CATS, DOGS, AND ELEPHANTS

After on and off thunderstorms since this morning, we just had the longest, strongest earthquake I've ever felt about 30 minutes ago. It lasted about 30 seconds, and after about 15 seconds, I headed outside until it subsided, in order to avoid any possible collapsing of our small apartment building. I could hear cups rattling in the kitchen and outside I saw power cords swinging over nearby houses. Afterwards my roomie informed me that going outside was the WRONG thing to, and in the event of falling objects, I'd been safer crawling under a desk or table, or standing in a doorway. I'm not a native of earthquake country, so I wasn't aware of that. Lesson learnt. The radio said it was a 4.0 across about 7 prefectures in Central Japan, so a quake was an unsettling cap-off to a very thundery, rainy day.