I’m back in Holland since april last year and I live in Ommen a small and beautiful countryside town in the eastern part of Holland. Finding my way back in Dutch life was easy and complicated at the same time. Easy because I managed to find a job at the office shortly after arrival. The company I used to work for had a job vacancy which matched with my abilities. Lucky me!!! I also had to rent a house and get settled because my wife and son had to come over from Japan as soon as school was finished. It was a strange time living in a humble house without furniture and with just a few clothes mainly sporting goods.

At the same time I had to get used to the Dutch habits and as I was used to the Japanese habits the differences were much bigger then I had imagined. Japan is a very well organized country with very disciplined people and very respectful to everybody and to the environment. It’s extremely clean, no garbage on the street, no graffiti, no yelling, people are properly cueing when they have to enter public traffic or in other public area. In lot’s of simple daily routines things were different in Holland. On the other hand the country was nice green and there was less traffic and smog in the cities. The temperature was nice and cool and it was comfortable to be back at home although our house was not available yet. We have to live in an other house until september 2012. Looking forward to live in my own house again. We enjoy living in Holland but we mis Japan our Japanese life and friends. most of all we miss eating out in Japan, ramen, udong, sashimi, rice ball and all other typically Japanese food. We don’t have Yoshinoya in Holland. It’s a pity.

Just before the start of the next hockey season I was asked to coach a club in the highest division. I was very happy to find a new club so close to the start of the new training season because all clubs were normally occupied. The only problem was that everything was already fixed for the next season. We started well and played well in the first part of the season but we lost the most matches. We were just no good enough to win at that time. During the winter break the club decided to change the head coach so I was fired. A disappointing moment but one which is also part of high-performance hockey. If the results are poor the head coach is responsible and to blame. The club had to decide ego do all they could do to change the negative results and part of the solution was to send me away. If not they could have been blamed that they had failed to take responsibility at the right time. On the other hand people can always blame the club that sending the coach ways is a easy solution. In my opinion both are very difficult decisions to take. The club decided to fire me and I respect their decision.  I hope that the team will work very hard and prove that the club made the right decision for the club and all the supporters, a club like Den Bosch must be in the highest division in Holland.

What to do now? I will do my best to find a new coaching job and meanwhile I will conduct coaching courses, seminars, coaching session on demand as expert. I can be booked. People from all over the globe can send me a mail at siegfriedaikman@hotmail.com.  Hope to hear from you soon.

That about my hockey life. Privately I’m very happy to be reunited with my children, family an friends. It’s very comfortable to had ether support for the better and the worse. Thank you all for this. In Japan I started cooking again and I continued it here in Holland. At least every saturday I cook and I enjoy this. I love shopping at the wet market and buy all I need to cook.

I also picked up hiking again and started to lose weight as I became even bigger then I was before leaving for Japan. I’m still to big and I have a long way to go but I’m on track. Yes!!! At present I walk at least 30 minutes a day and in the weekend frequently two or three hours.

Have to go for today’s walk. My daughter is waiting.

Sayonara,

Siggy

Hi everybody, Yes I’m back in Holland and this is a test. Need to check if the blog is still working because it had been under construction for longtime. If it works I will start posting again.

Keep my fingers crosses.

Siegfried Aikman

April 20 I left Japan for Holland. In Holland I had to restart my life in Europe. Looking for a job, settling in a new house, solving the problems I had with JHA, taking care of my family in Holland and Japan.

The most recent news is that the family is on their way back from Japan, that the problems with JHA are solved thanks to the support of many friends. My family had a great time in Japan and we are very grateful for the golden opportunity we got to live and discover Japan during two years. It was a great experience with a disappointing end but nevertheless an once in a lifetime experience. Living in a totally different culture provided us with lessons for life. 

In Japan we met some very special people who became real friends, we are very happy with these friends and hope to meet them again somewhere in the world. Jaqueline and Rik got a wonderful and very special farewell party in Nagoya and it felt very good.

Meanwhile things went on in Holland and I have been able to settle again. For the time being our future will be in Holland. For this reason I will close this Blog. I sincerely hope that you enjoyed this blog as I enjoyed writing it.

