DCruzin' Japan: Earthquakes, Typhoons and Humidity, oh my

You never really know what to expect here in Tokyo I suppose. On Saturday Adam and I were playing Frozen Throne in my apartment when all of a sudden we feel this shaking. He's like quit shaking the table man, and I'm like I'm not. Then we pause the game realizing that its a freaking earthquake. I've never been in an earthquake before, so I was kinda like hey this is cool. But I was quickly rebuked and sobered realizing that serious earthquakes can be disatrous. We look outside the window as my apartment building is swaying side to side, and people are all looking around, we see some guy get off his bike. Finally it stops. No major damage to my area. But we were luckily pretty far from the epicenter. It was a 5.7 on the Richter scale and 5 people were injured.

It was pretty scary, considering that Tokyo is bracing for the Big One, since it's due for a disatrous earthquake like the one that hit Kobe in 1995, killing 64,000 people. The worst part for me was that it stopped all the trains and subways. You see, unlike America where we always drive cars, pretty much everyone here uses public transporation. And there's literally no other way to get around besides walking, biking or super-expensive taxis. Because of the quake all the trains were shut down for a few hours, stranding me at home unable to go to this fireworks festival I was planning to go to. It was pretty frustrating, but instead Adam and I hung out some more since he couldn't go home either. We saw this Taiko performance going on across the street and watched for awhile - he was even able to play some which was cool since he hasn't played in a long time. Then we played this goldfish catching game with some little kids. I ended up taking about 4 of them home. Some tried to jump out and died, so I put the rest in my bathtub, which was interesting. I finally got a little glass bowl for the remaining survivor, and some fish food. Still deciding on a name.

Anyway then yesterday we were hit by a typhoon which wasn't nearly as bad as it sounds. It just rained pretty hard all day - I've seen much worse back home in Houston. The same goes for the heat and humidity - yeah unpleasant - but about the same as in Houston. I have lots of pictures to post still, so keep your eyes open for those. In the meantime here are some pictures from the weekend before last: