A New Day

I did it. This is my first post-Japan blog. (We'll see how long this lasts). I have gotten a note that my blogs were perhaps a little long for the reading, so I will take that into consideration.

I have been thinking quite a bit lately about some of my biggest weaknesses and taking steps to change them.

1) Procrastination

2) Attitude

3) Timidity

I am proud to say that, to combat procrastination, I started my papers earlier. I completed a ten page paper nearly 24 hours ahead of time. This is quite odd for me since all-nighters are no strangers to me. This will hopefully be carried over into my next 3 big assignments especially since they are all due about the same time :S. I'm getting books for a ten-pager due the 22nd today, so yay!

With regard to attitude, I think this may be the one I am struggling with the most. To me, especially as of late, work has been extremely bad-attitude enducing....not because of the actual work, but because of the contagious bad-attitudes of the co-workers mixed with a lonliness that somewhat carried over from Japan and some what was due to change in school. Val graduated last year, so she has disappated...I mean ....isn't at the school. To Japan, it is somewhat lonely not having anyone your own age to hang out with mainly because you can't speak hardly any of their language and they don't like using their english much because they don't think their's is very good. But I have been thinking mainly on God and being a good model at work. It's hard to be in a bad mood when you are thinking on good things :). I have also been taking initiative in asking friends over.

And in regards to timidness, i have put myself out of my comfort zone and made myself do things i have been terrified for one reason or another to do in my past years. Case and point, I signed myself up not only for being a prayer leader in regular chapel, but also being an mc and signed up to be a singer for chapel praise bands. I was quite scared to discover that my signiture to become an mc for chapel, just welcoming and introducing, was placed onto the duty of becoming this semester's first prayer chapel leader. I was so scared and uncomfortable with this.... I am uncomfortable praying out loud. But I took that and threw it into my prayer chapel mix.

I began by removing all of the chairs from the chapel, with permission of course. And then continued by making everyone take their shoes off before they came into chapel. Ther main purpose of the chapel was to challenge everyone to do something they were uncomfortable doing because being comfortable thwarts growth. The main prayer topics, though, were on missions. We started with a free for all prayer of praise to God. It was AMAZING hearing all of those voices joined in prayer bouncing off of the very nice acoustic-y walls in the chapel. It resonated. Then we split into 3 groups depending on mission experience and prayed over certain areas of the world where missions are taking place or need to take place. We then prayed over Summit's part in the mission. Followed by a different kind of free-for-all circle prayer where each class prayed over their underclassmen. Concluding with another free-for-all prayer for the individual, it was awesome. I loved the free-for-all prayers because you had to get out of your comfort zone to pray out loud while dozens of other voices are going out. You really had to focus on God.

But, there you go. It feels good to get that out there. :)

la sange su la branche

This will most likely be my last post in Japan.....I may keep blogging...maybe just for updates for those who don't see me everyday. Or to be used as an excuse for Laura to come feed my fish. :P

I realize that I didn't blog yesterday after the party.........
So about 3 on Saturday afternoon we had kids club over at ECS. There were maybe 4 or 5 new kids that I have never met along with their mamas. It was pretty cool. The story was the parable of the fish in the net. Laura and Keiko conjointly (is that a word?) read it and then the kids went fishing for these little plastic fish, turtles, and ducks in a fridge drawer that was cleaned and pulled upstairs. Then Laura and I tore apart a laundry bag and stapled its netlike fabric onto some blue paper for kids to put their colored paper fish in. It was pretty fun. Part of the laundry bag was just this white strip of fabric which i found fit perfectly around my head.

And now we know that hippies actually originated from people coming to Japan. It took my last few days and a simple makeshift headband to transform me into.......a hippie! I pulled out some bongos and raved about peace in a stoned kinda movie-stereotyped hippie way. I also transformed Keiko into a hippie. We planned to do a sit-in before one little girl stole Keiko's headband thus stripping her of her power.

After kids club I quickly ran (and by ran I mean walked....and not all that quickly) over to the birdie store to buy butter rolls and some Pringles for the ice cream party. Because it was so close to dinner time, we also had sandwiches and stuff.

Nobuko from Tuesday classes stopped by just to say hi! I was happy to see her.

After the party, I just hung around ECS with Aki and Keiko for a bit. One of the funny things was they were marveling at my gold arm hair. It made me giggle.



Today, we went to Kamo for church. After lunch, we filled up water balloons so the kids could have a water balloon fight. I didn't want to get wet because A) I didn't bring extra clothes and B) I am leaving tomorrow and didn't really need the hassle of trying to dry clothes before packing them. (We don't have a dryer).
So I sat back and watched as the kids threw balloons at Nathan.......and they weren't breaking and NO one was getting wet. So I HAD to join in. I doused Kei...soaked Becka....and got myself wet in the process. :S Currently, my clothes are hanging in front of a fan.....and hoping to be dry by tomorrow morning (maybe?)

So now....I'm chilling out.....after finishing packing my main bags (which I might have to pay extra because of all the stuff packed in). ^~^'. Hopefully it all gets back in one piece.

