earthquake

Well, Christmas ended on a surreal note for us. 

At 9ish this morning I was up getting Ji's Milo, my coffee, and peeling an apple.  Phet and Ji were hanging out in bed.  Ji came into the kitchen and said "Pa says the bed is shaking!"  I sort of patted Ji on the head, said 'that's nice, dear', and went back to peeling my apple.  I was halfway through when I suddenly felt like I was getting queasy.  I thought maybe I was going to be sick.  I looked up at the coffee maker and couldn't focus on it.  I felt wobbly.  I set the apple down.  Something weird was going on.  I still couldn't focus, but my stomach actually wasn't upset.  Then I finally made sense of what was going on:  the building was shaking. 

We were feeling an earthquake!

I walked through the house, and could see things just shifting slightly, like water in the cups, and kind of the windows also.  It felt very bizarre.   I went and felt the wall.  Then I went to see Phet.  Everything was still wobbly, but just to the degree that you could feel it; nothing fell down, and it wasn't hard to walk.  The building kept shaking, and I went to look out the balcony to see if people in the nearby houses were going outside.  Didn't seem like it. 

We decided we would go outside so that if it kept shaking we wouldn't be under a big pile of rubble. 

We went down the stairs, and on every floor there were people getting ready to leave their apartments.  Some were talking on their cell phones, some were just getting dressed.  We went down to the parking level and then walked out to the courtyard. There were quite a few families outside, all in their pajamas.  A Muslim african lady gestured to me the international sign of earthquake (hands out, shaking back-and-forth) and I was like 'yes!  We felt it too' and gave her the international sign for scary (kind of like the 'brrr' sign).  The other families also gave us the earthquake sign, and we responded in kind.  No one was really scared, but we were definitely all a bit frightened and disturbed.  The lady sitting next to us on the picnic bench said, 'I didn't know whether to take anything; I just took my two kids'. 

It was a funny, odd moment.

We sat for about 10 minutes while everyone compared notes and called who-knows-who on their cell phones.  It didn't seem that so much as a piece of plaster had come off the building, so no one was freaking out.  But still!  Eventually we decided to go back upstairs, check the internet for info, get dressed, and go out.  While we were on the computer the security dude came by and said we should go out and we said we would (sort of a little too late, but whatever).  The only info we found said there was a quake in New Zealand the night before, but nothing about KL.  I had a fast shower, gulped down a cup of coffee, and we went out.  We sat for about 20 minutes in the courtyard again, ostensibly calling cabs, but also just sort of chilling out.  My eyes still felt really weird. 

In the past, I've always sort of thought to myself that I'd like to experience an earthquake once, just to see what it feels like.  Well, once was definitely enough.  I don't need to feel it ever again.  And ours was just this little mini tremor.  Brrr... In the end we went for upscale dim sum and alleviated our fears by eating dumplings and congee and pork-of-many-kinds.  I'm now stuffed but still feeling odd.  When we got back home I checked the comp again and found out that the quake was in Sumatra, 7.0 on the Richter scale. For the record, I won't be moving to San Fransisco any time soon. [Malaysia-26-December-2004]