Welcome to the Ring of Fire

Before coming to Japan, I remember telling a few people how it was lame I never felt a single earthquake in California and I hope I get to feel a little one in Japan. Well my wish was answered quite quickly. In less than three weeks to be precise. A 5.3, the epicenter off Chiba, probably 40 miles south of me.

Last night, right before dawn, I awoke to the room shaking with an immediate infusion of adrenaline into my bloodstream. It lasted maybe 10 seconds then a smaller aftershock 10 seconds later. It wasn’t too violent, nothing fell over or anything, but the items in my room were shaking as to produce sound. After an aftershock, I sprang to action, naively considering two doomsday scenarios:
a)the chance of the epicenter being offshore resulting in a tidal wave which could easily reach my low elevation apartment about a km from the ocean.
And
b) I remember hearing the aftershocks can be even worse so I stayed awake half-expecting another earth shaking
After a little time spent reasoning I realized everything was alright. Though it took me a fair bit of time to get my body back into sleeping mode.

Think of all the tribal people of ancient history who must have woke to the earth shaking with similar reactions to myself. It's easy to recognize how ancient myths and religions were born. Huge forces of nature, I think especially an earthquake, really makes one feel small. The discrepency between our perceived powerfulness of an earthquake and how miniscule a small earthquake is relative to the earth as a whole, (just a tiny slip of a tectonic plate) is pretty staggering.



New Cell Phone
Japanese cell phones make America look like a technologically backwards country. I got one of the free phones that come with a plan, a white slide phone with a giant, high-def screen. The manual is in Japanese so itll take me a while to figure out all the features but ive checked out the weather and GPS features. Its an mp3 player and a 3.2 megapixel camera, and a bar code reader. Here in Japan, square bar codes can often be found on advertisements or sometimes just stuck in public areas. Reading them brings you to a special cellphone website. Additionally, every cellphone has an email address and generally this is how people email each other. I also chose a killer whale as my friendly helpful creature which swims around the screen and lets me know when I have mail or whatever.
Now all I need is some friends to call, hah.


Surfing Part III and Problem Solving

It has been a very mixed week for surfing in the life of Evan Schumann. In addition to the conditions not coming together to make it any good I’ve also had a few frustrating experiences. Monday afternoon, I cut my foot up mounting the bike with the longboard and while surfing, I rode a wave a little too close to shore and got thrown onto the shell and rock encrusted sand leaving me with quite a bit of cuts.
The next day I saw so many cars with surfboards that I figured it must be really good. It wasn’t. Like Monday, it was once again abnormally crowded but at least I discovered the reason why. Mon/Tues/Wed is a national holiday in Japan, Obon. During these three days, the souls of deceased relatives come down from heaven and chill with their families, eat some food, and whatnot.
The week wasn’t all bad for surfing. I did manage to get my craft skills on and build a wind vane which I mounted in a mini field in front of my apartment. As per normal, I did a pretty bare minimum job on it, both aesthetically and functionally, but it'll do. I also came up with an idea for giving English lessons during and in exchange for surf sessions.

I also have decided on where to take my vacation, but it is neither of the aforementioned places. I leave next Wednesday for 5 days. Pretty exciting. The location? a surprise.