Wish you all, good fortune, health and lot's of success in the rest of your life's.

Sayonara and tot ziens,

Siegfried Aikman

As I have reported yesterday Tepco's plan to have a cold close down are very risky and the prediction doesn't guarantee any success. In yesterday's news paper reports this is confirmed. Click here to read more about this. Meanwhile USA made robots went into the stricken reactors and they found very high levels of radiation which makes it impossible for workers to enter the reactors. The levels are so high that we wonder if we heard the truth in the past days. Probably not. Click here for information about the robots and their search. Japanese people are very unhappy with the crisis-management as done by the authorities. Specially about the terrible communication by the authorities. Click here to read how Japanese voters judge their leaders. People also complain about the very poor compensation from 12.000 $ the authorities offered the families in the stricken area. Click here for more background information about this subject.

I hope that the positive side of the disaster will appear to be that the Japanese people liberate themselves and that they will dare to use their freedom of speak without fear. I have experienced that Japan is a very well and good organized country in which people are very disciplined but on the other hand I also noticed that many people are afraid to speak in public about things which bother them or which they disagree because of the repercussions they can fear. More and more people are very disturbed by the way they were informed about the disaster that they will free themselves and speak like people all over the globe are doing recently. I hope it will be very peaceful and I count on that. It's important that people are free to speak. I wish the great Japanese people peace and harmony with real freedom of speak.

Sakura gives hope.

Sayonara,

Siegfried Aikman

Today Rik went to school again in Nagoya after a break. Because of the radiation risk he went to Holland. Now things are proved to be ok in Nagoya Jaqueline and Rik returned last Saturday. Rik had a good day and enjoyed seeing his friends and teachers from the Nagoya International School again. Both Rik and Jaqueline are recovering from a jetlag. Rik didn’t want to eat out tonight.

Yesterday we went for a little walk in the neighborhood and we enjoyed the fine spring weather. I took a few pictures.

Sorry that I upload one picture twice, was a mistake and I really don't know how to restore the mistake.

Unfortunately it just started to rain in Nagoya. Yes rain is also part of spring I know but I prefer nice weather. 

Earlier today we had a great Sushi-party. Nao and Yuko prepared a very delicious Temaki Sushi. Nao and Yuko we thank you very much for this special celebration with home made Sushi. Again we had a very special day in Japan. 

We can assure you that home made Sushi is the best there is. It was a really great experience.

Sayonara,
Siegfried Aikman 

Yesterday Rene my brother in law attended me on a google video about Chernobyl. Click here for the video. This video expires soon but it's very interesting. The Reactor their is still dangerous. At the moment the authorities in Japan announced that the reactors will have a cold close down in nine months. Click here to read more about this.This means that they will stop the operating the plant and that they will keep cooling the nuclear rots with water. If so it is my opinion that we will keep having the same risks as we have now. The problems with the nuclear plant are due to the many aftershocks. If they continue doing the same we will have the same threat all time. All the set backs are just because of the aftershocks. I hope that the authorities will have a plan b too. Until now they had only one plan and although it was not working they keep doing it and that was using water to cool the reactor.  

The positive news is at the moment the stricken area now celebrate the cherry blossom season. I'm sure that this will cheer them like it did with me. Japanese people adores cherry blossom. Click here to read about this.

Below two cherry blossom pictures. The cherry blossom is moving up to the north. 

Sayonara,

Siegfried Aikman

Again things in Japan didn't seem to be as it was. The reality is that we got bad news again about the stricken nuclear plant in Fukushima. Again the radiation level in the seawater increased. I start getting more and more worried about the consequences. Who will tell when this stops. Research learned that experts says that the nuclear plant is very vulnarable and has a big risk for meltdown. The question is what a meltdown will do to sealife? As we now learned it is very difficult to master the leaks and with the many aftershocks in the region the situation is very dangerous. My opinion is to seal the nuclear plant as soon as possible to prevent the worse consequences for humanity and also close all the nuclear plants in the world because the risks when we have a unaspected disaster are devastating. Let focus more on solar and wind energie. If all the Japanese roofs will be from solar pannels they can probably replace nuclear energie. Japan has a lot of sun and wind. Of course I'm not an expert and I have little knowledge about this things but this seems a good solution to me. Specially because when the very smart Japanese academic's will focus on this subject they will design very smart and profitable solutions as they did before in many technical designs. That wil again bring hope in our life's. Click here for an article about changing the energy policy.