So I will soon be seeing some of you readers.....please pray for my flight and also please pray for Joshy's surgery next week (tonsils and adnoids) and that he stays healthy up until then.

If you can't say anything nice......

That's not really the reason for my lack of blog this week. It has been CRAZY between packing and *cough cough* last minute papers and such. And for some reason my body decided that it was very tired, so when I had free time I would zonk out for a nice, long, 2 or so hour nap. ^~^'

So this is going to be my week in a nutshell. So.....I believe that I blogged about Monday a little, So I will start w/Tuesday.

TUESDAY
Tuesday morning, while I was havin' my coffee I was being harassed by a pop up box on my computer. Everytime I tried to do something....POP UP BOX! Laura and Jerry told me I was losing my mind because I was threatening to file for a restraining order against this pop up box.

Unfortunately, Machiko was the only one in the ladies class today. I knew Tomomi wouldn't be there, but I didn't know about Nobuko. But we had a really nice chat, and Machiko told me that if I come back to visit, I could homestay at her house! That made me so happy! She is such a sweet lady, I'm going to miss her a ton.


WEDNESDAY
Laura and I went a bit early to ECS today so that we could run over to #1 Coffee!!! for a last internship/plans for the future kind of meeting. We talked about what I needed to get done still.....which is like another paper... and what I wanted to do after school. Then we headed back to ECS for Wednesday classes. I helped a bit for the first 2 classes while at the same time juggled catchin' up on my daily log because of camp.
Then, for the girls' class, I took them on a bearhunt. Laura needed to talk to preschool mothers about Joshy's surgery date (he's getting his tonsils out). So I took the girls on a bearhunt because they were learning the words 'in', 'on', and 'under'. So I had them crawl on some pillows, under a table, and then in a fabricated cave. Then we read "Going on a Bearhunt." I don't really know if they enjoyed it, but Laura thought it was a neat idea.
For the last class, Chisa joined us and we played "Speaker Friendly". It was a lot of fun. After class, keiko, Aki, Chisa and I hung out at ECS. We just chatted and stuff...it was way fun. I'm going to miss them alot. Hopefully we will be able to hang out Today after the ice cream party.

THURSDAY
I'll pass on this one....I didn't do much at all. Went to lunch w/Joshy and Laura. Walked around and then took a nice long nap. The end.

FRIDAY
So, for Friday, Laura and I left a bit early so I could mail my Fuji Stick back to the states. Amazingly enough, it would NOT fit in my luggage. haha. Then we bought lunch from the bakery. Because it was my last bible study, we got my favorite sweet roll for dessert. It tastes like it has honey butter. It's WAY good.
I was very pleasantly surprised that Machiko came to lunch and bible study. I think the main reason she came was to see me, but I'm glad she came for the study and I think she'll be coming back for it.
After the study (Deut. 8-9), Machiko helped me put on my yukata! She taught me how to put it on and how to fold it when I am done! It was fun wearing my yukata. I also, because Japanese class was on summer vacation, was able to stay for the English class and all of Mommy & me. I also helped with the preschool class. Then Keiko and I went to the sweets shop on the corner and bought some sweets to bring back with me. Keiko bought a Japanese pickled suika (watermelon). It was small, don't worry.....like baseball size. She had me try it. Interesting, to say the least.



SATURDAY
You will be getting another blog today, because Saturday is NOT over here. We just went grocery shopping this morning!

She likes cloth. That would be a good band name.

Sooo.....yeah.
Saturday!!!
Since Drew and his interns were staying with us, I slept downstairs and was awaken a little after 7 by Kei who was anxious to watch Curious George......which wasn't on for another hour. O.o So she went into Joshy's room to play and came out a few minutes later with, "Mama, Joshy said he wants to come out to play." ..............Joshy can't really talk. Even with all he CAN say, 'Mama, I want to go play in the living room' is not something he can say. I was layin' in bed thinking "Please, no. Just 10 more minutes. PLEASE!" Thankfully Joshy wasn't brought out until about 8 when Curious George started. So I got myself a cup of nuked coffee, and sat down on my invaded bed, a.k.a. a sleeping bag and a thick blanket, and watched Curious George. Later on....like.....5 hours later, Laura took me and her oven (like a microwave oven) to the church for a cookie baking class put on by Chikako and Erica of California.
I didn't actually make anything.....I just took pictures and ate the samples ;) haha. The main reason for me going was that I was going to stay at Chisa's house as a homestay and she was going to the cooking class. It was fun though.
After the cooking class, Chisa and I , followed by Keiko, headed out to Niigata University for an okonomiyaki party....because Chisa's apartment is quite small. Once at the University, Chisa chopped veggies and Keiko and I took a little tour. Once we got to the medical mechanics (somethin' like that) part, we played in the wheelchairs and even took them for a cruise down the halls to see Chisa! haha It was soooooo fun!
After a while, Noboru Sasaki and his family + Rie-san and her sons+Erica came out to the University. Chisa made us okonomiyaki. It's pretty muc like a Japanese pancake with stuff in it.
First you poor the "pancake" batter, then you put stuff on it like cabbage, bean sprouts, and green onions. Then you put on some soba or udon noodles (soba is thin noodles and udon is thick) and then an egg. The fun part is flippin' the thing over. :S.
After the okonomiyaki, we all played around a bit and then cleaned up and headed out. On the way up the steps to Chisa's apartment (not at the University), there were a bunch of dead semis (cicadas). When we reached her floor, there was an espcially big one (these things are like 3 inches or so), so I touched it with my foot. The thing flew up at me screeching and I dropped everything I was carrying because it scared me so bad. haha Chisa just laughed at me.
We talked and hung out all night and then headed to bed so we could go to church.
I didn't really do anything but laze about the house and recover from the week on Sunday, so I'll pass.

