What's shakin' in Osaka?

Sorry it took so long to update this but it took me a wile to gather all the information.

So here is what happened in my neck of the bamboo woods...

I was training on the 9th floor of my building with about eight other foreigners. We were being entertained by the window washers repelling  down the side of the building and looking at all the nice Gaijin in the Gaijin tank.

I took their picture thinking that it would be one of my best Facebook updates yet.

Just as we went back into our lesson, I felt dizzy and a strange thought went into my head. I thought why is that window washer pulling the building back and forth.

It took me and the other two native Californians about two seconds to recognize that it was an earthquake.

This one was different somehow though. In Cali I'm used to the short and violent type quake that gives everyone a good jostle. This quake was a slow roll.

About thirty seconds into it, the Lois Lane in me thought, I should be updating this as it happens. As I was Facebooking, the teachers from other parts of the world who had never experienced and earthquake before were trying to stay calm.

 Quakes are common place for me, but they were in a different country, 3000 miles from home, swaying back and forth like a palm tree for the first time in their lives and they were able to keep their cool. RESPECT.

After about three to five minutes the rolling slowed and then stopped.

We had no idea how massive the quake was until later.

A Japanese woman came on the loud speaker and an alarm went off. They told everyone to stay away from the windows and to remain calm and in the building.

Throughout the day we got word on tsunamis and other warnings. My heart aches for those hurt by this disaster. I am not to ashamed to mention that I feel completely relieved that Osaka did not have any great damage.

Throughout the rest of the day we continued training and tried our best to deal with the aftershocks.

Thank you everyone for your concern. Please don't feel worried any longer, for now everything is fine.

If you have any questions please ask me and I will try my best to find an answer for you here.

Just a side note, we all went out for beers together after it was all over, best beer of my life.