6/28 Going Home

Our last bit of exploration in the morning brought us to a crowded underground passageway beneath Sendai Station

After a week of looking for a different flavor of coolish, these were found on the last day in the last five minutes of the last hour.

Not too thrilled to be going home

We took the train back to the airport. Not this train obviously

More goodbyes

Last meal in Japan

This took the sting out of saying all those goodbyes

A sight for sore eyes.

More goodbyes. Waiting for our rides. Back home, it's now quiet without my constant companions

6/27 Farewell Party

Our last night. No captions are necessary, just look at the smiles.

6/27 Shinchi Shoreline & Shoei JHS

We still had more time so we drove to the shoreline to see an area where many homes once stood

Huge empty spots all filled with debris or trash.

By the time we finished taking pictures, it was almost the end of school. Two future TALP delegates attended a nearby school and rather than head back to the hotel early, we were excited at the prospect of meeting them before they come to Hawaii.

Looking at the smiles, I'd say it was a worthwhile detour.

6/27 Hanakiyama Garden

Since both of our scheduled stops finished earlier than planned we drove up to Hanakiyama to visit a rose garden high above Shinchi.

The caretakers greeted us with apologies because all of its famous roses were out of season.

The remaining flowers (of other varieties) were still stunning

The host couple in the tea shop were so friendly. They even shared some homemade strawberry ice cream

Before we left, we combined our remaining gifts and presented them with some snacks and a calendar (that was coincidentally perfect -- Flowers of Hawaii)

6/27 Gangoya Temporary Housing

I quickly learned that this is a new community made up of displaced residents and that these are their new permanent homes deep in some fields behind the main city.

The residents all gathered in their community center awaiting our arrival

They were kind, generous and warm hearted

Some were very open about their experiences with the tsunami. Kristen points to where this man's house once was...beachfront.

6/27 Shinchi

After nearly a year, we were able to return to this quiet town in Fukushima with some of the friendliest people around.

Arriving at the town hall, we were escorted to the roof.

This miniature diorama had the new locations of some of the housing complexes.

We met the vice Mayor.

Part of me was disappointed that he was too busy to sit down with us. The other part of me was glad to skip that formality so we could do more.

6/26 Ogatsu

After an emotionally draining afternoon, we drove to Ogatsu, a small rural town in famous for its slate that was fine enough to provide a slate for Tokyo Station.

Daini Katsu Maru was found in East Oahu and returned to its original port after 4 years adrift due to the tsunami.

Amane and Kristen walk up from the beach to the slate cutting & preparing shop.

The slate production shop was nestled in a valley.

6/26 Okawa Elementary School

I'm sorry for the lack of updates beginning with yesterday afternoon. I started writing my thoughts and posted some pictures but could never complete the entry. It was a humbling experience that I found difficult to do it justice. I will have to revisit this entry later with some of my thoughts and reflections.

6/26 Kamiwarizaki Camp with Friends

Hanging out with old friends and making some new ones at Kamiwarizaki Camp (Rokuto and Yuno)

6/25 Minami Sanriku Beach Cleanup and Kamiwarizaki Camp

My apologies for the late post; there were many attempts to upload these pictures but it kept failing.

We started the morning on a drizzly morning in Kesennuma. Luckily it started to clear up as we began to leave.

Returning to Minami Sanriku for the beach clean up was a treat. We got to see many familiar faces and accomplish a lot.

On our drive to our last stop of the day, our driver pulled off to the side of the road to tells of this government building.

After the earthquake, community leaders swiftly gathered to start planning how to approach the recovery effort. During their meetings, they learned that there was an imminent threat of a tsunami approximately 10 ft high. Because their location was fairly inland and the building was 40 ft tall, they decided to stay in the building and start planning for the evacuation of the town. Soon they learned the height would be closer to 20 ft and they moved to the upper floors. The tsunami that struck was closer to 50 ft. Survivors clung to an antenna at the top of the building while one brave individual continued to make announcements over the community public address system of the true height of the tsunami and the need to evacuate even higher than planned.

We stopped again at a town called Togura. We learned that the students there had just practiced their evacuation drill and marched up to where we stood. The wave came up even higher than this and they had to scramble to even higher ground next to a shrine. While up there some students spotted a body of a firefighter clinging onto some debris swept from the next town over. They retrieved him and administered CPR and performed measures to prevent hypothermia until he recovered. Later it was realized that it was the same firefighter who visited their school to teach them CPR just two months earlier.

The gate of the shrine that the students had to run up to.

We arrived at our campsite and met the Rainbow For Japan Kids alumni who were already waiting for us. The camp is adjacent to a beautiful rocky coastline. 

After some exploration, we had a meal in the dining hall... This is no Camp Erdman.

The cabins are really tiny. I placed my camera on the far end and took this picture. Four of us stayed here overnight.

We had some fireworks after dinner.