I don't know how to express my sadness about what has happened in Japan. It's such a beautiful country–such terrible things shouldn't happen. Needless to say I've been thinking about it all weekend. I won't be going there this spring and I'm having a very hard time giving it up. I thought about delaying the trip, but I don't want to be there in summer. Maybe next spring. I keep thinking about all the things I needed to do and now don't have to think about.
One of the gardens I wanted to see is in Ibaraki Prefecture, and may well be gone. I know the area was affected. But that's obviously the least of it. I will donate money to the Japan America foundation, but I wish there was something more I could do.
100 Books Before I Die 
Now I understand more. Thank you.
I fell in love with Japan when I visited about 7 years ago. I have friends in Fukushima. They have fled and didn’t have time to get their passports. They want to leave, but can’t right now.
I am donating some of the cost of my trip to the Japan America Society in Pennsylvania.It’s all I can do.
My visits to Japanese gardens here in the states are what made me write that paper, and also decide to return to Japan. While I enjoyed some of them, I hated others. In particular, there is a large, well promoted and well funded garden in Rockford, Illinois that I visited last summer. It has a great website, but I felt cheated by the garden. The paper I wrote was an attempt to figure out why. That garden did not have the pictorial views I so much enjoy.
Maybe, if I haven’t become too old and decrepit in the meantime, I’ll try again next year.
Thanks for your concern.
Ruthe
There really isn’t much one can do. We are donating to Doctors without Borders and the Salvation Army. I watch television with horror wishing there was more that we could do.
I’m glad you are staying here. Selfishly, I’d rather see you safe. Why not tour Japanese Gardens in America. We have a new one here plus a bell from our sister city, and there is a stunning one in San Francisco. I bet many cities have bits of Japan in them that are worthy of note.