Remember a few months ago when I was woken up in the middle of the night by a wailing siren? At the time, I thought that it was a tsunami warning (even though I live too far from the shore for any tsunami to reach me).

However, it turned out to be a fire.. not just a fire, but a HUGE fire! Literally feet away from my apartment, in the apartment house next door! (Read about it here: http://www.jamieism.com/630/japan/tokyo-on-fire)

It was pretty scary! And yet, also fascinating… I was going to say that it was cool, but anything involving a fire and a death is obviously not cool at all. Not in the slightest.

Anyways, they’re finally rebuilding the ruined part of the building! I hope that the owners had fire insurance!

So, this is what wakes me up at 8 am every day, right outside my window:

Yaaaaay! Maybe I should start going to be earlier, lol. ^^;;;
(Actually, it’s not the construction that’s loud per se, it’s the TV that the employees brought in to listen to, that they turn up to full volume. ^o^;; Oh my..

↑　A japanese construction truck.

↑ As you can see, they’ve really gutted the house.. not that there was much left, in any case! They had to take out all of the burned/dangerous parts, and I am betting they’re going to tear out the remaining walls in the back, too.

I wonder if there is any kind of rule that the landlords will have to tell future tenants that this is a place where people have died, and there was a fire in the past.

Then again, even if there is a rule, if the entire upper floor is rebuilt (looks like they’re not really touching the lower floor, where there wasn’t any damage anyways, other than from the firemen storming in and things getting wet, according to the old lady who manages the store that used to be there.), then maybe it would be considered a “new” construction and there would be no rule or anything.

I wonder…. I asked a few friends and my bf, but nobody knows the answer. If you know, can you write it here? Technically, no matter where you go in Japan, it’s a small enough island that it’s likely that someone died there at some time in the past, anyways..you know, back in the samurai era or during the bombings and the war, at the very least. It’s kind of hard to look that kind of information up!

↑ Let’s have some shots of the workers! I love people-watching! *^^*

↓　Still cleaning up the debris left behind by the fire.

This was my first close-up look at construction in Japan. It doesn’t really seem very different from any country, but I’m just an outside observer, so I have no idea what is really going on.

It would be fun to get a more behind-the-scenes look, but really.. I’d just settle for them turning down the TV until, say, at least 10 am. ^^;;;;