OK so since arriving part of me has been (not very) secretly looking forward to experiencing an earthquake. Nothing major, it's not like I want my probably not amazingly quake resistant house to be seriously tested / blatantly fall to pieces around me. But apparently at some point it's fairly inevitable and provided it isn't some massive disastrous one I kinda think it'd be a cool experience.

Earthquake preparations are taken pretty seriously here obviously - for instance next to my bed when I arrived was a glow in the dark luminous yellow box, containing an emergency chain ladder complete with grappling hooks and a bunch of signalling stuff (I ended up putting it away in the wardrobe, you can tell I too take this pretty seriously). I was also advised to prepare a survival kit as well - presumably with basic first aid, food & water, little red book incase the chinese invade etc - and keep that next to the escape box.
What got me thinking about this though was this afternoon i was sat at my desk chatting to a mate back home when suddenly the floor seemed to move back and forth a couple inches, just once, but very quickly. It was the same sort of feeling you get sat in a car that stops suddenly. A quick snoop online later and it turns out that yep, I'd just had my first earthquake experience :D Although it had a magnitude of 5.1 (moderate) it was centered about 50 miles away and so deep inside the Earth (a touch over 26 miles) that it was barely noticeable.

Still though, got me thinking...

So now the luminous glowing box of doom is out from the back of the wardrobe and back next to my bed, and while I'm still (perhaps weirdly) looking forward to a decent quake, maybe I'll look into that survival kit after my next pay day. Never know eh? Besides, could also be useful if Godzilla decides to attack again...