Day 8 - 1st Relief 2.0 Mission to Ishinomaki

Sendai was fantastic. The news reports of the disaster and anguish, it was heaven to us. The Hotels were open, restaurants were open, there was running water and electricity. I've spoken to some friends who knew people in Sendai, and yes, some of your charity $$ is paying for charity folks to live in Hotels in Sendai, and then driving to the field the next day. Nothing like Ishinomaki. We did not have a chance to go to the destroyed areas in Sendai, but it looks like nothing much happened, and life as normal in Sendai City. Returning to Tokyo, we arrived at Sunrise

Hackerspace Tokyo has offered us a place to crash at, and we made our way there without any problems. After resting a few hours, our plans of the day was to meet at Harajuku, to visit Tims's 7 day Aventist Church. It was a gathering again, as Todd Shea was also coming along.

After days without any cooked food, we were finally in civilization... We can buy food again.

Of course when you see a buffet, you jump on it! It was a great meeting with Todd, and he supported Relief 2.0, by giving us an additional US$500 to aid us in our work.

Harajuki is near Shibuya, and it is a fantastic place to be. The crowds is crazy, but there seems to be everything.

It was a nice day out, and it did not take long before we met up with Tim again.

Tim gave a talk at the Church, and everyone there was interested to meet us when we arrived. We stayed for a while and eventually, we on our next mission: "Find Yen." Operation Find Yen was tough, the ATMs were not 24 hours, and we could not find a money changer. Even with the locals, we had to search high and low for an ATM machine which allows foreign credit cards. It was a nice day out, and we did not mind.

With the help of Aiko and her trusty GPS, Dr Tim's friend, we found an ATM, and got $$$, Carlos cut his finger opening a can, and with the newly acquired $$, we went to the pharmacy where Dr Tim tended to the cut, it was a great day, the sun was nice and we walked around for a bit more.

The sunset was great, and we walked towards Shibuya area, and felt the human crush!

At night, we met with the Tokyo Hackspace folks to share our trip information and Relief 2.0, and we later had some really delicious pizza. The Tokyo Hackerspace people are also getting together teams and ideas to help with the earthquake survivors, and hopefully, our information may come in handy for them. They are a great bunch of people who want to help.

-- Robin Low