Vagabond With Flowers: Tsunami Evacuation!

Almost Tsunami Showtime in Honolulu Harbor

Crazy, crazy things have happened throughout my trip from events like riding on a motorcycle throughout Bohol island in the Philippines with a stranger, the dangerous river adventure in Laos, and the bum rush train ride in Japan... here is yet another event and actually another natural disaster (like Typoon Ondoy affecting SE Asian countries like Thailand when I was there back in September) making way into the Pacific and into the pages of this very blog.

If you guys have been living under a rock, you should know that there has recently been a 8.8 earthquake shaking the city of Concepcion in Chile just this morning at about 3 a.m. Due to the quake, many aftershocks have been warned to continue along South America and the Pacific rim even including further warning of potential tsunamis.

We have luckily been unaffected by today's events and no damage was done.

Our day, however began as a surprise! Last night (continuing to the early hours of the day) we were informed by the news viewed in my high school friend, Ellen Mae's place that there had been a quake in Chile. Thinking nothing of it, we slept soundly that night, but found ourselves woken up by a siren blaring outside of our house to evacuate Ewa Beach.

Diana actually woke me up, really. I hella slept through the first siren at 6:30 since I slept at about 3 a.m. and was really exhausted! We were given until 11 a.m. to reach a safe area, preferably on the 3rd story of a building somewhere inland. We left about an hour later and packed our things, food and other necessary effects that would help us go through the day comfortably. Driving through Ewa Beach, we kept informed by listening to the radio and observed the reactions to this "state of emergency". We surprisingly saw people going about their days normally, running in the morning and walking their dogs. I was thinking in my head, "what are you guys doing?! Don't you know there's a tsunami coming?" But I kind of figured they're locals and they go through this all the time. I, personally was very alarmed by this, but strangely excited to witness this natural disaster in a somewhat morbid way.

Reaching Ellen Mae's house in Honolulu, we basically staked out admiring the beautiful view of Honolulu city and harbor on the 20th floor of her apartment-- which is so cute and tastefully decorated! Being vigilant, we stayed up watching the news until they declared that the tsunami warning was cancelled and that people should just stay off the beach for the remainder of the day.

Honestly, the whole day was very anti-climactic. Nothing too crazy happened other than the observation of the moat's water in front of Ellen's building often rising higher than usual then draining out time to time. I watched for the first time the Winter Olympics in Toronto on TV. I think Curling is a strange and comedic sport... but whatever is considered competitive sports these days, I guess. Other than that, the weather was great until a few hours later when an overcast blanketed the islands.

Here's a few pictures of our day and a funny video of our Tsunami evacuation: