Shake it

Today was an interesting morning. I woke up and talked to the folks for a while and then spent some time reading. I finally got out of bed to make some lunch and figured it would be a good time to cook the mac and cheese my parents sent. As the water began to boil, Kristy asked me a question. I walked to the living room to hear her better and she asked "Don't you feel it?" Then she said "The building is moving." Then I did feel it, and saw it. The floor was shaking and the building was swaying pretty well. It was our first ever earthquake! Kristy looked a little panicked, but I told her we were on the 14th floor, there wasn't anything we could do. The buildings are built to withstand earthquakes so more than likely we'd be fine. Clearly we survived, and we chuckled when we looked outside and everyone seemed to be going about their usual business as if nothing had happened. I remembered hearing a story from one girl who said she'd lived on the 25th floor of a building and was freaked out by how much it moved during earthquakes. I remembered thinking that if the building didn't move she'd have been in a whole lot more trouble!

I'm not sure how big an earthquake it was, but nothing fell over (but our apartment doesn't really have anything that could fall over in it apart from the fridge), so it didn't seem that bad. I guess I didn't realize how much I've taken it for granted that the ground won't just start to move randomly. I do live in the "ring of fire" after all...Taiwan is *never* boring!