Confessions of A Working Girl

 So…yesterday during class, around 2:45 pm or so (I was watching the clock for break, which is at 3) I noticed that some of the kids in the class were looking around, a little confused. And then I felt it too–a little tremor that was shaking the whole room. We all looked at each other and then looked around. The teacher hadn’t felt it yet. But then the tremor got bigger, and the tv that hangs in the corner of the room was shaking so hard it looked like it might fall down! People quickly moved their desks away from the windows, and from that tv, but then class was going to continue on as normal. Until…the tremor got even bigger! Everyone started panicking, but somehow I could only come up with a slightly bemused feeling. For some reason, the teacher ushered us down the stairs and outside–we were one of the three classes to go outside. No one else bothered, planning to follow the “hide under your desks” rule if it got worse.

It seemed to stop for a few minutes–or at least, the tremors weren’t as big–so we went back inside. The bell rang for break, but we were told to stay in the classrooms. We started class after break, but the tremors started again. Class was cancelled. People who could walk or bike home were told to do so, while being careful. But for those of us who rode the train there was a slight problem–at the first big tremor, all the trains in Tokyo had stopped, some in the middle of the tracks, forcing passengers to later walk down the tracks in order to reach the next station. At that point, people were still thinking “Oh, this will be over in a few hours and they’ll start the trains again.” Not so. About 7 or 8pm, it was announced that the JR line (the one I take) would not restart that night at all–some of the other lines were doing the same, but as it got closer to 11, and midnight, a few here and there started up again.

The first few hours of being stuck at school were basically wandering around the school, figuring out who had stayed, who had left, reading, talking to some classmates. And going to by dinner from the 7-11 around the corner. It stayed open all night despite the earthquake. The teachers did something to the rooms on the eight floor (probably pushed the desks to the side) and said that we could go up there to sleep when we got tired.

The next three hours of this (about 6-9) Michael helped me translate the four page prologue of a Japanese novel that I am determined to finish by the time I leave here. It took three hours, not because he’s bad at translation, but because I wanted to learn to read the symbols, and some of them won’t stick in my head so we went over them several times. After that, we had cup noodles for a snack (curry flavored!). We had to go up to the fifth floor teacher’s lounge to get hot water. And there we found out that all of the kids (and a teacher) who live in Ikebukuro had decided to walk back. A walk that would take about two hours. But Michael and I both live a bit further than that, so we just ate our noodles. And that’s when we went on the computer, to update facebook status–after we had eaten the noodles that is.

I saw some other friends in the other lounge–three of them, and tried emailing them because I thought it would be funny if all three of their cell phones rang at once. But I had forgotten that, because of the earthquake, cell phone stuff was acting a little odd, so it didn’t work.

I left Michael to fight with the computer and went back up to the classroom on the second floor where we’d left our stuff. One other student was in there–a level 4 student who before this I had never met. But we talked anyway, mostly in Japanese, but with me using english words when I didn’t know anything close to the Japanese word that I wanted to use.

When Michael came back from fighting with the computer, he helped me edit what I had so far of a story that I’d decided to write in Japanese. That took another few hours–and in that time the other student that I’d talked to went home as his train started running. Michael and I kept track of the earthquake alerts that we kept getting on the phone, and looked for them on the map.

We didn’t go to bed. At all. And then, at around 5am, Zach showed up! With coffee! So the three of us spent a few hours talking and then we were told that all the train lines should be up and running, and that I should get home because my host family was worried–even though I’d sent them an email and the teachers had as well. It was around 7:30am or so that we headed to the station.

I didn’t get back to the host family’s house until close to noon. First, the train wasn’t actually running yet. I was planning to wait outside the train, but I ended up sort of getting pushed into a corner. A corner that became so tight I had no hope of getting out until other people moved. I was stuck there, in that unmoving driver less train for an hour. The train finally started. Normally I get off at the fourth stop. But something about being so crowded in with all those people (maybe it was the lack of sleep?) made me feel like I’d start panicking if I didn’t get out of the train. So I got off at the first stop.

When I saw the line of people who wanted to get onto the train, I decided that I would not be one of them, that I would find an alternate route. But the one other alternate route was not running yet either. I spent about an hour and a half, wandering around, trying to figure out some other way of getting to the next station. When I finally found that nothing else would work, I went back–the line was shorter, but as we waited for the train it grew longer–until it was the same jam packed train that I’d stepped off of. Somehow I made it to the next station without panicking.

But then I saw the line to the one other train that I would have to take. And when the train did stop there, it was so full that only one or two people were able to get on. I took one look and knew that I couldn’t force myself to get on that train. I would try taking a bus. So I walked a little ways away from the station to a bus stop and stood there, searching the sign to see if it would mention ‘Kawaguchi’ the place I was going. I couldn’t find mention of it, and must have looked as confused as I felt, because a couple walking by stopped.

The man asked something I didn’t quite catch, and seeing that I didn’t understand, added “Going?” I half shrugged and asked “Kawaguchi?” It turns out not only was I headed in the wrong direction, but there wasn’t a bus, only the train. So I asked which way to walk. Between the little Japanese I know and the little English he did, I managed to understand his directions. “Arigatou Gozaimasu!” I made sure to tell them (”thank you very much!”) And I also noticed that they didn’t continue on until they saw that I had taken the correct turn that they’d mentioned.

With the memory of the sweet couple in mind, when I couldn’t find any signs or any of the landmarks they’d mentioned, I asked a random person which direction to go in. And a little later, I asked a policeman. In Japanese. ^_^

It took a little over an hour, but then I made it back to the host family’s house–just in time for lunch, which was good, since all I’d had for breakfast was that coffee and a random yogurt smoothie I bought at the train station. Every now and again–even as I was typing this!–there are little aftershock tremors that I can feel going through the building. I just kind of glance around to make sure nothing has fallen over and then I shrug. It was an interesting experience, feeling my first earthquake (and such a history making earthquake! 5th highest on the Richter scale of what’s been measured!) But I doubt I’d want to go through another. Especially since so many people have died–although a bunch of those deaths was from the tsunami.

1 Comment » Dad:

March 12th, 2011 @ 5:36 pm Those pesky earthquakes…next time we’ll try to schedule them at a more convenient time…