Blood Sucker in Shibuya

In between appointments, I had 1.5 hour wandering around by myself in Shibuya, one of the busiest districts in Tokyo.  As I was swimming through the sea of people, a red cross caught my eyes. It was the blood donation center of Red Cross Japan. For some reasons I thought to myself, “I have nothing to do now anyways, why don’t I go give blood?”

        Yup, just like that.

So a few moments later, I found myself filling out a form, given a locker, and in a roomful of snacks, free drinks and manga/magazines. Hagandez ice cream, donuts, cookies, sweets, and all you can drink free drinks ranging from sport drinks, coffee, carbonated drinks and hot soups.  I guess if they want to pump something out from you, they have to pump something in first and afterward XD  The corn soup and seafood flavor miso soup were yummy! 

The doctor who went through the questionnaire with me saw that I have filled Ofunato as my address, so he asked what I am doing about there. I told him I am a volunteer in the Northeast.  He told me he came from that area too, and his grandmother was lost in the tsunami too.  A strange connection arose from inside, and we smiled at each other.  An unimaginable disaster of deep waters and trembles has destroyed countless lives. But somehow, in some inexplicable ways, lives from different worlds and all walks of life are intertwined through this web of debris, loss and death.  Whether willingly or unwillingly, Tohoku, is the place that has linked us all together.  However the circumstance we met, as Ann Sally sings, “I am glad that you came inside my life.”