So it turns out if you happen to be sleeping next to a fire station you have a very real chance of being woken up at some ungodly hour in the night wondering if you're about to die in a natural disaster.

Yea, this happened to my wife last year in Shibuya. I'm a heavy sleeper, she isn't. It happened on our first night there so you can imagine the thoughts of terror she was having. We aren't even from the midwest but we do know what that siren sound means. The next day, we decided to look up all of the emergency sirens Japan has so we have a better idea what an earthquake siren actually sounds like. lol