January to June in Japan: The Earthquake!

The kid next to me was antsy.

He had been pounding coffee the whole class period... and I was slightly distracted by his fidgeting hands and tapping foot.

So I thought it was his feet that were tapping the legs of my desk when I turn to look at him.

He looks at me.

5 seconds later about 7 Japanese students all turn look at each other and start rapid fire talking Japanese. Antsy Kid turns around and all of a sudden starts speaking rapid fire Japanese as well.

He turns back to me. "Did you feel that?"

"Yeah..."

"It was an earthquake!"

"Whaaaaat!" (That/shock was pretty much my response.)

I've never really "felt" and earthquake before but of course I've woken up some mornings with news stations covering some super tiny earthquake that happened at like 2 am in Wisconsin.

But this was an actual earthquake that I felt and remembered! It was kind of cool.

I know nothing about earthquakes and I'm not going to pretend I do, so here are some pictures to (hopefully) explain it instead. (Click them to enlarge)

Edit... I have no idea why the pictures don't work when you click them! I'm so sorry and I'll try to fix it as soon as I can!!

This picture shows a map of Asia and the arrow is pointing to the Kansai area of Japan where the earthquake took place. The square is actually kind of large compared to others on the map, so I'm guessing this one was a small to medium sized earthquake? All is I know that no one was hurt and that no damage was done. So maybe not.

And here are some stats on it. Once again, I have no idea what this means but I included it anyway. Note that this earthquake was measured at a magnitude of 5.0!

Apparently the Kansai area is way overdue for a good earthquake though, so let's all cross our fingers that it doesn't happen while I'm here. The last one in this area was in like the 1500s or something. (Don't quote me on that, I just overheard some girl talking about earthquakes in the kitchen.)

Anyway, the earthquake was the talk of the town, as some people felt it and others didn't. I just found the whole thing quite awesome.

This past weekend, we went to Kyoto and did some exploring, sightseeing, and Japanese food eating. Here are some pictures!

Our marvelous hosts at the entrance of Yasaka Shrine! Whenever you enter a shrine you must wash your hands.

A wedding at Yasaka Shrine! The bride is all in white and she didn't turn around once so we couldn't see her... but her outfit was awesome.

Us foreigners at the entrance to Kiyomizu Temple! Hanne from Finland, myself, Lindsay from Colorado, and Emili from Finland.

The temple overlooking the city.

Supposedly if you write down all your problems onto a piece of paper and throw it into the bucket of water, if the paper dissolves your problems will go away.