3.11 from a Third Grader's Perspective

I was only in third grade in 2011, and luckily enough was at my friend's home with my mom as our school (ASIJ) had parent-teacher conferences for elementary students that day. I remember my mom's phone alert ringing at 2:46 and that my friends and all the moms ran outside and huddled up until the shaking stopped. After about five minutes we went back inside and saw the live stream of the tsunami wave reaching and destroying Japan. Looking back at that footage now really makes me feel sick and emotional, but back then I don't think I completely understood what was going on. There were several aftershocks, but it was like clockwork after the first big earthquake. We would all go downstairs and stand outside, then go back upstairs to play with dolls, then back down again. After a while, I drove home with my mom, it was probably a five minute drive so we didn't have any traffic. Only a couple pictures were knocked down. Our cabinets were locked to protect the dishes so I remember using ladles and a gas stove to eat dinner since we didn't know how to unlock everything. My dad walked home about four hours later. My parents and I were supposed to go to Singapore for spring break, so my mom and I left a week early and my dad followed a couple days later. When I came back to school, my class shrank from 18 kids to 8. Slowly, kids started to show up, but I lost a couple of friends. The community became more and more Japanese rather than international, as those with homes elsewhere were moving back. Another interesting story was that my uncle took a couple of visitors to Fukushima on March 11th, and they walked along the shore that morning. I remember him telling us that it was a beautiful morning and that the water seemed really serene. He left Fukushima soon after and his bullet train was near Ueno when the earthquake hit. He said the train stopped about five seconds before the shaking began. He got off the train with his visitors and took them to their hotel, which luckily was also in Tokyo. My uncle who ran marathons and always carried shoes with him, then laced up his shoelaces and ran all the way back to his home in Saitama.