This might raise a smile. It is a piece from Alan Ruddock's Aikido Memoirs.
I remember soon after I had moved in I started to become more proficient at cooking for myself, something I had not had to do until coming to Tokyo. I prepared myself a nice soup, ate it and relaxed comfortably, lying my back on the tatami mats. Suddenly the whole room began to shake, the the window rattled and everything creaked and groaned. I sat up in alarm thing perhaps my cooking was not quite up to standard yet. Then it suddenly dawned on me that this was actually an earthquake.
