Update on the Earthquake

It is now just past noon on Sunday, almost 48 hours since the earthquake. Later on Friday night, we walked to the convenience store down the street and to check out the train station nearby. They had completely closed the station, which was really weird to see. On the way back to our place we noticed an awning over a mom and pop fruit stand was twisted and falling and there was a crack in the side of the building but that is the extent of the damage that we've seen around us. 

We talked to friends that live and work in Tokyo and they were part of the many people who were stranded away from home when the trains shut down. One friend had to walk home 25K (about 15 miles), another waited for a bus for 3 hours and after it never came decided to walk about 15K home (about 9 miles). He said that people and businesses were handing out free snacks, hot tea etc and that it was incredible to see all the people walking, trying to find their way home. 

We went to bed at about midnight on Friday night just feeling exhausted after everything that had happened that day. We were still feeling aftershocks every 15-20 minutes. I woke up a few times during the night because our futon was "swaying" back and forth. At around 4am I woke up the earthquake alarm and someone coming on the PA system to warn us about it. I thought it was just a strong aftershock, but it was actually a separate earthquake that happened around Niigata (where we went skiing last February). Needless to say, I couldn't fall back asleep for a while so it was kind of a rough night. 

Yesterday we were still feeling aftershocks but since we are leaving in 3 weeks to come home, we had plans to say some last good-byes to some people. So we walked around and found out the trains were working again (although there were a lot less of them running). So we went on an adventure into western Tokyo...I have to say that little earthquakes are an interesting thing. You can definitely feel them when you're sitting or lying still, but for some reason you can't feel them standing up (if they're small). So it was kind of nice not feeling some of the aftershocks yesterday since we were standing up most of the day. The only damage we noticed the whole day was some roof tiles falling off of a roof. 

We had dinner in Akishima and noticed that there was a looong line of people waiting to get into the gas station. And when we went into the grocery store there were some bare shelves, but there was still plenty of food and drinks and it wasn't terribly crowded either. After that we headed to Nishi-Ogikubo where we stopped into a convenience store which again, had less food than normal but still had plenty of food. Every convenience store that we went into (about 3 or 4) were like that. But most restaurants and retail places were open already yesterday.

I have been reading on various news sources that there is damage to buildings in Tokyo, and that people are stocking up on food, water, and gas but I think the pictures that you see on the news are much worse than anything that is around Tokyo. I have not seen any major damage to the outside of buildings, even though I'm sure offices and homes were quite messy after the earthquake. I'm guessing most of the injuries that happened in Tokyo were caused by things falling off of shelves.  And because of the nuclear plants having trouble I have heard that they might turn off power to some places at certain times but so far we haven't experienced that. I guess I just want to reiterate that Japan is a bigger country than a lot of people expect, and they were amazingly well prepared for it. Nobody could have guessed an earthquake this big would hit but considering that the whole east coast isn't a pile of rubble says something to the way Tokyo has been built and the people's knowledge of how to react when an earthquake does occur. Unfortunately tsunamis are another story and that's where most of this devastation has come from. 

Thank you all for keeping us in your thoughts during this time and I will try and keep you updated on things happening around here. Hopefully we don't have any more big aftershocks and they get the nuclear plants under control. Here's a link from CNN for ways you can help, if you want to.

UPDATE: Here's a map that shows where we live in relation to everything that is going on in Japan.
Click here.