Earthquake Redux

Just a quick note on this one-- for anyone who has seen the reports of this morning's earthquake, we did feel it here in Tokyo but there was no damage this far away from the epicenter at 新潟 (Niigata). I was actually in class at the time, working through another Japanese grammar point when the chairs started to go wobbly. Then the walls were shaking too and a girl in the back of the class just blurted out "地震!" (jishin)-- "Earthquake!" The professor didn't know what was going on at first, but he felt it too soon after that. After a minute or so of shaking, we got a short Japanese lecture about what to do if an large earthquake occurs (cover your head with your textbook, apparently) and went back to our lesson.

In other natural disaster-related news, the much-hyped super-typhoon Man-Yi managed to cancel everything this weekend without actually delivering anything more than rain showers and mild wind. 台風４号 (taifuu yon-gō) Typhoon #4, as we call it in Japanese, headed out to sea before it got to Tokyo, sparing us the lashing it gave to pretty much everywhere else south of here. I know it ruined many people's plans for this weekend-- not only Fuji mountain climbing but also fireworks displays and musicals (Wicked included) were all called off due to the typhoon threat. Maybe next time?