Russell and I went out to dinner tonight at a British pub downtown. I think I've mentioned it before - its called Hobgoblin and is, in fact, a chain of the same pub that was down the street from our apartment in Reading, UK a few years ago. The pub is up on the 7th floor and offers a lovely range of british beer at british temperatures and cider. It also offers a delightful range of distinctly British pub fare. We got to choose between bangers and mash, fish and chips, daily pie (as in meat pie in gravy), shepherd's pie and a number of other international pub/bar favorites like burgers, nachos, kebab, steak-filled pita pockets, etc. Its no wonder the place is crawling with foreigners. The waitresses refused to speak to Russell in Japanese.
Right around the last french fry the whole place started swaying. Everyone was a little wide-eyed and the waitresses quickly turned on the TV. Over the top of a TV variety show displaying one restaurants secret yakitori techniques, the TV reported a level 5 earthquake centered in Wakayama (South of Osaka). The tremor in Osaka was reported at a level 3 and I can only guess that Kobe was below that.
Experiencing an earthquake a little higher off the ground made it more notable, though, and added some excitement to our evening. The folks on the train platform across from the pub didn't even seem to register the earthquake, though, so it must have been pretty light close to the ground.
Update: The official earthquake website says it was a 4 at the epicenter and a 1 or lower in Kobe. Nothing to get too excited about.
Tuesday 5 July 2011
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2 comments:
I know from experience that, after you've been through a major earthquake, every subsequent earthquake, even a small one, is scary. We're sorry this happened to you again. Kathy
Don't worry. We haven't really been through a major earthquake yet. (And fingers crossed it stays that way). The big earthquake in Tohoku barely registered in Kobe. Russell didn't feel anything. It was very strange but not scary at all. We've been very lucky in that sense. The series of earthquakes that rattled Tokyo and the north for months after the big earthquake must have been horrible to live through, but everything has been calm here in Kobe. Knock on wood.
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