Earthquake!!!! (kinda)

went to yoshida fire station today for an afternoon of first aid training. did the whole dummy heart massage, mouth breathing stuff. you have to breathe in to the dummy twice, then pump the chest 30 times. i was with 15 japanese work colleagues..and my translator (thankfully!). anyway, it came to my turn, so thinking i was clever, i tried to do the whole thing in japanese, so, i knelt down, and asked the dummy if he was ok etc... then started the breathing, then as it was an exam, you had to count 30 chest presses...so i did that in japanese (we did numbers in my japanese class last week), all was going well until i got to 20, when i completely forgot the number 21, so i knelt there for a minute while i tried to think, meanwhile, the dummy died in my arms....id killed someone with my bad japanese! (was bound to happen at some time...just thought it would be me who died because of it!) the next time, i muttered in english under my breath and passed. also did the defibrelator electronic thing, was gutted when i wasnt allowed to shout "CLEAR"! in a david hassellhof/baywatch voice...note the dead dummy in the background... rumours that gareth tried to take one of the dummies home yesterday are as yet unconfirmed... afterwards, we went to a small room where they can replicate earthquakes. we stood in there and got shaken around, we went up to a level 7 earthquake, which was what niigata went through in 2004 to devastating effect. kobe went through a level 8 12 years ago, where 500 000 homes were either destroyed or badly damaged and over 6000 people died...scary stuff.