Safety Day

There is a very kind gentleman, who lives in our neighborhood, Osami-san. He speaks wonderful English, and stops by to drop off flyers for events in the neighborhood such as Bon Odori festivals and the like. A week ago, he stopped off to give us a flyer for "Safety Day". I'd heard great tales of this from some other neighbors about bucket brigades and fire extinguisher exercises, so we made sure to attend. The weather didn't cooperate for the really interesting stuff, but we still were fascinated with the Japanese drive to teach everyone about safety and first aid. You can tell that they are a country that is used to natural disasters and is dedicated to being prepared for them. They explained fire and earthquake safety and provided training on Automatic Defibrillators and CPR and then showed a video on the Kobe earthquake and preparations and actions that help people survive and recover from such events. I half expected to see a training session on Godzilla safety...
They handed out triangular bandage cloths and trained everyone to make pressure bandages out of them and slings.


william says : as you can se in the person taking in the microphone is a fire fighter he is teling us how to be safe in case of fire and earth qwake



This is Caroline adding: They count people here, (we had to sign in), and if you need to evacuate, you go to a nearby junior high school that is about 1/2 km away, and on higher ground. I left when Wm was too bored. Tim and Osami-san arrived at our house with delicious bowls of soup. He was determined that we partake with everyone. I know you're not supposed to say a direct 'no' in Japanese, but I was surprised that they won't take 'no' for an answer, either! The soup had carrot, onion, cabbage, daikon, konyaku, and freshly-made flour dumplings.