I am hoping that things turn out okay for Japan--they are definitely in an awful place right now
As far as 'signs' etc, I don't believe it. Despite my penchant for games, books, etc, that are all about portents and so forth, I don't actually believe in them. Or at least, in this whole 2012 business. The Earth's really friggin' old and it'll be here long after we're gone. But the crust of the Earth, the continental plates, are constantly moving. This used to all be one huge continent, don't forget.
New Zealand and Japan are on the same tectonic plate border (the Pacific plate and the Indo-Australian plate), which is also where the Ring of Fire is. A notoriously volcanic and active plate boundary. To me, really, it just seems like it probably makes some sense that not long after a quake hit way down on one end of that plate, another hit further along the same line. Apparently, they even suspected a quake would hit soon, but just not that it would be that magnitude (which came from it hitting so close to the surface, from what I can tell).
In short, IMO, this is a horrible tragedy--but not an approaching apocalypse.