I woke up the next morning feeling somewhat refreshed, though the ground didn’t stop shaking a little until later Saturday afternoon. I got up and decided my first order of business should be to clean my apartment, as it was still in a state of disarray. It took me a little more than an hour, but eventually everything but the dishes had been put back in its proper place. I still had no running water and no food to eat off of them, so I figured that could wait. So, I struck out in search of food at about 9:30. This may seem late, but stores in Japan usually open at 10, and with the power out I figured they would need some time to prepare for the lines of people who needed food. So, I put on my backpack which now had bread, carbonated mineral water, and peanuts in addition to the few clothes and other necessities.
After riding past the closest grocery store and finding that line to be all the way around the block, I decided to go to one of the other two that were close to me. I thought I was in luck when I found the next closest store only had twenty people in line, so I parked my bike and got in line only to find that the line wasn’t moving because the doors were closed. There were signs on the door, but they were too far for me to read from my position, and I didn’t want to get out of the growing line only to see that I couldn’t read the sign. I figured it couldn’t be anything to discourage this line, otherwise no one would be here. After waiting for an hour, a man came out and told us that they still needed between an hour and two more hours to make preparations but they would open up at the other once they were ready.
The entire line quietly snaked around so that no one lost their place and we all quietly waited for what turned out to be a little less than a hour before they wheeled out tables of food. Each table had a price of 100, 200, or 300 yen and all of them asked that each person only take two items from each table.
The first people all took two waters from the first table, and I managed to get enough food to last me through at least midway through the week. After getting through with this, I took my swag home and set out for downtown Mito to see if my company office was still standing and if leaving Mito was at all a possibility in case I could still make a break for Nagoya.
I found that downtown had more damage than my area with plenty of cracked pavement and wrecked sidewalks. Several buildings had their windows shattered and there were quite a few sinkholes around manhole covers. The station had been completely roped off and no buses seemed to be running out of the bus terminals.
I got to my office and found one secretary there. I left my name with him and told him that I still had no power or water and my apartment had suffered some earthquake damage. Then he suggested that I go to the city office. It is only about 30 yards from my company’s office and we could see that the food line was very short at the moment. I went there and was given one banana and was allowed my pick of one bread item, one dango, or one bag of rice. I chose the rice as I had bread and am not a huge fan of dango (balls of mocha on skewers).
I then availed myself of the city office’s power. Like the Kencho, they have their own generator. I charged my phone and called Amelia and Lana and gave them the update. While my phone was charging, there were two other guys doing the same at the same extension cord. I was pleased with how much of their conversation I could understand. They were talking about where there was power, downtown and I was able to say that the immediate block around the Kencho had also come on, as the stoplights had started working while I was standing in line at Maruto. Then they were talking about how much their lives had started to resemble a disaster movie. I missed the verb in the sentence, so I am unsure if one of them said it was his favorite disaster movie or if the situation just reminded him of Towering Inferno.
After that, I returned home in the dark. I was excited to see my school lit up and hoped it meant that my power would also be on, but as soon as I rounded the corner everything was dark. I got home, put my bedding back under my desk, and slept through another battery of aftershocks, though this time only three or four woke me up. Once though, I woke up already sitting under my desk and was a little dismayed that curling up there had become so automatic that I had done it in my sleep before the quake was strong enough to wake me up. But, it was a more restful night than the night before.
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