or NOT! (in reference to the previous title)

I can't believe how not-right everything is. I was half-way through the next post, about graduation and the arrival of our friends, when I had to abandon my efforts to write about the devastation that I'm seeing from all over Japan.
Yesterday at 2:46pm Joisan and I were in the conference room at school - using the computer. Taran and Ian were at home - having a holiday.

The floor started to roll and the windows began to shake. I said to Joisan... oh! an earthquake! Joisan was happy that she was able to experience one before leaving in a couple of weeks. Strangely though, it didn't stop. We sat there waiting for everything to calm down and it just kept going and going. When it finally subsided it had lasted between 3 and 4 minutes. It felt like forever.

Early reports from the principals TV said it was a 6.9 and then a 7.9 and finally settled at an 8.9. It was centred in the ocean off the coast of Honshu and there was a great deal of damage done - though not too much up here in central Hokkaido. We were hit again within a few minutes and again after that one. They seemed to be coming right on top of each other and the difference in the location and depth of them meant that some were stronger than others. At one point Joisan and I were both under the table doing the "duck and cover" routine. I found it difficult to walk during them and after the third endless wave I started to feel a little stressed.

Eventually, many of the teachers gathered around the tv in the principals room and we watch the beginnings of the tsunami as the waves began to build and destroy. Joisan and I had watched the status changes as her friend Tiffany's plane had arrived at Narita about 2pm so we knew that she was there. We were a little worried about whether or not she would be able to get her connection to Sapporo but at 4pm when we left the school it seemed that everything would be okay.

When we got home I was able to get my friend Hiro on the phone (nothing short of a miracle!) She was safe, although not warm. She had no power and no water. She's in a city in central Iwate prefecture and many of the earthquakes were located quite close to her.

It was about 4:30pm when we began trying to phone the Narita airport to try to connect with Tiffany. I know she's a smart and resourceful and well-travelled girl but she's only 13 and she was travelling alone! I was a little worried! And she's only a loaner - I have to return her in less than two weeks!

Of course the phone lines were totally jammed and out of every twenty times I dialed I might have gotten a line through once - but only as far as a recorded message that said "we're really busy right now - please hold or call back later". It was very discouraging. I managed to connect with Shaun Iwasawa who had toured us around Tokyo when we were there in January. He and his wife and family are all safe and they tried to help us connect to Narita too. He had the added advantage of being able to understand the Japanese news updates - we were just waiting for the English version which was nowhere near as timely. It was from Shaun that we heard that Narita was closed for the rest of the day.

Unsure of what was up with Tiffany, Joisan and I redoubled our efforts to contact someone who could help us connect with her. It got discouraging pretty fast and around 8pm we tripped across some information that said that they had evacuated the Narita airport. I couldn't imagine what that would look like or what would happen to a 13 year old travelling alone! It was an incredibly stressful evening - eventually the Narita airport website was updated to include an advisory that stated that all passengers were being given food and water and blankets and they were being attended to by airport staff.

Around 10pm Shaun told us that they were beginning to allow planes to take off from Narita and Joisan and I discussed heading to Chitose to sleep at the airport in case Tiffany wound up coming in the night. After finally being able to talk to one of the information booth ladies at the Sapporo airport I was confident that Tiffany would not be coming in until the next day so, with my thousandth attempt at contacting Narita ending in that dreadful message again, and after sending off several emails and trying to call Tiffany's mother, we went to bed.

I was finding it very difficult to sleep and so I was incredibly grateful to receive a phone call at 12:45am from a Japan Airlines employee who had Tiffany with her and another stewardess in a hotel in Narita. I was able to talk with Tiffany and it was confirmed that she would be able to get an evening flight the next day. With that great news and a quick note to Tiffany's mother, I was finally able to sleep.

It was my intention to get up this morning and go for my weekly swim but I got a little distracted with the details of what had been happening through the night. I discovered that the aftershocks had continued with some real doozies around 4am. I am still a little worried because one of them in particular was very near the city where Hiro lives and it was at the shallowest depth of any of them.

At about 8:15am I received a call on my cellphone from the stewardesses and Tiffany. They were calling to say that she had been placed on the first flight Japan Airlines had leaving Narita this morning. Whew! We spent some of our morning reassuring our loved ones of our safety and then Joisan and I got ourselves off to the airport to get our girl. We were both surprised to see some damage on the road to the airport. Reports of issues in this area have been non-existent, and in fact the damage was fairly minor - some groupings of serious potholes and some trees and posts either down or leaning precariously. There was nothing dangerous and we made it to the airport safely. Tiffany landed safely and she has amazing stories to tell. Yes, the Narita airport was evacuated - and a good thing too as there was a ceiling of glass that came down. Yes, she was scared but she was also being very well taken care of! The Japan Airlines employees really went out of their way to be wonderful!

So, the latest news - although by the time I actually type it out and publish it - it will have changed again... the latest news is that since the 8.9 earthquake yesterday there have been 198 earthquakes greater than 4.5 and 24 of them were over 6.0. They keep referring to them as "aftershocks" and I suppose they are because they came after the initial incident, but when they are each strong enough to cause serious damage on their own I feel like they have earned the right to be referred to as earthquakes. The tsunamis continue to wreak havoc on coastal towns and every channel on the tv has an icon in the corner displaying the danger areas. Hokkaido has definitely seen some damage - but mostly in the southern area of Hakodate.

This evening we have had news of an explosion in a nuclear reactor about 200km north of Tokyo. They are currently evacuating people within a 20km radius of the reactor and I am so very grateful to be located in the backwoods of Hokkaido!

Love to all - I will eventually post the graduation stuff too but I wanted everyone to know what I know so it will have to wait until I can focus on something other than the ongoing quakes and tsunamis and reactor issues.