I suppose I'll start at the beginning. It's still an overwhelming blur of events, so pardon me if I lose my train of thought here or there. The initial earthquake hit around 2:30pm on Friday afternoon. Nikki, our translator Sisko and I had just arriv... Read more »
I suppose I'll start at the beginning. It's still an overwhelming blur of events, so pardon me if I lose my train of thought here or there. The initial earthquake hit around 2:30pm on Friday afternoon. Nikki, our translator Sisko and I had just arrived to visit the Buddha in Kamakura, a town about two hours outside of Tokyo. We had not been on the shrine grounds more than ten minutes when the earth began to shake. At first, our translator pointed it out with a giggle, as it's something the Japanese are quite used to and I had recently told her I'd never felt one myself. After about a minute however, her expression quickly changed. She said, "Okay, this isn't funny anymore," pulled us into the center of the courtyard and told us to sit as this point was furthest from any tree or statue that could fall. There we sat still and silent while the earth shook almost constantly for an hour and a half. None of the phones were working and Sisko was repeating that no earthquake had ever lasted this long and she'd never experienced something like this in her life. The look in her eyes told us that this was very bad. But we didn't know how bad until the shaking finally subsided around 4:00pm and we felt comfortable and safe enough to get up and leave the Buddha's watchful eye. We stepped outside to a world much different than the one we'd left at the shrine gates just hours before. Cars stuck in gridlock traffic, a total power outage, emergency sirens blaring and a complete state of shock and concern in the air.
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