20 minutes

Twenty minutes. That's the amount of time that separated Michelle & I from a 6.4 earthquake in Taiwan this morning. Here's how the rundown of our discovery went...

Normal morning; depart Taipei @ 10AM.
Arrive Hong Kong ~noon. Complete tasks (check directory, hit Mujo To Go, find lunch & adult beverage).
Turn on phone.
Text from Jesse Paulson: "Friend, just heard about the quake over there. Are you ok and safe? Not sure if you are where it hit, so please let me know."
Michelle hyperventilates.
I shell up.

We quickly get online to try to get a sense for what has happened -- and where -- and a thousand thoughts go through my mind, as you can imagine. We learn that the earthquake hit Taiwan, that it was big, and that we left the island a mere 20 minutes before it struck.

More research tells us that it didn't hit the city of Taipei itself (~150 miles south), but perspective says that A) it's as close as Vancouver, WA, is to Seattle, and B) we literally lifted off a whopping twenty minutes earlier. Needless to say, what was just another lunch of shu mai and pan-friend dumplings was also served with a pretty big slice of humble pie.