Tokyo to Sendai - Tuesday 4/19

Chatting with Jonathan Wilson, Exec Dir of CRASH Japan

Long day: bkfst at Jonathan's (yummy restaurant), quick visit with Tokyo friends, chatted with Jonathan Wilson, met Mako Fujimura (famous painter - cool!), then got rolling with CRASH biz and orientation.  Tentative plans had changed so no vehicle or driver after all.  We ended up renting a van - cargo version with minimal bench seating but passable.  I went with a Japanese guy from CRASH to get it at the Toyota rent-a-car in Higashi Kurume near where we used to live - wow, what memories walking over there.  Turned out the original vehicle they suggested wasn't suitable for size or budget, and neither was a smaller version at a smaller budget, so we spotted this van for a reasonable price. Problem was that they already had a reservation on it, but one was available in Oizumi Gakuen, 3 train stations away, so headed over there.  

On the train, met Mako F again and had a good chat.  He was on his way to downtown museums/curators for a display of art about the disaster.  Got the van, and yours truly drove it back to HK - Wow, that was fun and stressful all at once.  But it was only minutes until it all came back to me, and was flowing smoothly down the road.  It has a GPS built in so that saved a lot of guesswork on which roads to take.  

Got the van loaded and headed out about 1 PM.  Pretty good drive, and fortunately was feeling fine from jet lag the whole day.  Stayed left and no major problems, although it started raining hard, and it eventually turned to snow off and on - crazy!  Finally got our way across Sendai to drop off a CRASH person who had ridden up with us, ate supper at McDonalds (it was the first day they were open for biz after the quake!), then headed over to the Evangelical Free Church guest house in Takayama.  

It was about 8:30 PM and dark so couldn't see too much but gradually we could see more and more devastation along the roads until we got to Shichigahama area and it was like a war zone.  We finally arrived and got settled in.  About 20 others staying here so some of us are on the floor and others on couches.  Some folks are leaving tomorrow so we won't be quite a tight the rest of the time.  We should be here the duration of our Sendai time so it'll be nice to sort of unpack.  Long, long day.  

Oyasumi nasai!  (Good night!)