Earthquakes
Well it has been a pretty crazy few days. Winding down things here in Tokyo before we head north to Akita for a couple of weeks, Then back down to Kansai to take a ferry, the slow boat, to China.
Saturday a couple of friends from Aotearoa came to Japan for a visit for a couple of weeks. Went to pick them up from Narita airport, when running a little late, an earthquake hit the Kansai region, around 6 on the richter scale. I was half asleep on the train, listening to a podcast of bFm, opened my eyes and wondered why we had stopped. The power lines and the buildings across from the train were shaking. A couple of minutes later there was an after shock, more of a sharp up and down than the rolling motion of the first quake.
There was an announcment by the conductor that we had stopped because of the earthquake. They had to check the tracks, and we ended up sitting there for about an hour and a half. Luckily the airconditioning was on, but the air slowly got worse in the train. Eventually they let us off the train through the conductors compartment onto the tracks. It has been a long while since I climbed off a train that way.
We had about a ten minute walk down to the next station - Kesei Okubo. Grabbed a coffee and milled around there for a bit. Train still wasnt running. Went and did some shopping, got my mother something for her birthday and a book of lists. Went to a coffee shop and had a beer. My cellphone was only working intermitantly, I could recieve calls from our IP phone but not email or other lines.
About 7:30pm we eventually got a train back to Nihombashi and walked down to Tokyo station to meet my friends. They had got a bus in, instead of the train. But managed to miss them at Tokyo. Finally caught up with them outside our local JR station about 7 hours after I set out to pick them up. Good to see them again though.
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