Monday!
Today, the girls headed out to camp. I went out shopping and then came back to fix dinner. I made chicken parmesean and it was a big hit! Yay! See? I can cook. After dinner we watched some James Bond! Woot!

Prayers:
Joshy got knocked out for some tests today.
I'm prepping all my stuff, getting ready to leave next week. :'(

CAMP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 'n' stuff

Ok, so.... you may have noticed that I haven't blogged in almost a week. But then again....you may not. I dunno, I can't keep tabs on who continuously reads my blog or doesn't read it so I can go guilt tripping all over the place haha. But anywho, I have been at camp since Monday! So here's camp for you.

Monday!

So...Monday we loaded up, sorta, in the van and headed to the camp. We actually loaded up in waves. Nathan and I were the first battalion sent in. Laura took the two of us to the camp to help set stuff up, and then she stole Maki Sasaki and went shopping for food stuffs or something important like that. I made the schedule for the week into a poster with the help of Ami Sasaki, Amy, a girl from the California group, and Nathan. Actually.....Ami helped me draw lines and pick colors and Amy was questioning everything I was doing haha. Nathan helped me draw pictures to take up space. Then Nathan and I helped Noboru with registration and name tags for the campers. Kei and Ami were nice enough to help Nathan and me make the name tags.

Then we filed all the campers into the gym for orientation. We assigned them their study groups and let them chose their workshops.

We had pizza for dinner (mmmm) and then had music time. Then we whisked away the kids who wanted to be in our workshops to their respected areas. I was helping Daniel and Mitsu (technically pronounced Mee-tsoo or Mee-ts in the Japanese but since he is from California, he was called Mitts) with a skit. I actually ended up helping a whole lot more with that than I planned. We were doing a modern day prodigal son written by Daniel and Mitsu, so we were assigning parts. Two boys wanted to be the prodigal son, so we had sons. Two of the girls, including Kei, were cast as friends along with another boy. And the last girl was the policeman....yes, there was a policeman. Amy, mentioned earlier, was also in our group, but she wasn't feeling well and was seperated from the rest of the kids. When we were casting the parts, Mitsu asked who wanted to be the dad. We had three boys plus two male sponsers....no problem, right? When asked, all the boys pointed at.......ME! They wanted ME to be otousan! What the?! We let Mitsu be the dad, though. I was cast as the narrator.

We then sent the little kids and elementaries off to bed, and the adults and high schoolers had bath/social time.....which, for me and my campers ended up being just bath time. haha. The baths we used are called ofudon. There are shower heads and hoses lower on the wall. You sit on this little stool, use the shower head/hose to get wet, then you soap up, rinse off and then hop into this big community bath tub. Don't worry, though, folks. We did seperate guys and girls at this thing. We set different times for the genders and/or sent one to one ofudon and the other to the other. Does that make any sense? I hope so.

When we got back to our room, and by we I mean Keiko and I plus Erica from California and Lucie and Kiyomi (High School students), Erica crashed from jet lag. I was a bit tired, but not too bad, and the other girls weren't used to going to bed so early (maybe 10, 10:30?), so we stayed up and read or chatted a bit before turning off the lights and trying to sleep. We all (the 5 of us plus Junko from the kitchen staff) stayed in one small room and slept on futons (which, if you don't know already, is pretty much like the matress part of an american futon...only more soft and comfy) with little pillows that, I think, were filled with plastic beads.....it was interesting, needless to say.

Tuesday!

I actually had a dream Monday night that all of the girls in the room save Erica and Junko slept in til 4:00pm, so I woke up at 6 am, reached over and grabbed Keiko's phone to see what time it was, slightly waking everyone in the room, before apologizing and going back to sleep. Wow....that was quite the run-on-ish sentence...sorry Mr. Feilder.

When we all finally woke up, it was about 7:45 which left us 15 minutes to scramble before breakfast! Fred, from the California team, actually came down to the cabin and yelled to make sure everyone was up for breakfast. We had pancakes, by the way.

One of the things I was put in charge of was to make table markers and drawing pieces so we could have a drawing for who had to help with dishes. There was a sun table, a star table, and a moon table. Monday night, the Sun table had to help with dishes. I got some groans from that because Nathan, Jerry and one of the California guys were sitting at that table ^_^. This morning the Sun table drew the Star table for dishes.....I was....sitting at the star table :S.

