Earthquakes

Japan never stops shaking.

When people told me about the constant earthquakes in Japan, they certainly weren’t kidding. The island seems to be constantly shaking. There are so many instances of them that I can’t even count the number of earthquakes that I have sat through. As a result, I’m going to try to write about all the times I do remember sitting through an earthquake and how I gradually become indifferent to them.

The first earthquake I remember experiencing in Japan was during my movie night with my friends. We had pizza and milk tea on the table, and a movie was playing in the background. My friend was rambling on about how excited she was for some upcoming movie before I felt the couch sway back and forth violently. I don’t know if it was because of the fact that it was my first earthquake experience in Japan or if it was because it was actually a strong earthquake, but I froze in shock. It lasted quite a while. All my friends and I just sat there, dumbfounded. We weren’t the brightest that day – we should’ve taken cover, but I guess we were all in too much shock to move.
The second earthquake I remember experiencing was when in the middle of the night. I think it was about 3am or so, but apparently the apartment shook quite a bit because my roommate woke up. She woke me up just in time for it to end, so this experience wasn’t quite bad. I was still scared of earthquakes at this time.
The third time was probably during the typhoon. The wind was slamming into my apartment, so we thought it was just the wind rocking the apartment back and forth. When we found out it was an earthquake, we were a bit more concerned. Talk about bad luck – a typhoon and an earthquake in one day? Yikes. Nonetheless, it wasn’t as strong as the first one I experienced, so I wasn’t as concerned about this one.
The fourth, fifth, sixth, and probably seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth (?), were smaller experiences. For most of these earthquakes, I was in the bathroom. At first, it scared me, but eventually, by the fourth earthquake, I was tired of them. They had the most inconvenient timing. At this point, I had grown indifferent to small tremors.
The eleventh (?) earthquake hit in the middle of the night. It was strong enough this time to wake up both my roommate and I. Even though I had grown accustomed to smaller tremors, the bigger ones were a bit more scary. I sat up, debating if my roommate and I should go take cover. It ended before we decided, however, so that saved us the trouble of getting out of our warm beds.
The twelfth(?) incident happened earlier this week. I was sitting in my Japanese class when the AC ventilator rattled loudly. At first, I thought it was my friend kicking the AC vents, but when she looked at me in concern, I realized it was an earthquake. I hadn’t even noticed the building moving. When I looked around the classroom, it seemed like no one else noticed but a few select people. For just a split second, I thought I was going crazy, but my friend confirmed that it was an earthquake.
The latest experience occurred yesterday. I was making breakfast when a slightly stronger tremor hit. It was enough for some cups to rattle on the dish rack. Despite that, I wasn’t really affected by this one and decided to continue my morning normally, as if nothing happened.

Typing all this out now makes me a bit concerned for my own behavior. My apartment isn’t exactly earthquake-friendly – we have these huge wooden beams that are hung on the ceiling. It’s quite a weird decoration choice, considering Japan is so earthquake-prone. Even so, I never took cover once. I should probably take these earthquakes more seriously and be more prepared for them because I’ll never know when a serious one will hit. That said, those were my earthquake experiences. It’s likely that I’ll run into more, so I’ll have to try my best to be more quick and cautious next time.