I won't run when the sky turns to flame and I sure won't budge when the earth does shake. -Anya Marina "All the Same to Me"

What a crazy day! The morning started with a frenzy of packing, trying to get ready for the movers, who were scheduled to come at 2pm. Since Ally, Christine and I have to be in Kumamoto on the 24^th, we planned to take a 10 day trip through the Kansai region of Japan. Although we aren't leaving until Sunday, we could get a better deal with the movers if they picked our stuff up today. What's another couple of days living out of a suitcase when you're ready planning on 10 of them? The movers arrived (early, I might add...how often do you think that happens in the States?) and had our things moved out of all three of our apartments in about 30 minutes. Cindy came out to translate for us and since she came from work, she hadn't had lunch yet. We left the apartments about 2:45 so she could get some food and on the walk to the restaurant, the ground started to shake. We get tremors in Tokyo frequently and with all the earthquakes off the coast a few days ago, we thought we were getting an aftershock. But things started to shake harder and people began running out of their homes. At the time, we were standing under a large group of power lines and a pole with a small transformer on it.  We moved to a safer location and several people from nearby houses came and huddled with us in the middle of a neighborhood street until things calmed down. The experience left us shaken (no pun intended, really), but we were soon back on our way to the restaurant, unaware of the extent of what had just happened. While there, we experienced several aftershocks. One of them was enough to warrant a precautionary trip under a table. There have been aftershocks off and on all day.

As a last hurrah of sorts, I was planning on going to Tokyo Disney Sea tomorrow with a big group of friends. That plan has been scrapped, but left Ally, Christine, and me in a tricky situation. In anticipation of being at Disney Sea all day tomorrow and leaving for our trip Sunday, we had packed and shipped literally EVERYTHING in our apartments, except the clothes we were bringing with us. We had also cleaned out fridges and had no food in our apartments. We went to our neighborhood grocery store to stock up on a few things, but apparently the store had sustained so much damage in the quake that they were closed. We then went to a nearby convenience store and joined the throngs of people trying to stock up on food for the next few days. The only problem was that all the food that required no prep work had been purchased already and since we have no dishes/utensils we were really limited in what we could buy. But thanks to Cindy (who got stranded and is spending the night in Saitama with us) and her quick thinking, we should be set for the rest of the weekend.

Reports are saying the magnitude of the earthquake was 8.9 with aftershocks reaching a magnitude of 6.4 in some cases. So far, more than 100 people have died in the quake and resulting tsunami and numbers are still coming in. Because trains, subways and the shinkansen shut down almost immediately, millions of people have been stranded at their jobs or in whatever random station their mode of transport stopped in when the quake happened. Tsunamis are expected many other places and it sounds like the repercussions of this earthquake will be felt world-wide.

I consider myself incredibly fortunate that I am safely home with friends and that no one I know has suffered anything worse than being stuck at work. If you are a religious person, please take a moment to pray for those who have been effected by today's events and for those who will be effected in the future. If you aren't a religious person, send some positive vibes toward Japan. There are a lot of people in need of them right now.

Lessons learned (this one is for you, mom):

• the Japanese word for “earthquake” (It's jishin, for anyone interested)
  
  
  
  
  
  

EDIT: Out of respect, I decided to take down the picture previously posted on this blog.