Earthquake on Sunday

As many of you may know, we had an earthquake here on Hawaii on Sunday morning, a little after 7:00am. As a result, electricity went down all over the island, and our place didn't get it back until 11:00pm at night. So we didn't really know what was going on in the rest of the world, and it's interesting to know that we made it to the front page on the news internationally! Thank you everyone who kept us in your thoughts during that time. :)

The earthquake woke me up from my sleep when it struck, and without thinking I rushed to the door and opened it, and after it died down I went back to bed and promptly fell asleep again! I think most people got scared and panicky when it came because it is such an unusual occurence, but all of us are used to earthquakes and therefore were mostly annoyed with it.

I woke up over an hour later, and much to my horror I found that the computer wouldn't turn on! I asked around and found out that nearly the whole island was without electricity. The traffic lights were down too, and the sound of the sirens was going on almost nonstop outside, because the police and firefighters were all called out to help keep order. Well, it wasn't like it could ruin our day, so in the morning we had our own service with Mrs. Sato, and then went to New Hope Diamond Head church, where it was all dark and without the sound system. However many people still came to service. After the service in the dark room was over, we thought of eating lunch somewhere, but most restaurants were closed... they can't do business without electricity. But we went to Happy Day, the Chinese dim sum restaurant, and it was open! Wow I was impressed with the Chinese people there, no electric outage could get in their way!

We were expecting the lights to go back on in the afternoon, but of course I did not take into account the speed at which people do things here. I spent the whole afternoon reading a book, simply because there wasn't anything else I could do.. no TV, no computer. Finally it became evening, and too dark to read anything. The lights were still not back. But we weren't totally in the dark: we had candles! So we lit almost 20 candles all over the house until the place almost looked like the Phantom's Lair from PotO (yes I know I'm exaggerating a little). :P It was really fun at first, then as time went by we became bored again and wished fervently for the electricity to come back. Dinner was eaten by the candlelight, of course. Since we had nothing to do but sleep, some of us took this opportunity to go to bed early.

Erin, Priscilla and I stayed awake and played card games in the darkness, until finally, just before 11:00pm, the lights suddenly turned back on!! :D :D :D I must admit we whooped with joy! lol We were so happy!

Well life is back to normal now, and school goes on as usual. Priscilla and I finished our last midterm exam today, and we're really happy and relieved about it. I have to go and get ready for my design class critique tomorrow, so good night!