Three,Life'S Memoirs OnlinePink Thoughts,
Pinay Mommy Online and founder of Pinay Mommies Communities AND THE ANGEL BEHIND THE KIZUNA LOVE FUND! Maraming salamat po, Mommy Rubz!
and
Bambie of Kawaii Princess Story, Mommy Jac of Mom's Special Diary and Mommy Seiko of Seiko's Diary ~~ thank you very much for offering us your home, thank you for the happy, teary phone calls, and thank you for trying your best to get in touch with us なにからなにまで、本当に 感謝しています。
Thank you everyone for touching me and for making me a better person. May God bless you more!
March 11, 2011 ~ Friday
I started my day as usual: waked up early in the morning, cooked breakfast and made bentou for my husband and went to my morning duty for a 'hata toban'. I went out with a yellow flag as a cross guard and spent 30 to 40 minutes at the cross walk until 15 to 30 children leave the neighborhood for school. Then did my laundry after, cleaned the house and dropped Haruka to school before 9 am. Hours later, wrote an entry to my Friday favourite meme and bloghopped for awhile. It is a routine for me to do bloghopping when the kids are at school, it's one of my 'Me time'.
Picked up Haruka before 2:00 PM at school and went home early without letting her play after school coz my kids will be picked up by their Grandfather for a sleepover at their home in Namie for the weekend. 35 minutes later, Wakaba came with her project from school and as we're gladly looking at her drawings, we could feel the shaking in our apartment and thought that it was just the usual short earthquakes but it wasn't..the shaking was so violent and long. Though we have experienced an earthquake simulation before during an event, I have never experienced a strong earthquake before here in Japan and panicked for 'twas real! It felt like a lifetime to me. I guess Japanese are well trained on what to do when earthquake strikes coz after I shouted " jishin! " or the earthquake, Wakaba and Haruka went under the table and both of them seemed so calm unlike me. It felt to me like our apartment was on a railway car that was being pushed back and forth on it's rails. It was scary, terribly scary! The moving was violent, shaking and the things were falling all over and was afraid that our HDTV would tip over so I hold it but 'twas rocking from side to side and I'm also losing my balance!
The earthquake was long, felt danger inside the apartment and called my kids to run outside, Wakaba runs first, then me holding the hands of Haruka. Friends in the neighborhood were also outside and couldn't help but worry constantly. I didn't even noticed that we're on our barefoot until a friend told us so. Minutes later my husband came, still with his white uniform on ( he's a radialogist ) and was relieved after seeing us outside. He went up to the apartment to get some blankets, some food and checked if we have running water but there was none and hurriedly went to the nearest conveniece store to buy some food and bottled water to drink. My husband came back with a few snacks in hand--he said that the convenience store were all cleared of all food. We don't have power, gas and communications were knocked out! We were given sandwiches and bread to eat for the night and gave them our bananas in return. Blessings! Don't know why but tears came falling down...Things aren't looking so good but hopefully something will work out for us...with God's help.
We decided to spend the night inside the car although the kids would feel uncomfortable but being inside the car is safer rather than spending a night inside the apartment which is on a second floor. Every once in a while, an aftershock would strike and it really scares the hell out of me, we could feel the ground shaking. Me and my husband watched the news inside the car and was shocked! Little did I know that a tsunami washed away Tohoku! Sendai is a favorite place of ours, Namie Machi is our second home, Onahama Machi is 10 km away from us. God, please help Tohoku!
Next day, we checked inside our apartment and this is what we saw....
Our wooden clothes cabinet, toy storage have fallen down 
Our desktop has moved backward, fallen down 
Dishes rattled 
We're still getting constant tremors inside our apartment that lead us to run outside every once in a while.
All forms of communications were knocked out 
Watching the news over the navigation screen 
Wakaba and Haruka sleeping inside the car
March 12, 2011 ~ Saturday
We had our gas and electricity back and immediately cooked rice then made onigiri ( rice balls ) for breakfast and cooked curry for large batches that will fill our stomach for a couple of days. We've got no running water but luckily, I didn't throw the water that was being used during our ofuro( bath tub)~ it helped us a lot on flushing our toilet. What we didn't have running water and a kerosene to fill our heater but we have our blanket to warmth us. My husband went to collect water at a water station/delivery services run by the local government. He brought with him some jars and lined up for 4 hours to get water.