After breakfast was study time. Keiko, Lucie and Kiyomi were in Nathan and mine's group. (Is that grammarically correct? I don't even know...wow, and I taught English this week :S). We played a little game of charades to help them think of English words, and also to help them start thinking on present continous verbs (-ing's). It was really fun. Everyone did really well and was really good with their English. Lucie, an exchange student from the Czech Republic, was especially good with her English. We had fun, and then we just chatted for a bit after the game.

Then there were crafts. I didn't really help or do anything with crafts but walk around. The kids were making wooden models or paper fans and the adults were starting on silk screen hangings and making cards.

For Lunch, we had bacon cheeseburger or ham n cheese roll ups. And the Star table drew the Moon table for dishes.....I, again, was sitting at that table.

Then we had a breif bible time with singing and a biblical skit + a short message from Fred. Then was study time again for the older campers and nap time for the younger ones. We played Sorry for our study time. The game lastest....forever! Everyone got down to having one pawn one space away from winning and we were all waiting for that right card.....we pretty much went through the whole deck twice to get that last card. Keiko won, and Nathan and I, who were teaming it, LOST! Lucie had to leave after group time...it was way sad.

Then was free time and bath. Noboru took almost all of the campers and staff to the beach. I opted not to go and played a quick game of Idiots (yes, dad, you will learn it when I get home) and Egyptian Rat Race with Jerry before zonking out at a table. haha

I woke up for dinner. We had fried chicken and mac 'n' cheese. I was asked to help feed Joshy, the Mort's handicapped little boy. He is such a cutie. Thankfully, he was eating quite nicely and not throwing his food, but he was being all floppy and sleepy, so I cleaned him up and put him down on the floor. The Moon table drew the sun table for dishes.... I was....NOT sitting at that table....but I somehow ended up helping clean up anyway. (Seeing a slight pattern here?....I don't mean me cleaning, either).

Then we had group time. I took the "friends" and helped them with their lines. Kei, who...ya know....speaks english, had no problems whatsoever with her lines. Keita (the boy) did have some trouble, so I shaved down his line to two words. The youngest in our group was named Hikari. Her line was "Drive fast!" She said it perfectly! It was so cute and funny.

Us girls went down to the seminary's ofudon, took baths, and then talked a bit in the cabin before we all crashed. It was funny, though, because when we were heading out of the cabin to head to the ofudon, this huge harlequin beetle flew in and everyone freaked out. Erica turned off the light hoping the outside light would attract it. haha Then we turned teh light back on and found it on the floor. We didn't want to squish it, so Kiyomi grabbed a broom and started to.... golf it outside, but after the first hit, she didn't want to hit it that way anymore because the genkan where all the shoes are was over there and she didn't want it in the shoes. So I grabbed the broom and flicked it out the door and onto the steps, then i flicked it from the steps onto the roof of the neighboring building. The thing was waiting by the door for us when we got back from the bath, so i used Erica's flashlight to shove it off the stairs again. haha.

Wednesday!!!

I woke up at 7:40 this time....now that I knew there was an alarm haha. Then went to breakfast which was bacon, eggs and toast. I was tired of doing dishes, so I sat at the exempt table. The sun table drew the star table for dishes (O.O).

For study time, Keiko and Kiyomi played a game where they had to use past tense verbs. Afterwards, we played spoons.....but with markers. We forgot the spoons. It was fun because Keiko and I were being really sneaky with our taking of the "spoons". Nathan almost got all the letters for spoons, but he lucked out cause we ran out of time. For crafts, I helped kids make pencil toppers. Word for future referance....googly eyes are difficult to glue to pipe cleaners. But I was happy because Moka and Tomomi from ECS classes came.

For lunch, we had speghetti! yay! The star table drew the moon table for dishes. (Are you getting it?)

Tomomi joined us for the next study session. We played a game like we did yesterday but with future tense verbs. This one was weirder, though, and was asking them about outer space and future houses and cars. It was really wierd. Then we played spoons! with real spoons! It was fun.

Then we played some sort of chair soccer game thing in the gym. I dunno.... but our team dominated by getting 7 goals! Then there was free time and bath. I played idiots with Jerry, Nathan and Amy (an adult...not the kid).

We had a bbq for supper, so no dishes. But we had a drawing for who went first....moon table drew moon table....but sun table didn't listen to directions and jumped into line. haha. We had burgers and hot dogs. Then we cleaned up a bit and had bible time followed by groups. Our group was unruly and I was completely ready to tear my hair out!

After groups, we had a mock camp fire in the gym because it was kinda rainy out. We sang songs, played a game, and then roasted marshmellows over propane hotplates for s'mores. For the game, everyone was split into 5 groups and were given strips of paper with red, blue or green words on them. Then, using those words, the campers made a silly sentence. One of the sentences resulted in me licking a porcupine. O.o

After the "fire" we took baths, and then Keiko and I talked about words in her dictionary for a while before going to bed.

Thursday!!

