Everybody OK here in Tokyo

It is just past midnight, about 10 hours after the earthquake. We just got our electricity back, so are able to make phone calls and send emails. It is still wobbling every once in a while.

This was the scariest earthquake of my 26 years here in Tokyo. I had just finished skyping with Anri. It started off like any other earthquake (we get about one a month), but then didn’t stop. It started building and the lamps in the front hall started swinging from the rafters. Whoops…another wobble…maybe things aren’t done yet. We have had at least a dozen smaller aftershocks.

But no real damage. We had a mirror and a couple of pictures fall off the walls, the computer walk toward the edge of the desk (and later back in the other direction), and lots of stuff knocked from tables onto the floor. The electricity went out, but I had daylight enough to get things in order.

Julia was in Nagoya visiting her grandmother. No problems there. Anri is safe in Loveland. Maki was in the basement of a 40-storey building downtown Tokyo. The quake swayed the whole building and made her seasick. Whoops…another wobble…. She took the bus to the nearest big station, and the aftershock make all the cars tilt and whirl. The trains were all stopped, and tens of thousands of people were waiting for a half dozen busses. Maki and her friend walked about 4 miles to the river border between Tokyo and Kawasaki.

I finally found her phone number on a telephone bill. I went to the local store to call on the pay phone. I rendezvoused with her in the car, and took her friend home. Huge traffic jam, took us 2 hours to go about 8 miles. We returned to a cold dark house, lit some candles and read books (well, kindle for me). Maki was tired but not sleepy, and nodded off about 10. The electricity came back on at 11:45.

What did I learn? I will go out and get a cell phone tomorrow. Update the backpack with the survival stuff in it. Check for cracks in the new old house.

Categorized as culture, Japan