Earthquake!!!

First of all, we are fine. I don't know how to do arrows but the earthquake was in Sichuan Province and we were in Hunan province, and are now in Guangdong province -clear in the south near Hong Kong.

This afternoon we were sitting in our room and I felt the bed kind of bouncing. I asked Shawn if he could feel it and he couldn't so I made him come and sit on the bed I was sitting on. He still couldn't feel it so I made him sit right where I was sitting and as I got up to move I noticed the picture on the wall was moving. I told him we need to get out of here.

We grabbed Abby's bottle and our backpack (not our passports - duh) and I walked into the bathroom and really started feeling like things were moving. We left our room and our guide was standing outside with a panicked look on her face and asked if we felt that. She was in her pajamas and put a sweater over it and grabbed her purse.

Now, we were staying on the 30th floor in a relatively new hotel, but Shawn had been wondering since we got here what building codes they had and whether they were adhered to. I just figured the last place I wanted to be during an earthquake was on the 30th floor anywhere - actually it was the 2nd to last place.

The elevator door opened and a few panicked looking guys were in there saying "hurry, hurry" so we got on and started heading down. The elevator started down and then stopped and a bunch of people crowded on (I was going to do a post about the difference in personal space that the Chinese have but lets just say they are OK with twice as many people on an elevator than we would in the US). So there were so many people the door wouldn't close and a light went on that said "overload". A few people got off and then we went down to the next floor and repeated the same scenario. This happened on several floors in a row. Now, I was getting a little panicky - I'd like to say I remained calm but the thought of being trapped on an elevator with a bunch of people who didn't speak my language in the middle of an earthquake gave me a feeling of sheer terror for just a minute or two. So when the door would open on the next floor I would say - "no it is full - no more people". It didn't even register to me until Shawn pointed it out later that it said "overload" in English so they didn't even know why the elevator wasn't working. Once we started moving down I was still a bit disconcerted as I watched hundreds of people pouring out into the streets from our hotel and the high buildings nearby.

I started thinking about the fact that there are 7 million people in Changsha - we're talking a city the size of New York or London. We saw a lot of old shabby buildings that I imagine would collapse with a lot less than a 7 point earthquake. I also started thinking that there is probably no emergency plan or resources for such a situation. An earthquake is always a scary thing but in a foreign country is a little much for me.

They were all jabbering on their phones and looking nervous, looking at the buildings. Our guide said all of the circuits were busy so we couldn't find out what was going on. We walked down the street where there were not quite so many tall buildings and she finally found out there had been an earthquake in another province. I found it a bit of a relief since it explained the tremors but she was rather freaked out. She decided we needed to change our flights which were scheduled for tomorrow morning and come early to Guangzhou - the last stop on our trip. So we waited for her to get Abby's passport and some other paperwork and she made arrangements so we could leave and we headed to the airport for a 10:00pm flight. We arrived here safely and Abby is now sleeping -she didn't sleep on the airplane but she slept on the way from the airport to here and then screamed for 1/2 hr. when she woke up.

I'm so sad to hear of the terrible devastation in Sichaun province -it is heart-wrenching to think about it. I'm also very grateful that we are here safely and we did not have to experience a major earthquake today.