Woke up, and then put my futon away and packed my stuff. We went to breakfast and had muffins and fruit....plus two cups of coffee. For the drawing, sun table was drawn for dishes. One of the kids at sun table was wondering if i was putting all the papers for the tables in the cup. Know why? The drawing, not including placement for the bbq, went sun, star, moon, sun, star, moon, sun. Even some of the staff was thinking I was stacking the drawings. But I wasn't. I took all the pieces of paper out of my cup and showed the boy who asked that I did in fact have all the pieces of paper in the cup. I had been sitting at sun table, but I had to skip dishes to clean the bathroom in the dining hall.

After breakfast we had a quick time to practice with our workshop groups before a recital. There was our skit group, Erica and Fred's puppet group, Jerry and Nathan's pantomime group, and then Keiko and Kiyomi were in the music group. It was a fun recital.

After the recital was a short bible time, then we packed everything and cleaned up the cabins a bit before lunch. We had taco rice for lunch, and ........star table had to do dishes. Before the drawing, I took each piece of paper, showed the tables at the front of the room, and put them in the cup so everyone would know I wasn't cheating. haha

After lunch we said good bye to campers and had a final staff meeting to discuss how the camp went. A quiet time and some cushion time will be a must for next year.

Nathan and I went back breifly with Laura to clean up a bit before going back to the camp with Drew Glosson (the guy who helped me at the train station when I first arrived) and two interns with him for Senenkai, the young adults bible study.

It was so much fun. There was a Somen slide. It is the traditional way to eat somen. You fill your bowl with the somen soup (it's cold...so it's kinda more like sauce) and then stand by this slide and someone sends the somen noodles down this little waterslide and you have to pluck the noodles from the slide and then dip then into your soup for eating. I enjoyed it alot! Then Nathan and Aki/Chisako played janken (rock paper scissors) to decide if the girls or guys would do dishes. Girls lost ^_^' so I ended up with dish duty again. haha

We played a game afterwards and then Noboru gave a short devo and we took a picture. Then we hung out for a bit. Drew and his interns were staying at the Mort's, so to give them a bit more room, Nathan and I stayed at the camp again.

Friday!

So Nathan woke me up at 7 this morning. He had to be back to catch a 7:46 train, so Noboru was taking us back to the Mort's. I have honestly been awake since. Just hung out until about 11:30 or so before Laura and I went to get lunch for bible study.

My last Japanese class was after bible study, and unfortunately I wasn't able to go out for coffee with Dong afterward because she was busy. But we exchanged e-mail addresses. There was no after Japanese class class at ECS, so we went to McDonald's for supper, and I have been hanging out here at the Mort's ever since!

So there's my week. I know it's a bit long, and I apologize. I will also have a short break from blogging this weekend because I am doing another homestay, this time with Chisako! So enjoy and I will talk to you (figuratively) later!

Caffiene IV Stat!

Hello! I know it's been a little while, but I have become WAY busy the last few days. Saturday, I was picked up by Rie Sasaki, Noboru's sister-in-law, for a homestay. A homestay, for those who don't know, is a stay in a home of a different culture.
Our first stop was the library. Rie has two little boys under the age of 5, Takeshi and Tsuyoshi. So we got a plethera of kids books including 3 English kids books. When we got to her house, everybody took short little naps while she made lunch. Rie is a VERY good cook. We had curried rice for lunch. And yes, Japanese curry and Indian curry are very much different. It tasted slightly the same, but it wasn't nearly as hot or, I dunno, not likeable? haha
I played with Takeshi after lunch and Rie got to slip in a nap. Now, Takeshi and Rie can both speak pretty good english, Rie more so. But, games like tag and hide-and-seek? Not called that here. (Well, duh!) But I didn't know what they were called, so Takeshi kept saying "Kakurembo" and "Oni....(something or other)" while looking at me expectantly. It wasn't until Rie-san came down from her short nap that I found out what Takeshi wanted from me. haha
We also played like 15 games of "Headache" or Cones. It's kinda like Sorry! only simpler, and the pieces look like traffic cones. And I read the English kids books that we got twice each.
Afterward we went kani fishing.....or crab fishing. We took along little chopstick poles tied with thread and went out to try and catch crabs. Unfortunately, we didn't see any crabs...just tadpoles.
For supper, we had somen and tempura. It was delicious.

I also found out that Rie embrioders for money. She showed me some kimono fabric that she had done, and lemme tell ya....it was absolutely gorgeous!!!
She draped the fabric on me to show me what it would look like. I didn't like the pics of me :S, but I loved the fabric! It is going to make a beautiful kimono!
We all took baths (not at the same time), and then played another game of cones and watch Adventures in Odyssey. Then we all headed upstairs to go to bed.

SUNDAY!!!

