Arlington Hts. businessman: Things calm in Kyoto

Dan Chlopek, a former resident of Arlington Heights who is in Japan on business, said his co-workers who were on the 35th floor of the Swissotel in Osaka felt the building shake from the earthquake.

“The Swissotel is a pretty tall building, 36 stories. I believe once the shaking stopped they were instructed to go downstairs,” Chlopek wrote from Japan. “The elevators were shut down as well. Everyone seemed fairly calm in the hotel.”

Chlopek arrived in Japan on Sunday for a business trip. He’s staying in Kyoto after spending the week at the Swissotel in Osaka. He’s coming back to the United States on Wednesday.

He didn’t feel the quake, and there’s no panic in the streets around him, he said.

“I didn’t know anything had happened until I got back to my hotel about an hour after the quake and saw people watching TV,” Chlopek wrote. “There seemed to be no reaction on the streets of Osaka when it hit.”

After the tsunami hit, he hurried to Facebook to tell friends and family he was out of harm’s way.

“Even though this happed so close, I feel pretty far from it,” he wrote.

Trains have shut down, and that may prevent Chlopek from traveling to Tokyo on Sunday.

“When I went out for sushi in Kyoto, there seemed to be a fair amount of people out,” he wrote.