After a good night’s sleep at the Grand Hotel in Ishinomaki we woke up and had breakfast before we went to Aeon and shopped some nabe (pot for cooking such as shabu-shabu). Ishihara-san wanted to buy a 100 nabe but they did not have more than 25 or so. So we bought them, and made an order to be shipped to Kobuchihama for the remaining 75 or so, using the money we have got from the flea markets.

It was quite lucky we were not able to buy more than the 25 nabe or we would not have got it into the car. The trunk was full of nabe. And we were on our way to Kobuchihama to distribute them.

We went back to the temporary home complex where we had helped arranging their common room. One of the women that live in the complex helped us distribute the nabe, providing a list of people that needed one and what size they needed. At the same time we also distributed electric blankets.

Although it sometimes is hard work it is always worth it when you see a smile on an unknown person’s face. And they are always so friendly wanting us to join them for tea, or giving some pickles that they have made themselves, or seaweed.

Once we had distributed all the things we (Ishihara-san, the woman helping us, Chie and me) went to visit a newborn baby. It was in the area where the woman helping us had once lived. We stopped by her former house as well, though there were nothing left of it. “Here was the entrance” she said, but there were only grass and some concrete there now. She continued telling us about the events just after the earthquake. How she and most people living in that area had run to a nearby hill to escape the tsunami.

She told us that once the tsunami was gone many people returned down to start picking up whatever they could from their destroyed homes. She had stayed on the hill holding on to a tree, when she heared cries for help from down below. A second wave. Taking most of the people that had returned back down with it. She stayed on the hill the whole night, freezing, before she dared to return back. Once she did return the next day there were dead people everywhere.

At around 4 pm we started our return home. We stopped a few times to eat and change driver on the way home. Finally at home we went almost directly to bed.