How did my blog start.. Earthquake and Technology

Until now, i did not have a blog.  Now, I have two. 
( Well, I said two, but essentially they are going to be same or similar, one in Japanese and the other in English.)


When the Earthquake and Tsunami hit Japan in March, I was in Dallas, TX for business.  I just came back from Japan 4 days ago, March 6.  Many of my friends (Japanese who live in California and Japanese who were from Japan) were there, too, and now as I think back, that was very fortunate for us as we could share the concern and the pain.

March 10, just before midnight (Dallas time), my friend called me about the earthquake as she found out that just happened checking out her email.

For Japanese, earthquake is one of those thing you live with, maybe like rain for Californian.  We grow up with earthquakes in Japan.  So, as my friend called me, my first reaction was "oh...another one again - I hope it was not a big one".
Then everything changed as I started to check out the internet news.  This one was really big....  We started to call the hotel rooms and let Japanese people know about the earthquake.  And started to call the immediate family members and close friends in Japan for their safety.

Of course, the phone line was jammed.  As we were calling to Japan from the United states, so as people in Japan calling.   Thousands of people were calling to reach to their family....

From that moment, it took us about two hours to get connected to family members.  We were lucky since we had my computer, Smartphone, and iPhone.  With these three devices working, we were able to use telephone line, Wi-Fi, and email to find the way to connect people.  Really..... without these technology, Internet and SKYPE, we would not be able to do the thing we did that night.   

I truly appreciate the communication technology we have now.  I know many people agree this.  I really think that the communication was much faster even in this disaster because of the current technology.

For some of our friends from Japan, the wait was longer.  It was a very frustrating situation when you knew only things you could do was to WAIT.  Some people wanted to fly back home soon, but that was not an option either because the airport was shut down in NARITA, and the train system was shut down. Fortunately, eventually, everyone I knew were able to connect with family members.

From this day, things changed.  Japan changed.  My whole world just changed.
I am sure many people felt the same way...“ I needed to do something ....”