Hey Don, appears that we have one thing in common, or almost common, where your better half is Japanese (if I understood you right) and my better half is Korean. :-)

I thought I'd also throw in that, as I understand it, the Japanese government has also invested in the technology used by the VAN team.

On the Kobe side of things, from some past report that I had read, I was under the impression that Kobe wasn't as prepared as they should have been because the Japanese government (through the advice of their scientific advisors) had thought that Kobe was a relatively low risk seismic area and therefore didn't need the level of retrofitting that other areas needed. Sadly, they learned how wrong it is to make assumptions.

Dennis