Diary: Day 0

Hi.

The last time I wrote in a diary, I was still in high school. It was a Pocahontas covered note, and I put a padlock on it knowingly it can be opened even without a key. I wish I could find that now, because I was so completely open and honest then, my crushes, friends, frenemies.

Anyway, in the recent events of the world with this COVID-19 or New Coronavirus, I decided to start writing again. I don't want to force my private thoughts into my Facebook feed, and don't want to bore my instagram friends of daily updates either.

Sakura last year, same season, totally different feeling

A world changed in a couple of months

As you already know, the Coronavirus already started since the end of last year in China. It started to be felt overseas around beginning of February, but it seemed to be something that was only worse in Asia, that made people fear of being in contact with anyone who had been in China. At that time, we thought, as long as we don't meet any who has recently travelled there, we'll be fine.

Early February (7th to be exact), we went to our planned 1 week trip to Paris and Greece. It was still not so bad. There were some cases, but it has not exploded, a few people in France, no one in Greece if I remember correctly. People were all very nice to us and we didn't feel any discrimination at all (or probably there never was?). At that time though, mask was already scarce in Japan, I remember trying to find them in Paris but couldn't. Instead I bought a hand sanitizer from Sephora instead. Wish I'd bought more, now that I think about it.

February 19, I came back to work, and went to ski in Hokkaido the weekend of 22nd, it was a 3-day holiday in Japan. Upon returning back to Tokyo, we read the news that the virus has started to spread quite rapidly in Sapporo, Hokkaido (we went to Niseko, but we still had to take the plane to Sapporo). At that time, we were a bit scared but back then everyone still felt like the virus was "just like flu". A few days later though, Prime Minister Abe ordered the closing of schools, which was a surprise to everyone. It was a good decision. Our companies relaxed rules on working from home. In the beginning, many people did. But there were many who still went to work regularly (like me), because we felt it was difficult to do work without being physically there. Gyms closed, and the yoga studio I was going to also closed until Mar 15 because it was reported that a coronavirus patient had stayed there. At this time Italy is already hard hit as well as many other countries in Europe, but Japan seemed to have a stable number of cases, which everyone found quite bewildering.

Before the last week of the end of March, I felt that people in Tokyo had started moving around normally again. Especially now that it's Sakura season, I was surprised that people still did picnics and events, (we were cycling around and didn't stop to mingle with anyone or even buy food).

Above: People commuting as per usual on mid-March.

And so, last week, around 25 March, the governor of Tokyo requested for everyone's cooperation to stay indoors--or there would be a lockdown. Our company responded by sending an order for 50% of the workforce to work from home, but our manager thought that that wouldn't work anyway, since it was also already circulating that everyone will have to work from home from April 12. Starting tomorrow, I will have to work from home.

My Family

I only have my mom left, my dad passed away a few years ago. She lives in the Philippines, and since 2nd to 3rd week of March, it seems that things have not been going well there. The country is in lockdown, and our province itself is already in lockdown. While I'm writing this, the cases are around 1400 from the 5 cases at the first week of March.

I'm scared. Everyone is. This time, not for myself though, but for my mom and my loved ones. I don't even want to write this because writing it makes things real, but there had been people who couldn't see their loved ones even before their last breath. It’s the one thing that scares me before I sleep at night.

I think I'll stop here, not really a good thing to end with such a sad note. Hopefully tomorrow I'll write of a bit lighter things that may bore you--my pc has already been set up for working on our dining table and although it's an eyesore, I'm still grateful that we've been allowed to work safely from home.

Leaving you a photo of today's miracle: snowfall with sakura.