Welcome Home

I left a rainy Seattle yesterday after a two week visit home, and Tokyo gives me a nice welcome home present the day after I get back - it did a little dance for me. Only, this dance was in the form of THE BIGGEST EARTHQUAKE IN JAPAN'S RECORDED HISTORY (M8.9). Ha, thanks Japan. Love you too.

But in all seriousness, the death count is a little over 20, missing persons over 50, and probably more to come. The tsunami aftermath was about 7 meters at its highest, and it's supposed to make it all the way to South America by tomorrow. And we're still feeling little baby aftershocks 8 hours later. That means there's thousands of people who are stuck in emergency relief shelters away from home tonight, because all the trains have stopped running until there's no danger of more earthquakes. The quake happened about 2:50 pm on Friday, a few hours before work gets off and people start heading home. On top of that, there's too much traffic on the cell networks so many peoples' phones don't work.

In light of all that, I'm thankful that my host-family and I are all safe, the house is in tact, nothing is broken, we're far enough from the coast that tsunamis won't reach here, and that by chance (if you want to call it that) my friends and I postponed our plans today, meaning we stayed home and didn't get stuck in the middle of Tokyo unable to get home again until morning (if even that). Not only that, but if I had flown in a day later I wouldn't have been able to land in Japan (because most airports were closed by the time my plane would have got here), and probably would still be stuck in a Korean or Chinese airport. I think there just might be Someone looking out for me :)

It was a really interesting experience actually, because I didn't realize the seriousness of it until an hour or two later, when the estimated magnitude kept rising and the news started showing video footage of boats being pushed inland (and into buildings) by the tsunami.

I had been taking a power-nap in my room when the house started shaking. It woke me up, even though the quake was still very subtle. But it didn't stop. It kept going for at least 10 seconds before it started getting bigger. It kinda felt like I was on a boat that was rocking back and forth on semi-rough waters. But it didn't stop there either. It got bigger, until finally I could hear the grumbly shakey noise that you always hear in movies accompanying earthquakes. This whole time I had been thinking it was going to die down any second, and so I just sat on my bed without moving. It wasn't until my room light started shaking, making me afraid it was going to fall down and shatter, that I finally got under my desk to wait it out. I should mention that my room is on the second floor, which is a scary thought when the whole house is shaking. Books started falling off my shelves, and my desk mirror fell onto the floor (but thankfully didn't break because I randomly have a sheep-skin rug right where it fell), but everything else stayed in order. The quake lasted for about 30 more seconds after that, and then died down. I put everything back in order, not thinking too much of it, until my host-mom got home.

I had been home alone at the time, which is kinda scary, but my host-mom opened the front door not even a minute after the quake stopped. She came looking for me all worried, saying it was the first time she had felt such a big earthquake. It thought she was exaggerating, because I knew that big earthquakes were not uncommon in Japan. I just hadn't realized how big it actually was.

We turned on the news, but there wasn't anything big on it yet. They were saying it was a number 5, at which point I was noticing it was bigger than I had thought, but still not a big deal. I found out later though that the number is different than the magnitude - the magnitude is much bigger. After several hours of watching the news showing the tsunami and the fires (especially the oil refinery one 2 hours away), I realized that this was a big deal.

I'm thankful that I'm safe, but I'm praying that all the people taking the brunt of this (with collapsed homes - some of which are in areas that still have a lot of snow - or flooded streets, or people stranded in the city) stay warm and safe, and that this crisis will be relieved soon. As well as that there's no more big earthquakes. (As I'm writing this I'm still feeling more aftershocks).

Stay safe, Japan. And I hope that the Pacific Islands aren't hit too badly by the tsunami.