Giving Back

Last week I had the privilege of giving a little back to this awesome host country I call home.  I found an organization in Tokyo called Second Harvest Japan

that prepares meals for the homeless every week and is also currently packaging food that is donated to send up north to families that are still struggling after the earthquake/tsunami and decided to volunteer some of my time.  The people of Japan have been some hospitable and warm towards me since I've been here, I feel donating a little of my time is the least I can do to say thank you.

My friend Melissa, her son, and I rode the train into Tokyo where we spent 2 hours (it was supposed to be longer, but we finished quicker than expected) with about 15 other people packing boxes with food.

Each box contained a large bag of rice, miso paste, soy sauce, cooking oil, vinegar, water, 2 cans of corn, 4 cans of tuna, 4 small boxes of candy, a mystery box (I think someone said it was a box of broth of some sort), a bag of MSG, a bowl of noodles, some type of dessert bars that looked like nutrigrain bars and hand wipes.  We also included a letter from the organization and a coloring page from a student in NY.

It was over 100 degrees with the heat index that day, and I'm sure a lot of my sweat literally dripped into those boxes, but I was so excited about what I was doing that I didn't barely noticed.

Melissa and I after 300 boxes were complete.  We can't wait to go back and do it again.

We decided we were hungry after packing all that food, so we grabbed some Japanese convenience store food before getting on the train back home.

yakisoba on a bun with mayo and ginger.  it's one of my favorite "on the go" foods here

what I thought was a salad turned out to be noodles with veggies and salmon and some Italian dressing.  Also quite yummy!

lastly, I had a rice ball that was stuffed with tuna salad and wrapped in seaweed (which I removed before eating)

 it was all way better than the chips or fast food we'd grab in the states.

(sorry for the crappy photo quality, the train was a little bumpy and the iPhone wouldn't focus)

Upon our arrival back at our home train station, we were greeted with a gorgeous double rainbow

The perfect end to a wonderful day!