Little did I know 'bout the nuclear accident at Fukushima Nuclear Plant~ I never thought that three disasters could happen at the same time in one country... The government is asking the people to leave for those who are living 20 km( danger zone) near the plant. Us, ( living 40 km) however instructed to stay indoors. My SIL's house is 15 km and my PIL's house is 20 km from the plant. Worried, really worried about them but we can't use any source of communication. No phone, no internet!
What really shocked me was the convenience stores were all cleared of all food! 
March 13, 2011 ~ Sunday~
My Mama tomo ( Japanese friend mum) came with a plastic bag that's full of cup soup, instant soup, cup ramen and tuna can. What a blessing! She asked me if there's something anything else we need~ I feel so blessed with generous friends!
Another blessing! Our neighbor brought us some snacks for the kids, we gave them our few bottled water in return. I'm so blessed to be here~ friends, residents help each other in time of need. I'm so grateful!
March 14, 2011 ~ Monday~
I went early to get some water~ good thing that the water station is giving water 24 hours, there's only a few people getting water, no loong lines and went smoothly and filled up my jar with water and when I was on my way to get home, saw cars lined up through the gasoline station. Little did I know that some drivers waited all day for just a few litres of gasoline. 
Went to the nearest supermarket to buy drinking water~ stores forbid customers to buy one box (12pcs, 1000ml) of bottled water per person and luckily bought for us. Even at supermarkets were cleared of all food~ I was afraid that supplies would soon dry up.Called to my Mom in the Philippines at the supermarket's phone box~ she cried upon hearing my voice, I wanted to convey to her that we're all safe and sound but she can't help but get worried most especially about the radiation threat. I told her we've got enough gasoline just in case the government warn us to evacuate the area...
March 15, 2011~ Tuesday
My husband went out to look for food but to his dismay, all the stores were all closed. I went out to check for other stores and looked around. The surroundings were different and it looks like a ghost town--no people, no nothing!
to be continued....
**********
Here's some things that you should have on hand just in case there is an earthquake. These includes foods, waters, flashlights and radio with batteries, wet tissues, plastic/food wrap or a cling wrap and aluminum foil. There is, of course, no guarantee that nothing will happened, but try to be prepared.
An idea to save water~ cover plates with wraps before putting the food on then peel the wrap off and disgard it after eating to save much water. Believe me, food wraps helps a lot! Quakes can be very terrifying, but we have to be prepared for them. Let’s do the best we can.
***********
*Nostalgia is a weekly Thursday meme hosted by Ate Rose--please play with us by clicking the linky badge.* 
We're so blessed to have all the beauty of sakura near our apartment but I didn't even recognized it coz I was very down spirited because of what's happening in Fukushima ( most of you probably know ) until a friend reminded me of spring and hope. We went out for a quiet walk like we always did every spring time but I don't know why, this year's hanami ( flower viewing ) was different. The bright blue skies and cherry blossoms seems like a sign of hope for me and it feels like that everything is more colourful and more alive! Although sakuras are short-lived, I found happiness of those blooms of hope. 気持ちが落ち着く!
Brought some homemade lunchbox and had our lunch under the gorgeous sakura trees
Sakura burst into full bloom!
Us, enjoying every moment of spring in Japan!
Haruka chan gladly posed for me ^_^
Wakaba and Haruka played at the park~ it was good to see them running around and that day was especially fun because they were playing mostly indoors during the past weeks.
Wakaba chan 
I pray that those who suffer and grieve will find strength and courage to carry on and that they may have hope. 
Some products from Fukushima were being pulled out from the market because of the spreading rumors on radiation most especially rice from Fukushima. I would understand if the rice was produced this year but the rice being pulled out were produced last year!
We are dealing with the all the mess of the earthquake and nuclear plants, but it's a big deal to be honest, people/media is too exagerating. The goverment is supporting farmers in Fukushima, the radiation levels are far below the set health limits. I live 40 km away from Fukushima Nuclear Plant, here we can eat any thing! Hope that people from other prefecture would buy Fukushima veggies, they're safe to eat.
Messages during interviews in the TV says " Ganbarou, Fukushima! We are with you!" but reality says everyone is scared that they might contaminate radiation. Evacuees from Fukushima will need all the help that they can get. Please don't feel that evacuees from Fukushima are going to harm you. Please. <(_ _)>
16