Woke up, had breakfast (cereal, melon, sausage, eggs, cucumber and coffee), then we all went to church. After church, we headed back to the house for some steak and salad. And later on, after a nap on my end, we had chicken for supper.
Then, some ladies that are staying at the house went with Kei, Bekah and I to the beach for Gyon Matsuri fireworks! I didn't get to wear my yukata because it had been raining. :(
Kei and I got seperated from our heard without a phone and were trying to find either our group or Keiko at the beach......but like half of Kashiwazaki was there, so we just went back to the house and finished watching the fireworks from the roof accompanied by Nathan, Robin and browines and root beer. What we saw of the fireworks was amazing. They were huge! The Japanese word for fireworks is Hanabi....which basically means fire flower. And that was an accurate description tonight. Most of the fireworks looked like flowers. They also had smiley faces, waterfalls, Saturns, and raccoons. It was awesome!





Ok. That's all I've got for ya! Starting tomorrow is English camp, so I'll be MIA from the blogging scene til Thursday night....and I can almost guarentee you won't here from me on Thursday.

Please pray for the success and ministry of this camp and for the workers that they will lead in God's word.

Thursday night, after Jerry got back from work, Laura and I packed up in the car and drove to Kanazawa! We stayed the night at Toyoko Inn. The rooms were really tiny. Only two maybe twin size beds with a bit of room between and a desk. And a small bathroom. After discussing our plans for the next day, we played some cribbage and then went to bed.
We woke up around 6:30-7, got ready, deposited our luggage in the car, and then walked to Starbucks! We then got in the car and drove to Kanazawa, Kenroku-en. Kanazawa castle is one of the only castles still standing in Japan, and its being renovated. Kenroku-en is the huge garden belonging to the Kanazawa castle. Laura and I didn't go over to the castle, but we did walk around Kenroku-en. There is a stone lantern that is very famous in this garden, and it has because the face of Kenroku-en. Also, in the same area of the park, is this pine tree that they have "trained" to spread out over a pond. It was really awesome to see. We also went and saw the Shrine and Sacred Well just outside of Kenroku-en. The Samurai house remains were over that way, too, but we didn't stop to see them.
After looking at the shrine, we went to Seisonkaku, which is the mother-in-law's house. Funny enough, this house is basically on the other side of the garden from the castle. :D Seisonkaku was gorgeous, though. Inside, they had little displays of things owned by the castle family like Kimonos, hair pins, boxes, more. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but it was really cool to see.
We also went to a museum for prefectural art. This stuff was AMAZING. All handmade. They had laquere wear, had embriodered silk kimonos, as well as other hand painted and hand crafted items. It was awesome.
We looked around at the little shops after that. They had sweets shops, pottery shops, just all around gift shops, and more. One shop, because gold leaf is a well known product in Kanazawa, had gold leaf ice cream; ice cream with flecks of gold leaf in it. It was 600 yen a cone (about $6)! After checking out all the shops our little hearts desired, as well as buying omeyage (presents), we ate lunch at McDonalds and headed back to Kashiwazaki in time for Gyon Matsuri. Gyon Matsuri is like a cultural festival. Today was dancing in the street, which I actually was able to do a bit with Keiko. It was fun. Tomorrow is "Take your god for a walk" day. Basically, all the shrines bring out their portable shrines and walk the streets. Sunday is the fireworks, and I am way excited to wear my yukata for them!
Tomorrow, I am doing a homestay with Rie Sasaki. It's going to be interesting, indeed. Then this next week is English Camp. Please pray for English Camp and the success of reaching those who are tied to ECS!

Pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=287700&id=814700376

Gyon Matsuri Video:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=250407605376&ref=nf

Mount Fuji! And the following days

Ok....Sorry for this being so late. So Here's my tale!

Saturday we all woke up at 4:30 in the morning to head out to Fuji. We hikers tried to get some sleep in the car. Tried being the opperative word :S.
Once we reached the town at the foot of the mountain, we picked up Cory, a former ECSer from Tokyo. We all grabbed some water bottles and started up the mountain about 10 or 11 am. Our first stop was Sengen (sp?) Temple, the traditional trail's starting point. We looked around for a few minutes and then bought some Fuji walking sticks (everybody but Nathan). The Fuji sticks are a good souvenior from Fuji because almost every station and shop along the way has a brand that they can burn into your stick for 200 yen (about $2).
The first part of the trail, about 5 stations, I was expecting certain things....including buildings that were intact. That was NOT the case, however. haha In fact, we had problems finding certain stations....like the real 4th and real 5th stations. We did have a bit of fun going up that way, though. We reached 6th station as the sun was about set. We followed a tour group up to 7th station in the dark. The intent was to make it to 8th station. We made it to 7th before I couldn't go any farther. I was cold, exhausted, not wanting to climb in the dark, and because I was kind of pushing myself to go quickly, I was feeling light headed and dizzy. So we each shelled out 5000 yen ($50....it really wasn't worth that much :S) for a spot at 7th station. The lodging there were basically two really long bunk beds. Basically we all paid for a small bean filled pillow and half a blanket to sleep with. I was wedged between Robin and Cory...and had to share my blanket :'(. No one really slept that well, 1) because it wasn't comfortable and 2) because there was a guy in the same room who snored like a bull dog with a nightmare.
We woke up around 4:30 again. We all had Cup of Ramen (blech) for breakfast, and then took pictures of the sunrise. To see these pictures, plus other Fuji pictures, follow this link:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=286375&id=814700376&ref=mf

