Spread The Heart

We arrived at the airport four hours before our scheduled departure to find the same massive lineups, scattered groups of people camped out on blankets, and endless notices of cancelled flights…we prepared ourselves for the worst. And as if he had a warning bell for when his kitties needed him most, our hero, once again, swooped in to save the day. Yoshiki not only pulled unimaginable strings to get us on that flight that night but he actually came to the airport to personally ensure that we took off safe and sound. Our eyes lit up and our anxiety subsided as soon as we saw him walking towards us. He truly was our angel. Another major aftershock struck while we waited to board but this time, Nikki and I just locked eyes and continued our conversation. It felt as though, in that moment, we’d finally started to adapt the Japanese demeanor we so appreciated and admired.

Read the rest HERE at HuffPo.

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.

Read the rest HERE at HuffPo.