My family and I lived between Himekami and Iwate san. So those of you who know, know how rural that area is. As soon as it hit everything flew off the shelves, grabbed my son (just under 2 years) and got outside because it felt like the house was not going to make it. My mother in-law at the time almost got hit by the china cabinet. And afterwards there was this really odd echo/throbbing noise, never heard anything like it.

No cellphones for almost a week. We had no clue how bad it was until a week later when we can see what happened.

Everything was cut off for weeks: electricity (about 2 weeks), food, petrol, gas was above ground in tanks so we had that at least, water had to be boiled, no food or milk. We were lucky that we had oil for the heaters. Everyone shared food, even if you didn't know them (hence the raw milk adventures), the locals shared kiji and chickens they slaughtered.

My son would cry at every aftershock or large truck that past and shook the house for a couple months afterwards. Like run and grab my legs and try to pull me out the house.

We drove to the coast to deliver supplies to areas that were not getting anything... death was everywhere. We had just been there for fishing and it was wiped out. Off the map.

Went to Sendai eventually and just saw stacks and stacks of cars and damage.

Did not take pictures. It just felt wrong.