Finally, after more than 2 months in this earthquake country, I finally managed to feel one earthquake. It was a small one, just a couple of seconds, enough to realize everything is moving (laterally), then everybody makes a couple of comments (“It was pretty big”, “Not really”, “First earthquake, then?”) and back to work.
The Japan Meteorological Agency has a complete website with weather and typhoon forecast, earthquake information, etc. So, after feeling one, you can check how big it was, where the epicentre was, etc. The one I felt is this one.
My office is very near from one of the “3” spots. So, I felt an earthquake of magnitude 3, according to the japanese seismic intensity scale, which use the shindo as a unit.
The Japan Meteorological Agency seismic intensity scale is a measure used in Japan and Taiwan to indicate the strength of earthquakes. It is measured in units of shindo (震度, shindo? seismic intensity, literally “degree of shaking”). Unlike the Richter magnitude scale (which measures the total magnitude of the earthquake, and represents the size of the earthquake with a single number) the JMA scale describes the degree of shaking at a point on the Earth’s surface. As a result, the measure of the earthquake varies from place to place, and a given quake may be described as “shindo 4 in Tokyo, shindo 3 in Yokohama, shindo 2 in Shizuoka”.
From Wikipedia.
Looking forward to feeling the next one… A bit more is ok, as long as it is not the Big One everybody is expecting here… Even the JMA.
This is the artificial island of Odaiba. It’s in the bay of Tokyo and it is like a trip to the future.
It’s full of modern buildings, and you can find there from Euro Disney to the Statue of Liberty. Nice trip with the floating train, and nice views.
Do you like these futuristic buildings?
In sumo, apart from fighting there are lots of symbolic gestures that come from ancestral times. This is in what they spend most of the time, and not fighting at all. The funny thing is that each gesture is done going back from the initial position in the center of the “ring” to the respective corner… Some of these things are done “by default”, but some other times, they go back to the corner by their own initiative, in what japanese explain as “mind game”.
One of these gestures is taking grab some salt with the hand…
They also drink the liquid… whatever it is…
And of course, they show how athletic and flexible they are.
Quite interesting spectacle, but quite slow for my taste…
People love it, though. Although, the situation of sumo in Japan, is quite similar to the Bull Fighting in Spain. Yes, it is a popular event, but not many people like it. Specially, not many young people, which is what happens here.
They also have sponsors which suddenly show their names on the ring… and people scream excited because of that! (I don’t get yet where the excitement for this comes from).
But, of course, there are some people who cannot be full-time focused in the sume and also keep track of what is happening in other fields… Like this one, following the horse races in his mobile phone, while the sumo guys do the show pre-combat.
