My first earthquake

A chilled out Sunday night, Ryan cooking pasta to fulfill our longing for hearty Western fare...Without a creak or whisper as a warning, our tiny cupboard of an apartment began to sway like we had launched into an ocean swell...Well what followed was a hearty round of expletives and a lot of frantic dashing around. We ran into the bathroom, then remembered the gas was on, so Ryan dashed out to turn off the stove, but then the swell became the open sea and the light in the living room was swinging wildly and casting chaotic shadows across the room, so he dashed back to the bathroom, his heroic turn saving our dinner from burning.

They tell you to stay inside, but we are on the 1st floor of a 7 floor apartment block - if it was gonna come down where would you rather be? I was fighting the urge to dash outside, but that flight instinct which has always been my first defence kicked in and I was out the door. By the time I got outside it had stopped and there were a fair few neighbours in the street.

Of course the Japanese reacted with an amazing display of nonchalance - a couple of women tittered nervously, but most were stoic, tunring back to their shopping or bike riding just as soon as the earth returned to its usual solid status. We were thinking `hell, was that a small one and we are just big wusses?`

Trying to calm down, even as a small tsunami of anxiety gathered power within, we ate our tasty Italian fare and headed off to the bath house. Sitting wrinkled and naked with the local lads, Ryan discovered it had indeed been a fairly decent sized quake.

The tv had a lengthy news bulletin, which consisted of the same footage of an outside webcam shaking,and another of an ocean that looked as flat as a bowl of seaweed soup, as they spoke about the `tsunami alert`.

Getting ready for bed hours later, I said to Ry, `Maybe we should wear clothes to bed just in case...` before I could finish the sentence the apartment was again on the open seas and the swell seemed bigger than before. It certainly whipped up our inner tsunami`s and we were shouting at each other `Let`s get the fuck out!`
`No stay in the bloody bathroom.`
`Oh buggar, what are the neighbours doing?`
`Shit - I`m naked - where`s my shorts?`
`What are they doing?`
`Bolting - Let`s go!!!`

We dashed outside and followed the flow of neighbours down the stairs. I had chosen a sweet, pink towel to wear on this occasion of imminent disaster, which the neighbours thought was hilarious. This time there were a lot of neighbours in the street, but only from our building (is there something we don`t know?). The kids looked scared and some people had gone a little pale. The old guys lit up fags.

The street was still shaking when we got out, but it felt a hell of a lot better to be outside than in a tiny apartment. After this one, we stayed outside and saw a neighbour come out with a bag and her child, get on her bike and ride away. That certainly did little to quell our nerves.

We had a crappy nights sleep, punctuated at 5.30am with a little aftershock that had us up on our feet before we were even awake...I guess we are really green gaijins when it comes to the earth saying hello.