Tag Archives: Earthquake

Flea Market

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Helped out carrying things to and from the flea market for Kobuchihama this weekend. There were a lot of stuff and we had to do 2.5 trips with 2 cars to get it all to the place where we had the flee market.

On Sunday evening there were still quite a few things remaining and it had to be packed into boxes again. Fortunately most of it could be stored at the location for the next flee market. In total we go almost 600.000 JPY during the two days :-), all to be used for the people in Kobuchihama to recover from the 3.11 earthquake and tsunami. See some details here (Japanese).

3 x Astro Boy

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Went to the flee market to pack all the unsold things. The 3 Astro Boy Collector’s Special Edition were still unsold… So I bought them 🙂



Currently I have no idea what to do with the 25 cm tall “boys”. But that does not matter so much. The money I payed for them goes to a good cause. And my purchase also caused some good laugh among the Japanese. Both at the flee market and at Yasaka were we went after we packed the final things 😀

Flee Market for Kobuchihama

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After getting back home from my Beijing trip I had no time to relax. Just unpacked my bags and got ready to prepare for this weekend’s flee market for Kobuchihama. Chie picked me up with the car on her way to Ishihara-san after her work. At Ishihara-san we filled the car with things to sell at the flee market, things donated by individuals as well as companies, and drove it to the same place we always use for the flee market.

We only had two cars and we had to 2.5 roundtrips to get all the things to the flee market. Then we all helped out in unpacking it. Chie and I had learned out lesson the last time we helped out… Meaning doing nothing that had to do with organizing the layout or looks of things – the designer people took care of that. Instead we hang clothes on hangers and folded t-shirts for the hyakuen (100 JPY) corner.



At 10 pm the only thing that was left to do was the details, which Chie and I could not help out with… We are too much of engineers and like to categorize and group things in a much different way than designers and boutique owners want to 🙂 So we said our goodbyes and went for dinner.

I only had lunch on the flight so I was starving. We went to Yasaka and it was as always yummy, fun, and funny 😀

Returning from Beijing

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I was scheduled on an early flight from Beijing so I got up even earlier and got into a taxi without having breakfast. The ride to the airport was smooth though a little bit slow. Checkin was quick and I passed security without problems. I had almost no time for buying some gifts in the tax free shops and then I had to board.

Once aboard the airplane I just relaxed listening to music and waiting for the departure. Then the announced it was delayed due to the heavy rain and thunder over Beijing 🙁 I was back in Tokyo much later than I expected and hoped for, no time to get to the office before I had to do volunteer work… Tonight we were preparing for this weekend’s flee market to collect money for Kobuchihama.

Kobuchihama Starting to Move into Temporary Homes

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Finally the small fishing village of Kobuchihama is getting temporary homes. From August the first could start moving in to their new, but temporary, homes. However this has some complications.

From living together in group where all costs were shared to now living with only your family or alone. It also means many people need to get hold of things all of us take for granted in a home. But without any means to pay for it since they still have not got their fishing industry going. Resulting in that the only means to get an income is to go to the mainland and clean up areas that was destroyed by the tsunami. For that each person get 2000 JPY a day.

This also means the help we provide have changed. In the beginning they did not have anything. So the most urgent and important things to help out with at that time was water and food. But now they have a small income and food supplies reach the area so there is food available in grocery stores etc. Some still need help with the basic things for starting their new life in the temporary homes though.

With the help from Ishihara-san, we have shipped a few things directly to some families that recently moved into their new temporary homes. The basic need is to be able to keep it clean so they had asked for help getting vacuum cleaners, dehumidifiers, and air cleaner. You can find the details here.