My Day On March 11th

When the earthquake occurred, I was at work. I've been kind of gotten used to earthquakes, since it occurs sometime so I don't care so much usually, but this time was the largest one I've experienced. Yes, it shook and I hid under the desk. Since Japan is an earthquake country, we are told to do the following things at elementally schools.

1. Turn off the fire
2. Open doors to ensure the evacuation route
3. Go under the desk and protect your head

So, I stuck my head under the desk...but nothing fell from the shelves. Since our lab seems to be very dangerous when a large earthquake occures, since we have lots and lots of stuffs on shelves above out head. We sometimes even joke about it, and say that if a large earthquake occurs the people who will die firstly must be us. Our room simply has no space for things because it's too small. Anyway, fortunately, nothing fell down and we went back to do things we had been doing. On the other hand, out side of the lab, staffs were running to let patients evacuate from the building. But after a while, they let them come in again, and it looked like everything was alright. However, the TV kept reporting about the horrible scene of the area that the earthquake and tsunami hit directly. It was really awful and shocking. I was sure everyone felt sorry for it.

So, it seemed that things went OK in our small lab. No one got injured, nothing broke, actually we didn't have problems. However, it happened when I was going home. I heard that the trains were not working at that time, but didn't think it was that serious. Yes, the earthquake was a kind of large, but the strength here was not enough to make any single thing fell down from the shelves. So, I thought that however the trains are not working at that time, it would be recover in a few hours after checking things. But it was an optimistic thought actually.

When I got to the station, the shutter was closed and we didn't come in. Most stores around the station were closed and I was waiting in a bank beside the station because the inside was warm. I waited for 2 hours but the train didn't work. I checked the Internet with my phone and noticed that all the trains around this area wouldn't work till tomorrow. So, what to do?

It takes for an hour from my station to the station by train, and including time to get to the station from the workplace and my house, totally it takes almost 1.5 hours. I don't know how long it takes if I walk home and it's not safe because aftershocks have been occurring again and again, and it was already dark. I tried to call family but was very hard to get connected. Also, since I hadn't gotten text messages from my boss for a while (he was asking me to tell the situation of the train), I thought the same thing can be said about short mails and emails. Under the situation, some SNS application using Internet like facebook, mixi, What's app or viber looked far easier to use. Anyway, I tried and tried to call my dad and when I finally succeeded, I asked him if he could come to pick me up...of course the answer was NO.

So then, I remembered that my co-worker joked that I could come over when the earthquake occurred at the lab, so I started to try to call her. I laughed and told her that I wouldn't because I would go home, but unfortunately, the situation became reality. I couldn't go home. So, when the phone finally got connected with her, I told her my situation and asked her if I come over. So, luckily I got a warm place to stay. When I got to her house, her husband was already home and we went Matsuya near her house to have a meal. We watched News, took a bath (I even get to wash my hair!!), and slept on the warm matress with a blanket. I was very lucky. I know there were some people stayed over at the hospital without having a bed (maybe). All the damage I suffered was wearing the same panties again...(we call it 二度パン), so stupid!! And one more, I was tired to go to work from there next day...But it's nothing compared to the most victims in Tohoku area.

I hope everyone can go back to their normal life as soon as possible, so I will try to help them with things I can...for example, donation and saving energies...