Good Old Mother Nature’s Alarm Clock!

Early this morning Jackie left for College in the States, and we were up to see her off. The night before we had been out bowling, and then over to Araisan’s for a midnight snack to send Jackie off. That said, we were tired when we came back home from the train station when Jackie left. We started packing for our own trip tomorrow when we decided we flat out needed a nap. So, we pushed all of our clothes we were preparing to pack off of the bed and set the alarm clock for 12 o’clock which would give us an hour long nap. After about 45 minutes of just lying there (not really sleeping) our room began to shake with great vigor—a most unusual feeling. There was a great rumble of noise (almost like a train that was passing closely by), the air conditioner was rattling, and Jori said: “oh this one is pretty big” rather nonchalantly at which point I asked if we should go outside, and she quickly replied yes, and we were out of the door as quickly as you can imagine. The only part that slowed us down was trying to grab the door-knob as it danced its was around my hand.
Yes, we were hit with an earth quake here in Sendai. Just the other day I was telling Jori that the only experience that was missing from Japan was an earth quake. Ha! No more! We were pretty much at the epicenter of the quake which in town registered at about 6.0. The true epicenter was a little further out at sea measuring about 6.8. Tsunami warnings have been posted for midnight here tonight with waves of up to half a meter (not really threatening). When we were outside cars were bouncing up and down and sideways, as well as trees and buildings. The news station said it was 10 seconds of up and down shaking followed by 30 seconds of side to side shaking. I have had experiences where I have wanted to get out of a plane, car, or train, and just get onto some solid ground, but this time it was the solid ground that was the issue, which was very weird. Mentally I sort of expected that once we were out of the house that we would be on “solid ground”. Nope!
Was there damage? Well, the quake was felt as far down as Tokyo, a roof on a swimming pool building collapsed, the subway has been shut down, the trains have been shut down (though hopefully open by tomorrow morning), and aside from a few things falling off the shelf here, the only visible damage was a little bit of plaster that fell onto the piano here. All in all, it wasn’t much of a scare, but also not far from it. From what I am gathering, it was about as big as one can comfortably take without a real scare. If you want to read more about it check out the report on CNN.

Final note #1: Alternatively, mother nature’s natural alarm clock can also be drinking a lot of water shortly before going to bed. :)
Final note #2: The dancing door-knob is an exaggeration—all else was true to the best of my recollection.