1 Year ago today, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami shook Japan. The damage caused shockwaves (sic) around the world, and the well documented problems at Fukushima nuclear power plant caused many countries to reconsider their nuclear power programmes.
I have had a fascination with Japan for many years. I think it all started when a friend’s brother bought an imported Japanese Sega Megadrive from a shop in Nottingham. It looked like the coolest thing ever, and having an arcade perfect port of Golden Axe blew my mind! The thing that I think really drew me to it was the fact that their writing was using a completely different alphabet than ours. At the time (I think I was about 12 years old) that was pretty much the first time I had ever seen anything other than English script, or at least the first time I had ever really taken any notice of it. It was of course very foreign to me, but fascinating at the same time. Sadly up until last year, I had been unable to follow up on my Japan obsession, so I had to look from afar as the devastation took a hold of the Eastern part of Honshu (the biggest of the islands making up Japan).
