Going back down under

I have a business trip coming up in the next couple of days that will send me back to Sydney, Australia. Unlike my last trip to Sydney where I was there for about a week, I am scheduled to be there for almost three weeks. Hopefully, I will get to check out more of Sydney than just Darling Harbour. I will definitely take pictures while I am there. In the mean time, here is a pic that I took 2 days ago while I was attending a BBQ next to Tamagawa river in Setagaya.

Natural disasters

Natural disasters, like earthquakes have always been a way of life in Japan. Every time one occurs, I just say to myself, "Oh .. its an earthquake" and just brush it off. I almost never stop what I am doing. Ever since the 3/11 disaster however, I notice myself with a bit more anxiety during a tremor. I don't go into panic mode at all, but I do find myself briefly interrupting on what I was doing and question myself if this could be another "big" one. This past week, there were 2 big jolts that could be felt in the Tokyo area. Scientists still say that the Tokyo area is not out of the woods yet in experiencing a big earthquake, so there is still fear that we may experience a another super earthquake in the near future. Besides earthquakes, a strong typhoon just ravaged Japan this past weekend. Luckily, the Tokyo area was spared but parts of western Japan wasn't as fortunate. I hope natural disasters won't continue to escalate. However, I am not so sure especially with Virginia just recently experiencing a magnitude 5 earthquake! The world is a scary place.. and that is not even factoring the man made chaos like crumbling economies, wars, etc.