Alex's deck and an earthquake!


(Dec, Tom, Rita, Audrey, Ben and me!)

Monday was yet another national holiday in Japan and so on Sunday night, I joined my fellow JETS in celebrating the completion of Alex's deck! He has been working on it for ages, spent a small fortune and almost lost his thumb in the process but it was the perfect venue for a BBQ (once the typhoon had passed!)


The deck!


Me and Abby

As I was waiting for my train on Monday morning, there was apparently a big earthquake. I was too far south to feel it but it hit Iiyama as a 6 on a scale of 7! Many trains were de-railed and then cancelled so the 50 minute journey took me 6 hours. It was very frustrating because I didn't know what was going on at first, and was trying to piece together conversations going on around me (without much luck). Bel then mailed me to check I was ok and told me what had happened. There was a fairly big aftershock when I was on the train back to Iiyama and when I finally got to my apartment, it had been turned upside down! Everything had fallen off the shelves, my wine glasses and plates had broken and my microwave was hanging on by a thread!