We dropped off kids at schools and went to the temple in the morning. It was ironic that nice calming moment and total huge chaos were experienced on the same day.
We came back from the temple a little before 1pm. We thought about eating out lunch, but Ellie's school pick-up was 1:45, so we decided to just have lunch at home.
Around 1:40, Mike went to pick up Ellie. I was going to go, but Mike offered and I took it. And I am so glad he did. Mike got home with Ellie around 2:15. If I were to be the person picking up Ellie, she usually wants to play with friends and I would chat with Moms, so we would still be at the park in front of Ellie's school when it happened.
Earthquake hit at 2:45pm. Fortunate that Mike, Ellie, and I were all together at home. Ellie and I were about to leave house for Ellie's music school. I'm glad it was before we left, otherwise, we would be stuck on the train or be at the train station...
When it started shaking, Mike noticed first. We wanted to find out the details and turned the TV on to collect more info. Then, it started shaking stronger. China closet cover opened and dished started to fall. Our plasma TV is shaking really badly and it was about to fall. Many things fell from everywhere. We heard big noise upstairs. We all moved to the open space where nothing would fall onto our head. Mike, Ellie and I are all holding onto each other really tight.
First big quake stopped. We noticed that every TV channel had stopped their show and switched over the news. By then, large Tsunami warning was already out for most of the Pacific coastline in Japan. Tsunami will come.
Then, second quake shortly after the first one. Ellie started crying. I was freaking out. Mike went over trying to hold the china closet, which most of the dishes already broke form the first quake.
Once it stopped shaking, we started to investigate on damages. As I already mentioned, many dishes broke...
This is upstairs kids room. This chest of drawers is the only thing that was not earthquake protected in our house, and it completely fell on Noah's crib and all the stuff like jewery box, stuffed animals, and toys all fell right on his crib. Sooooo glad he was not sleeping on the crib because this would have been right in the middle of his nap time. Scary...
We knew the Palette evacuation plan. We are glad we checked it when we first put them in. We knew Noah and Julia were taken care of nice and safe.
So blessed that lifeline is all safe and no problem on gas, electricity, and water.
We soon learned that epicenter was in northern part of Japan. As it was warned, huge Tsunami hit. It was really devastating what news were all showing to us.
We went to pick up children shortly after. We were really blessed that we were able to get family all together. Train completely stopped and there were so many people who were out and could not get home.
Tokyo is wonderful on public transpiration. Trains are all over. Bus system is quite nice. But the problem is that when this type of disaster happen, public transportation all stops and there were many who are not able to get home. Roads were all jammed and buses didn't even move. Ellie's friend was still at school. He and his Mom took a bus home. It is usually 20 minutes ride, but took them 2 hours to get home by bus. There was a huge line going on for bike shops where people are trying to buy a bike.
Later in the evening, one of our friend came to our house. She has a child about Ellie's age and she worked in Shinjuku near our home. She lives in Hachioji (1 hour away by train from Shinjuku) and she was not able to get home on that night. She has 2 little children waiting near their house to be picked up, but didn't know what to do. So, she came over to get help. She had dinner at our house and we let her use our motorcycle so that she could get home.
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