Today was a day out of the office, but work; it was north of Tokyo, but there was a port.
Fukushima. Iwaki City to be precise, and the area around Izumi Station. A field trip with colleagues form other universities, sharing some commonalities with our research, three of us looking at surfing, one doing soundscapes, others looking at sustainability, all of us overlapping, interacting.
Following the triple disaster in 2011, (earthquake, tsunami, nuclear power plant meltdown) Fukushima looms as a no-go zone, a place people worry about, a place people wonder what is to become of it.
It also happens to have some of the best surf on the Japanese Pacific coast and so is a bit of a hub for surfers. over the course of a longish day, I was able to meet with a couple of surf shop owners and talk about life 'before and after' that big wave of 2011.
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| Working on the line |
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| Port a little north of Izumi |
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| With concrete barriers |
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| Ben Surf |
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| Love our Bay (somehow) |
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| Suzuki-san of North Swell |
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| Purple skater |
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| The Suzukis outside their shop North Swell with colleagues |
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| And a mayoral election on the way: say no to the castle, yes to using taxes for children and the elderly |
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| The lighthouse, at the end of the day |
The full report is for another place and time, suffice to say, surfers have in common the search for the perfect wave, the perfect ride. And what I also learnt is that the people of Fukushima have taken the understanding of human resilience to the next level. An humbling day as we talked and shared stories and ideas. An incredible privilege of this job.
[Camera : Lumix TZ-85, 10.43am, 2.46pm, 2.55pm, 4.28pm-5.54pm, 6.09pm, 6.30pm; 5 September 2017]
