＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:https://skawa68.com/
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
In my previous blog, I wrote about how I decided to walk home since there was no prospect of JR services resuming, and I’d like to share some of the things I felt along the way.
1. Temporary closure of roadside restaurants
The first thing was that all the roadside stores were temporarily closed due to the earthquake.
Due to the effects of the earthquake, “goods and ingredients weren’t arriving,” “employees couldn’t come,” and “customers weren’t coming,” so I had no choice but to accept that temporary closure was unavoidable.
However, when I first started walking, I vaguely thought, “There will probably be something to eat at a roadside family restaurant or supermarket.”
As I was about to enter the first gyoza chain restaurant I found, Osho, a staff member came out to the entrance and said apologetically, “Due to the earthquake, we will be closing shortly. We are truly sorry.”
I gave up and started walking again, but all the family restaurants and supermarkets were closed, and under the strong sunlight I had no choice but to hydrate from vending machines.
Regarding vending machines, I’ve heard somewhere before that “in the event of a disaster, there are vending machines that will give you drinks for free,” but this time, all of the vending machines I saw charged for drinks “as usual.”
If anyone knows anything about this, I would appreciate the information.
2. God-like service（「神対応」） from a Nissan dealership
The second incident was at a Nissan dealership on the same roadside, where there was a sign saying, “Free drinks available. Please use the restrooms as well.”
Unfortunately, I had just bought a soft drink from a vending machine just before the store, so I didn’t want anything else to drink, and I had also used the restroom at the station, so I was unable to take advantage of this “kindness.”
Although it was not the make of the car I drive, the dealer’s attention to detail was very impressive and I found it to be “god-like.”
I would like to ask all “beverage manufacturers” and “car dealers” other than those mentioned above to also consider countermeasures for the occurrence of natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and floods as a future issue.