There are a few unpleasant things about living in Japan, like riding packed trains in Tokyo at rush hour, or accidentally overfilling the kerosene for your heater, spilling smelly fuel all over your family’s shoes. Another aspect of living in Japan I could do without is earthquakes. While things have definitely quieted down since the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011, we do still get one or two quakes large enough to notice each week. The other day the J-List staff was happily doing our work when everyone’s cell phones started making a loud chirping sound none of us had heard before, and about two seconds later things started to shake. It wasn’t that big a quake — a 6.2 magnitude centered in Ibaragi Prefecture, about 75 km away — but the unexpected alarm from our phones (which are part of Japan’s new early warning system) made us think that the Big One had arrived.
Being ready for earthquakes is important in Japan.