Click here and here for more information about the new leaks.

Click here for information about worried towns.

The only thing we can do is to keep praying for the Japanese people who have very hard times in the stricken area and I hope that foreign and domestic newsagancies will keep pressure on authorities to do all they can to solve the problems for all these people and on longer terms for humanity.

Sayonara,

Siegfried Aikman

Good news today, USA downgrade their nuclear evacuation advice. American citizens are allowed to return to Japan because the risks from the nuclear plant lessened. Click here for more information about this. Lets hope that the good news continues. Meanwhile the workers are working very hard to control the stricken plant. They do courages work for our benefit. The Japanese government ordered Tepco to offer the evacuees a better compensation. Now the families are offered 1000.000 yen about 12.000 US dollars. Still not much but at least this is a start. Much better then the first offered 2 US dollars. Click here for more information.

I hope that the world will help Japan to overcome this disaster and that Japan will allow them to do so. People need help to rebuild their life's. The first sign are there. In Sendai people cleaned the massive mess and picked up their life's. The situation round grocery stores are normal no more cue's. Normal traffic jams. Of course ordinary life is not possible yet but the people there are trying hard to do so. It's great to see them do so. Again Japanese people show their great ability to overcome disasters. 

Sayonara,

Siegfried Aikman

Late yesterday we finaly received a letter from the JHA lawyers. They made a first offer to us which doesn't meet our proposal at all. They also added more reasons why I was fired than they did at first, I can prove that the added  reasons were not true. Strange that they didn't communicated the extra reasons before but just brought them up almost two months later. In all the newspaper interviews JHA told until now that the reason to terminate my contract was the disappointing result at the Asian Games. No other reasons were mentioned.  It's probably part of the game to do so. Well the lawyers are taking care of the business and I will leave it there at least something is happening. I hope both sides will find a proper solution. The article in NRC in Holland raised many questions from Dutch people and all don't understand why JHA is nor respecting the contract and settle the problem in a decent way. Japan is losing face because of this and that is something Japanese people don't deserve. Unfortunately I'm unlucky with the senior managers from JHA.I get many support from other Japanese  people and I'm grateful for their support. Some people are very dedicated with my case and do their best to help me.

Thank you all for your support!!!

Meanwhile the situation around the nuclear plant keeps alarming. The level of radiation is higher then we were told before. This is a huge threat for people and animals. I wonder how they will manage this new problem. click here for more information.Still I hope that the recovery from a great part of the area can start. The direct surrounding of the plant I consider as lost for at least 20 years. If the authorities can take that decision soon the people who lived there can restart somewhere else and move on with their life's. For them it is now 5 weeks later and they still don't know what the consequences are other then they are evacuated, I pray for these people that soon they can find their peace and move on with their life,

Bad news from the nuclear plant again. Today we found out that levels of radiation are again raising around The Fukushima nuclear plant and that the temperature of the cooling water is also rising.This is again major set back and health risk for the area. Click here for more information. 

It is very hard that people can't focus on recovery but still have to worry about the new radiation risk. Many evacuees from the stricken area who lived within the 20 km zone protested in front of the Tepco offices in Tokyo because they blame Tepco for the current problems. We learned today that these people will have stay at least 20 years away from their houses. This means that people don't have, houses, job's and income. Because of this the people have no means to live due to the consequences of the bad shape and the huge risks of a nuclear plant close to a crowded area. (I hope that the authorities in other countries will learn from this disaster, In Japan everyone thought that the nuclear plants were safe. Unfortunately they turned out to be extremely dangerous) It is time to review nuclear energy. Click here to read about the protest.

Meanwhile today JHA has to react on my lawyers proposal until now we didn't receive any reaction. Hope they will react later today. We will see. If they don't react we have to assume that JHA doesn't want to settle and we will have to go to court. Time will learn.

Sayonara,

Siegfried Aikman