We started heading up to 8th station around 6 or 7. There were many 8th stations....we were kinda getting tired of the next station always being either another 7 or another 8. One station we stopped at, we bought some hot chocolate and they let us sit inside........for 15 minutes haha. When we got up to station 8.5, we stopped and ate some lunch and chilled for a bit. Almost everyone was tired. Not to mention it was cold, slightly rainy, and very, very windy outside. Jerry and Nathan each saw someone almost blown off the mountain.
I hurried the rest of the way up...haha....I was the 2nd in our group to the top! Yeah! I got up a little after 2 pm. Nathan was the first. We hung around and chilled in this restaraunt/gift shop at the top while we waited for everyone. Because of the wind and the clouds, you couldn't see ANYTHING on top of the mountain. There was no pretty view or anything.
After everyone made it up, we rested for a short bit. Cory wasn't feelin' too hot. But we were told to hurry back down the mountain because of the weather. So we hurried back down to 8.5 and then waited for Robin. Robin had a double blow out on her shoes, which were starting to come apart before we started climbing and were practically in half when we got back down to 8.5. Cory had to catch a 6pm train, so went on ahead of us. We started down the trail, going down to a sign we remembered seeing that showed us the decending trail WE needed to be on. But this tour lady told us we couldn't go down the way we were because we were going down the ascending trail to get to that sign. So we turned around and went the opposite direction and DID actually get on the right trail....to begin with. Somehow, we ended up on the wrong trail which was taking us down the other side of the mountain and was adding at least another 1 1/2 hours to our decending time.
Jerry and I went on ahead of Robin and Nathan. The decending trail we ended up on was pure sand, which I found easiest to practically skate down. We needed to get down to the 5th station where Laura, who was originally waiting at the 5th station we planned on coming down at, was coming to pick us up. So Jerry and I got down and then I was collapsed on a bench as we waited for Laura to pick us up and for Robin and Nathan to make it down. Thankfully, they arrived at the same time. So we scraped up our remains and plopped into the car by about 10:30pm...about 5 hours later than we were originally planning. We were going to go to an onsen (a natural hot spring) when we got down, but the latest onsen closed at 11. So we just opted for McDonalds drive thru and quick showers when we got back to Kashiwazaki at about 3 am. The next morning, though I expected to sleep pretty much all day, I woke up at 9.

I had a camp meeting to go to at the Sasaki's house, but then as soon as we got back, I crashed at six, waking up at 11 or so and then going back to bed shortly after that.

Tuesday!
I went to ECS early Tuesday because Machiko, one of the ladies from first class, was going to teach me how to make the tea for a tea ceremony! It was fun, and Machiko said I did it very well. If I ever come back, you invited me to study tea ceremony at her house!

Today!
Today was pretty much a normal day. Went to ECS, helped with classes. Laura and I were also starting to plan a trip to Kannazowa. We were planning the 1-2. But then, Maki Sasaki asked me if I would like to do 2 homestays, so we moved our trip up to tomorrow evening til Friday evening! I am really excited! It's just going to be me and Laura hanging out and having fun! Yay for girl bonding time! tee hee

Prayers!
English camp is this next week! Prayers for open hearts and that everything will go smoothly.

Prep

Konnichiwa! Hello there.
Today I was in charge of getting lunch for Bible study. Laura needed to be with Josh at his school swim time, so she sent me ahead to buy baked goods at the Birdie store bakery. I was told to buy for 7 or 8 people. So I bought quite a bit of bread. 4 tuna loaves, 2 cheese buns, 2 ham pull-aparts, and a raisin loaf. Because I bought so much, the ladies at the bakery gave me a gift of samples. So I ended up with 2 butter rolls and a cresant plus two yogurt drinks! Wow!
We ended up with only 5 ladies for lunch, but we ate quite a bit of the food. haha
We had a new lady join us for Bible study. She is the mom of one of the 5 year old students, Yuto. And she brought her youngest (my guess is about 1 year old), Uri. Kawaii!!!!
We talked about the 12 spies going into Canaan. And yes, the whole time I was singing, "12 men went to spy on Canaan, 10 were bad and 2 were good!" in my head. :S

Afterwords, I went to Japanese class. I had intended to invite Dong, my Chinese friend, to English camp today. However, she was not there. The only other student was a guy named Michael, a life guard from Australia. I told him, since he is only in Japan for 5 weeks, that he came to class at the wrong time since there were only 2 classes left til summer break. Also, when he was introducing himself, I thought he said his name was Marco because he had such a thick accent. I honestly, though I felt really bad, couldn't understand some of the things he said and made him repeat himself. It actually took the teacher calling him Michael that I understood his name! haha. I helped him out with everything the best I could since I know more than he does. (not by much though).

