One month after the day, April 11th 2011

I left NYC on March 2nd to visit my mother in Osaka, Japan. I was planning to stay with her for a month. On Friday, March 11th, I went to the dentist's office, located in the suburban city of Osaka Prefecture.

At 2:30 PM, I sat on the dentist's reclining chair and opened my mouth wide so that the doctor could drilling out my bad cavity in my left upper mauler. The doctor was a gentle person in his 70's and used an extremely gentle treatment approach. So, I knew that I didn't need to scream for pain, but still, I was furious since I haven't visited any dentists for two decades (!).

When the doctor started drilling, I closed my eyes and just hoped the time would pass fast. Then about 15 minutes into the treatment, suddenly, he stopped drilling. "Did you feel earthquake?" He asked the nurse who was standing beside him for assistance. The nurse replied, "Yes, I did a little bit." Then the doctor asked me. "Did you feel that too?" I said, "No, I haven't. I didn't feel anything but being drilled." Then he smiled at me and returned to the treatment.

I left the office about an hour later and went to the nearby shopping mall. In the late afternoon, the supermarket in the mall was full of customers for grocery shopping. Most of them were women, some with babies or infants. Also, some elderly male shoppers were juggling shopping lists & coupons, dragging their shopping carts while the store workers were shouting at them about the day's best deal in a cheerful voice—just another ordinary day.

After the shopping, I took a bus and came home around 5 PM. As soon as I opened the door, my mother ran into me. She told me that the vast earthquake hit the northern Japan include Tokyo around three o'clock. The quake sent a massive Tsunami that crashed into the Pacific coast, wiping entire towns and villages. In Tokyo, many buildings were burning out of control. Hundreds of people died or went missing.

I hurried into the living room and watched the Tsunami scenes on TV, speechless with disbelief. Then I remember that I was scheduled to go to Tokyo the day after. The hotel was already booked for five nights. "You have to cancel the trip. Tokyo is too dangerous now." Mother insisted. Confused, I was not sure what to do. I was thinking of the people whom I was supposed to meet there. "I'll call them and decide tomorrow morning," I told mother so, and the two of us kept staring at TV monitor the rest of the evening. At that time, we didn't know what kind of crisis would be followed by this quake-tsunami disaster yet.