Tsukuba-Dooba-Doo

Once we landed in Albuquerque, we were greeted by my dad as we walked off the plane!   Since he is a Southwest pilot, he can get through security and even come down the planes boarding ramp.  It was a great surprise seeing my dad before I even stepped off the plane.

 Photos from Seth's office at AIST...yeah, he wouldn't be going in for a couple days.

At this point we still had intentions of sticking it out for another 2 weeks until Seth's contract expired.  Naturally, we stocked up on supplies and spread the word to people on our Facebook support group.  I also wanted to get some candles since we were due for blackouts in the coming days.  When I got to my favorite 100yen shop, Daiso, I realized that I wasn't the only one with this idea...all of the candles were gone... My sadness must have been obvious because two Japanese women (with an ample amount of candles) saw me and offered me two candles from their cart!  The kindness of the Japanese is simply overwhelming.  Amidst all of this chaos and panic, they still find the kindness in their hearts to help others. My eyes swelled up with tears as I said "thank you" over and over again.  

Later in the afternoon I started working on a puzzle that I had been working on since the first week in December.  It helped keep my mind off of everything that was going on.  This time I was determined to finish this stupid thing (Seth didn't really provide much help) so I called down Matt and Chelsae.  We three tackled the puzzle from all angles while Seth would occasionally walk over, put a piece in, crack a satisfied smile, and go watch more TV.

That night our Polish friend Maciek dropped by with some valuable insight.  From his point of view, if another giant earthquake hit or a radiation cloud was coming our way, it is much easier for 1 person to escape and "get the heck out of Dodge" than 2 or 3.  His advice was for Chelsae and Reagan to Change their flight to leave the next day.  Things up at the Fukushima nuclear facility continued to get worse and worse.  Either way I refused to leave Seth, regardless of the danger.

In light of our conversation with Maciek, Seth emailed his boss asking what the penalties would be if he broke contract and left Japan early.  Later that night we finished the puzzle with the help of the Haines family!  At least I went to bed with that satisfaction.  

Seth and I woke up early and Skyped with my family.  I was really excited to see my nieces and brand new nephew, Parker Dean Lewin.  We immediately got a sense of how concerned my family was about the situation.  My mother pleaded for us to "get the heck out of there! NOW!"  She made a very compelling point that we would be competing with 127 million people to leave the country if a nuclear disaster did happen.  It would be better to get out early, at any cost.  She posed the question: "Is radiation exposure and cancer really worth it!?"  

As we thought about this point we Skyped with Seth's mom.  It was almost the exact same conversation. "GET HOME!"  So.... at 9:30am, Seth looked at me with a resolute expression and said 

From that moment we went into a flurry of activity.  I found a flight for Seth and I for Wednesday to leave at 6:30pm.  DONE!  We told the Haines' our plan and they decided to leave the next day also.  Seth went downstairs to start checking out of the Ninomiya House.  They would be stopping by our apartment at 5:30pm to do the final check.  That meant that we had to pack up/clean our entire apartment in 7 hours!  We had our work cut out for us.  

The Narita International Airport is about 1.5 hours south of Tsukuba so we decided to find a airport hotel so we were sure to make it to our flights on time.  There was no telling how crazy the airport would be.  Seth worked on finding a hotel, but everything looked totally full.  Somehow Matt found and booked a hotel close to the airport.  It even had an airport shuttle bus!  DONE!

Now all we needed was a means to get to the hotel.  Easier said than done.  All buses were booked, all taxis were booked, and the train systems were a mess due to closures and blackouts.  Since we would have about 15 full sized 40-50lbs bags, we would have to find at least 3 cars to take us there OR....our church's bus.  However, there were only 2 people at the church with the appropriate licenses, the bus needed gas, and the gas stations had a 2.5 hour waiting period.  Once again, I was awestruck by the kindness of our church friends.  They waited in line to get gas and showed up at our apartment at 7:00pm to take us 1.5 hours to our Narita hotel.  DONE!  On the ride to the hotel, we talked with Pastor Mayumi about everything that God had done for us throughout our year in Japan.  She was very sad to see us leave, but was glad that we would be out of harms way.

It really hit us in the hotel room.  We are leaving Japan.  We aren't ready to leave, but we must go.  It's such a sad way to end the best year of our lives.  An added bonus to the night was that Seth's best Japanese friend, Akira, and his Masako drove down to hang out for one last time.


Our time with Akira and Masako was so nice.  I can't beleive that they stayed until 2:00am that night!  They probably didn't even get home until 3:30am.  

~Kate

Our kitchen was the worst because our food shelf crashed over.  Luckily, our fridge stayed closed and no bottles were broken.

This is the Haines' kitchen. It looked much more destroyed than ours.

As expected, pretty much anything tall and slender had been knocked over.  

Honestly, I expected things to be much worse.  It only took us about 15 minutes to pick everything up.  At that point we decided it was about time to pack some survival bags.  We promptly stuffed our bags with food and warm clothes in case another big one hit and we had to stay outside all night.  The electricity was out so we turned on our emergency radios and panicked through a couple huge aftershocks.  We decided that listening to the emergency radio was just adding fuel to our anxiety fire. So we decided to head to the park. It was far away from buildings so it gave us some peace of mind for a while. 

Hanging out at Doho park. Enjoying some worry free ground shakes.

The girls revisited the Right-on outlet.  It's where they were when the big quake hit.

We all headed to the only restaurant in the area with power.  Unfortunately, EVERYONE had the same idea.  To make a long story short, we ended up spending 3.5 hours at the restaurant.  During dinner, we came to a point in which we knew our families back home would be waking up soon.  We HAD to let people know that we were ok before they saw the news and had an aneurysm. 

Then we headed back to the house.  Before we hit the hay, we collectively decided that, being that we are all the way up on the 4th floor, if another big quake hit we would take refuge under our dinner table.  Not the most comforting plan, but probably the best one given our situation.  Keep in mind, the only information we had about the earthquake was that tsunami warnings were announced.  We had no idea how devastating it truly was.

Kate, knowing that Saturday was going to be difficult, suggested that everyone get some rest before the next day.  Easier said than done.  The night was filled with large aftershocks which kept all of us up.  During each LARGE aftershock (there was one at least every hour) we all became stiff in anticipation: "Should i get up and run under the table? Should we try to run down the stairs?" Needless to say none of us got much, if any sleep.


Our power came back on at 4am but Kate, Amanda, and I decided we were going to try to sleep a few more hours before calling family.  We knew that once we started making phone calls, we were going to be up for the rest of the day.  Around 7 we all got out of bed and turned on the TV.  It was then when we realized the true horror of what happened to the rest of the country.  Almost instantly we started taking turns calling families to inform them of our safety.  Kate saved her phone call to her parents until last because her brother had his first child on the 11th.  She was very excited to talk to them and see how Sharon and the new baby (Parker Dean) were doing.

Once the phone calls were done, we started taking showers....I say "started" because once I got in the shower, the Ninomiya House ran out of water.  I hardly had time to get wet.  The city had some damage to their water filtration system and some pipes were broken.  This has caused a water shortage in the area. from the earthquake and it was and still is down.

It was time to take action to make sure Jill, Amanda, and Leon could make it out of Japan. None of the rental car companies were open so we had to buy them airport bus tickets.  During this time the girls (Jill, Amanda and Kate) went on a search for breakfast.  After checking three stores the girls found a 7 & i holdings ("7/11" in the U.S.) and were able to get some tea and non perishable items. The picture below shows us eating our breakfast.   


Kate and I sent them off knowing that they were going to be fine.  We walked home from the bus stop to our apartment hand in hand knowing that the next two weeks left here might be some of our toughest weeks we will ever experience in our lives. 

-Seth

NOTE:  We are not out of the woods yet. Aftershocks and complications at a nuclear reactor plant are worrisome.  Many foreigners we know are flying out of Japan ASAP.  Also, Chelsae and Reagan will be flying back to America this Wednesday.  If matters continue to get worse, we will try to leave early as well.  You can have the most up to date information here:  http://media.theage.com.au/live-japan-quake-coverage-2203441.html

My experience with earthquakes has lead to me perceive them as little play things.  Something to giggle at as they gently rock you back and forth.  I made a habit of wishing that earthquakes would strike while my friends and family were visiting Japan.  I felt like it was the perfect way to give our guests the "real Japanese experience."  Until 2:46pm yesterday afternoon, I craved the monthly shake.  All of that has changed.  I have grown to loath every earthly quiver after running for my life, fearing for the lives of my loved ones, and going through the anxiety of 50+ aftershocks in 24 hours.

At 2:10 pm, Friday March 11th I nervously entered the large conference room at AIST's central campus.  I sat down next to my friend Leon and awaited my turn to present my research to roughly 50 people.  In a short time I found my self passing Matt (who was also scheduled to give a presentation) on my way to the podium.  For the record, I pretty much nailed it.  Nobody will remember my presentation though, and with good reason.

Two questions were posed to me during the Q&A session.  Before I had a chance to answer the 2nd, the shaking started.  I paused briefly to wait and see if it would pass.  The man who asked the question tried to lighten the mood by chuckling "Oh, we have earthquakes all the time here." To which I nonchalantly responded "Yeah, I'd never been in an earthquake before coming to Japan"  Then it got real.

Video that Leon took as the shaking started to get progressively worse.  At the end of the video, somebody yelled "open the door!" which is one of the first things the Japanese people are taught to do during earthquakes.  

Everyone in the room waited for another couple of seconds before the straw the that broke the camels back.  Following a huge jolt, someone ran out of the room.  That was enough for me!  I sprinted to the first set of door to find them locked.  Next thing I know, I was sprinting down the stairs with the whole building swaying around me.  Lights flickered as a man stumbled on the stairs next to me (he will be OK, just keep going) I sprinted out the door to the outside and held it for a couple of people, expecting Matt and Leon to come through.  A quick glance backward told me that they were already out, then I backed away so that I was a safe distance from all of the buildings.    

Although there was no noticeable structural damage to the buildings, indications of the sizable shaking was all around.