I'm not happy with being confronted with all these experience again. And I wasn't even there...
I was peacefully sleeping in my bed in Germany (I am used to go home for spring break)when my mum called me at 7am: "Lili... There was an earthquake in Japan!!!". I was very used to calls from my mum while I stayed in Japan telling me that a big earthquake had happened which I most of the time totally missed. So I said: "Muuum, it's almost still night, I'm sure everything is ok, I told you that the foreign media always makes a big thing out of a little bit shaking". So I continued to sleep until my mum called me again an hour later... She told me that I really have to watch television and that what happens in Japan is not normal... That there was a tsunami and 1000s of people were missing. That made me being awake... I switched on the television and it didn't matter what program I chose, everybody was talking about Japan. After the first pictures I was so shocked that I had to switch off the tv. My first thought was about my friends... I started to call everybody... A few answered... Some via Internet, but I wasn't able to get all of my friends... It seemed like the whole phone network broke down... But I couldn't stop trying. It was such a horrible feeling... My mind still didn't want to accept that it wasn't one of the easy earthquakes I experienced on my own... I spend so much time with calming my relatives and friends down that I just couldn't believe what was going on in Japan but at the same time I felt this urge to know that everybody was safe. I refused to watch television but my mum would call me every hour telling me the news... My mum visited me at least 7 times in Japan and she likes this country a lot, she was so concerned and not able to switch off the television. She was totally hysterical about the things going on... After 8 hours I reached all of my friends and knew that all of them were safe... It was evening already and after knowing that all of my friends are fine I allowed myself to switch on the tv again. They showed videos of Chiba burning, water which easily took cars and even houses away in Sendai... I was watching the news the whole night... All these pictures really couldn't get to my mind... Japan... My Japan... I planned to spend my future there... And suddenly there was this... This amazingly disaster... It was like in a bad Hollywood disaster movie when they announced that there was trouble in atomic plants... When they showed the pictures... I thought I could never return to Japan again and that such a wonderful, successful country will be destroyed forever... At least that was what the German news made us believe ... There was really nothing else on tv... They even started to show NHK on one of the smaller tv programs... I know it's strange... But all the time I felt like I should have been there. Japan was the country I chose for living... I had such a good time there and at the second I was in holiday this would happen... I felt like I had taken the good times and left my friends alone in times of need and disaster. My family was trying to make me stay in Germany but I never even considered to not return... When the situation in Fukushima got worse I did my own research just to persuade my family and friends that there was no danger for people in Tokyo. While the German media wanted us to believe in a nuclear meltdown, I was believing in the the men fighting in Fukushima making it safe again... I know the truth is somewhere between this... And I totally can understand that people left Japan but for me it was clear that I had to go back. They cancelled my return flight 5 times until I could leave on the 13th of April. I prepared carefully... Bought batteries and iodine tablets... and a lot more... When I finally arrived in Japan... it was really like coming home.
