Earthquakes and typhoons

I don't usually have long term trouble with jet lag, but I've been home now for a week and am still not sleeping properly. I've been waking up at 4/4:30 every day, and since I'm wide awake, I just get out of bed. Laura has been having a hard time falling to sleep, but the little devil sleeps until 9 or 10 in the morning.

So, since I've been home, we've had two earthquakes and a typhoon. The epicenter of one earthquake was just about 20 miles from our area so it was felt pretty strongly. Have any of you felt an earthquake? It is a weird feeling. I get a momentary rush of adrenalin, then depending on the strength of the quake, either sit still and wonder if I'm going to have to rush to a doorway or I immediately rush to a doorway. The kids always seem to be asleep when we experience a quake, so then I worry about whether I'll be able to get to them in the case of a severe quake. Yesterday, morning, I was sitting in my undies, so then I had the added worry about whether there were any clothes nearby to jump into in case the quake was severe. Anyway, all of that is the mental part. Then, it is a freaky feeling to have your house shaking. If you live in a high rise, I imagine it must be an awful feeling to see everything swaying so much. My legs get wobbly and stay that way for about a half hour after the quake stops. And my brain feels the same way after a short quake (yesterday's was about 20 seconds, the night before about 10) as it does after an afternoon of sailing. In other words, I feel like the ground is still moving.

Before I moved to Japan, I always wondered how people could live in a place that has such frequent quakes, where they know that it is inevitable that they will someday experience a big one. But now that we live here, I realize that you don't even think about it until it happens. I mean, we may think about the possibility of a quake when we put breakable items out on a shelf, or when moving furniture to make sure heavy things aren't over the bed or anything, but otherwise. I never think or worry about the possibility of a big quake. Even after the earthquakes, as soon as the physical symptoms disappear, I don't think of them anymore.

How about you all? For those of you who live in Japan, do you worry about them? Has anyone else experienced a big quake or natural disaster that upset you mentally and disturbed you physically?

Linda