As some of you know, I just returned on a trip from Japan. Fewer of you may know that it was a rescheduling of a trip that originally was supposed to happen in March of 2011.
When the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami happened, I immediately became glued to the coverage on live TV and on news sites. What I was gradually discovering was that there was a significant lag between what became approved to be announced here on our end, versus what was being shared on social media outlets such as Twitter. In fact, most Twitter updates later proved to be accurate, and proved to be an excellent source of finding additional information and fact checking other updates.
Crowds in Shinjuku waiting for long-distance night buses. This is how you travel on the dirt-cheap in Japan.. twitter.com/HirokoTabuchi/…
— Hiroko Tabuchi (@HirokoTabuchi) November 5, 2011
She was basically heading up to volunteer with a group called It's Not Just Mud.For all intents and purposes, it was the exact answer I had been looking for. For INJM, it was as simple as "just come". We'll find you a place to stay and stuff to do, and for that it was more than enough for me. So with that vital piece figured out, my itinerary for my time off was set, 4 days up in Ishinomaki City, then back down to Tokyo for the remainder. Ambitiously, I flew out of Chicago on Sunday morning, took an odd connecting flight to Dallas, and finally arriving in Tokyo about 16 hours later. Once in Tokyo and more literally Shinjuku, I had to kill about 4 hours until the overnight bus left to take me up north. Now, there are shinkansen (bullet trains) that will take you up to Sendai, but it's twice as expensive. To keep things cost effective, I used an overnight bus company, and one that had an English language website to boot: Willer. I sat in one of these on the way there:
And one of these on the way back:
On this trip, I realized how useful it would be to have internet access on my phone, which paired up with GPS proved to be invaluable time and time again. This was solved by renting a wireless hotspot which worked almost everywhere, including subway stations. Of course, the biggest challenge was keeping both my phone and the hotspot charged. I couldn't help but make a quick stop at one of my favorite areas in Tokyo: Shibuya.Shibuya Crossing at Night:
Hachiko:
Finally it was off to decipher these directions to the bus station, courtesy of Willer. It took a lot of going around in circles in the bowels of Shinjuku Station, I'm not going to lie. In 2007, an average of 3.64 million people used this station per day. Think about that. <br /> Anyway, once I finally found the Eye of Shinjuku, I knew I was on the right path:
Heck, I even found a Sizzler for good measure!
(and the menu, if you were curious) 
And here's the building the bus terminal was:
Finally, I was on the bus and on the way. Being a 6 hour trip, meant that the entire bus was darkened and that we got about 2 rest stops of about 20 minutes. I skipped the first rest stop, but the second rest stop actually had warm cooked food even that late at night. Eventually, I made it to Sendai. 
But, it wasn't quite clear to me where the bus to Ishinomaki City was in relation to where we got dropped off. So I had to bug some fellow passengers that appeared to be locals, on where the bus stop might be using my broken Japanese. One of them happened to be walking in that direction anyway, and offered to walk with me with a friendly: "Issho ni". At last, the correct bus stop!
And off I went, on what ended up to be a longer bus ride than normal due to traffic on the highway. The big question was, would they know to pick me up? 
The answer?
To be continued in Part 2...