Wise Woman Travel

Lorne left a couple of hours ago for an all day snorkelling expedition off the Kerama Islands, and I’m getting ready to walk over to a coral dyeing experience about 50 minutes from our hotel.

My Japanese phone number pings.

TSUNAMI, it says with a red exclamation point. The rest of the message is in Japanese and can’t be pasted into Google Translate.

Huh.

I wait a few minutes but nothing else happens so I head off.

Ten minutes later, I’m waiting for a light to change next to a young Japanese man and his mom. Our phones go off simultaneously.

” Tsunami? Here?” I say to him.

He points to where we are on Google maps then to the ocean. ” Yes. Evacuation maybe. Probably.”

Darn English as an additional language. Which is it – maybe or probably?

I look at the traffic flowing around me and the other pedestrians continuing down the sidewalk. Nobody seems concerned.

My phone pings again. A message from Lorne.

” We’ve been evacuated to a nearby rooftop. Should be safe enough.”

WHAT?

Maybe just dangerous for people right by the water? Why isn’t anyone reacting where I am?

I continue walking while keeping an eye on the conditions around me. A teacher is leading a bunch of giggling middle schoolers along the sidewalk. A field trip or an evacuation to higher ground?

Lorne messages again to say his trip is canceled and all the snorkellers have been returned to their hotels. Apparently when he arrived, the hotel personnel were telling people to go up to the 10th floor, the highest in the building.

But when I make it to the coral dyeing building, all is calm. The class continues as planned.

One more ping when I’m having lunch. All 8 diners in the noodle shop look at their phones simultaneously and keep eating. Apparently, the all clear.

Later, I hear Taiwan had its strongest earthquake in 25 years that morning. I guess Japanese people, who live with the threat of tsunamis all the time, have learned how to read and respond to the warning messages.   I’m just glad that my years of solo travel have trained me to read the people around me so I stay both calm and out of danger.