Last night I was chatting with some friends back home when I experienced my first earthquake. It was a 5.7 on a 7 point scaled here in Japan. It was centered pretty much exactly where I live according to this article. One moment, I was typing a message, the next the whole apartment building was shaking and swaying. I kept thinking,this is an earthquake isn't it? I don't know why, but I have a weird calmness come over me whenever things that normally a person might think of as life-threatening happens. I don't understand that reaction really, it's almost and excitement, but anyway, I got up to go to the other room and got slammed into a wall. I kept thinking the building would have to fold at any moment because it was being thrown about so much, but the Japanese build things to deal with earthquakes. Their buildings are light, not heavily-framed, and flexible. So they move with the energy being distributed into them. Even after the earthquake was over, the apartment house kept swaying, rocking, until it came to a stop again. I went outside but no one was really out or making a fuss about it. This morning, though, while people were leaving for work, I could hear them all out in the parking lot and on the balconies chattering on about it. So they saved up their fuss for the morning.

another pic of me