_valerian

yesterday when that big earthquake hit Kevin and I were with some people I kind of know just enough to get invitied to a cook out they were having in a huge park in east Tokyo. It was just after the cook out, and we had just finished loading a small station wagon with the remaining supplies when I thought I was dizzy. The parking lot we were in was very large, and almost empty save for our three cars, a dodge van camper and a dozen of those glossy plasticky minivans which are so popular with the college kids and young red-headed families these days. In a far corner of the lot was some guy rippin’ sick tricks on his BMX bike. You know the kind, where he does a wheelie, spins the handle bars around while he stands on one peg off the rear hub and bounces around in a circle. During the long earthquake (I can never tell when they are actually over) we all just kind of stood there looking amazed, I am guessing with the same looks on our faces as all the other young parents had. They stood froze in the doorways of their minivans while the kids in the back seat were swaying with the car. The weird thing was the sound… the trees were swaying and swooshing. It was the largest earthquake I think I had felt, I would like to comapre it to the Niigata earthquakes last october that I felt in Matsudo, but that is hard because I was out in the open yesterday.

The whole time I don’t think the BMX guy noticed anything.

update>> So today I was thinking and the weirdest thing was this- I was in a wide parking lot in a wide park. Unlike other times when I have experienced an earthquake, there was no doubt that I was going to survive this. At home I might wonder if the second floor will come crashing down on me but this time save for a biblical style maw opening up in the parking lot I was going to be fine. There were a few minutes as we drove out of the park wondering what was going to await us in the city. I say “us” but I really meant me. I was looking for smoke on the horizon but everything looked the same. Which is what I was hoping for.

That is Kevin getting his picture taken by a girl nearby some people whose names I don’t remember mere seconds before the quake hit. For some reason the girl in the foreground has a hat upside down on her shoulder. That is amazing I think. What are their names? You and probably I will never know. Their boyfriends were all standing behind us. All I remember is that the girl at the left has the same last name as her boyfriend. He is on the phone in the second picture.