After class, I got to walk in the rain back to ECS. It was nice, though. Unlike Nebraska rain, the rain here is quite warm and very enjoyable to walk in. I bought some drinks over at 7-11 and then enjoyed some soda and left over bread with Laura, Keiko, Rie Sasaki and her two boys. Then I helped Laura with her last class of the day, the 5 year olds Ayane and Masuto. They were learning the letter P and made paint pallettes for their alphabet book. Masuto beat me 3 times in Memory :'(.

Then I came right back to the house to watch the girls and Josh while Jerry went to ECS and Laura ran some essential Fuji related errands. Now, after cleaning my room a bit and finishing packing my hiking bag, I am waiting up for Jerry, and possibly even Laura who went to pick up Robin and Nathan from Sanjo.

Tomorrow morning, at about 5 am, we are shipping off to Mount Fuji! So....no blog for the next few days. But I hope to have awesome pictures when I get back! Please keep us in your prayers so we will come back safely and have a good time. GANBARO!

Ok, sports fans.
In case you were wondering, the translations from last time are:

McDonalds - Class -Hamburger - Restaraunt - Video - Juice - Coffee

There ya go.
OK
Tuesday
For Tuesday, I was up by 7:30! Goodness! Joshy had to go to the hospital in Nagoaka to get some check up stuff done. Hopefully in August, he will be having his tonsils out. This is really good because he will (hopefully) breathe better at night and be less suseptable to colds and the like. Well, he was getting stuff done for that. I was in charge of watching Kei and Bekah while we were there. We went to the park next to the hospital, but the playground area was roped off. For some reason, that's happening a lot in this area. So we were at the park for all of 10 minutes before they started wanting to go to the mall. I got them to walk around the park with me, stalling for time, because i knew that we would be in the mall for maybe 1/2 hour before that got bored there, too. So we walked around, and then finally walked over to the mall. We walked around for a bit, and just as predicted....the girls got bored really fast. So we waited for Laura, met up with her and had lunch. Then we headed back to Kashiwazaki so Laura and I could go to class.

Today!
Not too much to report on today. We had our regular kids classes. In one of the classes, they were learning the letter Q, so for their alphabet book, we made quilts out of paper and drew queens. The boys in the class, I think, actually drew kings. But it's ok.
The last class of the night was kinda fun. We played the "I can bring.... to the picnic" game. Ya know, the one where you say I can bring....... to the picnic, and the thing you bring starts with the same letter as your name. But you don't tell anyone else the rules, you just let them figure it out. I was bringing king crab, kick balls, and kites. I was also going to dance and play dodgeball at the sports day. (D-Dennis). It was fun. Poor Keiko, though. She figured it out, but called out cake because it sounds like it should start with K.
Anywho....that's my day!

Please continue to pray for Fuji and for more sign-ups for English Camp in two weeks!
Pray for my sanity....I'm watching the girls tomorrow, too. :S

Hello friends. I know what I said in earlier blogs, but I do have a good excuse for the lateness of this blog. I was out of town with no wireless access. That and I was exhausted yesterday. ^~^'

So here's my weekend for ya. I honestly cannot tell you much about Friday, I was hardly awake. And yes, I did have coffee....just not enough of it apparently. I do remember a bit from Japanese class, so I've prepared a little Mad Gab version game for ya. Here's some phonetic spellings of Japanese words. Tell me what they are in English!

Makudonarudo Kurasu Hanbaagaa Resutoran Bideo Ju-su Ko-hi

Alright! You can play this on your own, or if you wanna actually find out, comment and tell me what you think they are! I'll let you know tomorrow plus, perhaps, an honorable mention for whoever guesses the most right? You may see this as a desperate attempt to see how many people actually read my blog......and you may be half right. :P'

Ok....so.... Saturday!
Jerry took me down to the train station, put me on the nearest train and shipped me to Equador. Not really, though I was stuck on a train to Sanjo. Robin met me at the Sanjo station and then we went out to eat with Nathan (Sanjo intern) and Mamiko (a student, I believe). We had tonkatsu, which is basically breaded fried pork. But it was delicious. Nathan ate some Korean dish, and as soon as we left the restaraunt, he requested to go to the bakery to get some sweet buns. It was kinda funny, considering how much he had already eaten. Even funnier was the fact that he bought this one sweet roll that had an adorable panda cookie on top of it. I wanted to get a picture of it before he ate it, but according to him, he had thrown up his backpack in the air, and the bun flew out and unwrapped itself. Just then a laser blasted it into a million pieces and he was so in awe about it that his mouth was open and the cookie bun pieces landed perfectly in his mouth. Uh huh. Sure.
Anywho, after the bakery, we all hopped on a train to Niigata City. As soon as we got to Niigata City, we hopped on a bus that took us to Aeon, which was basically a mall. They had some interesting things, but Nathan is the only person that bought anything.....and it was just headphones.
After Aeon, we walked to Big Swan, the Niigata soccor stadium. We met up with Mamiko's husband and Nathan's homestay brother +2 of their friends. We got lunch outside the stadium, and then walked around for awhile looking for somewhere where we could all sit together. Before the game, there was basically a huge cheer off between the Niigata cheering section and the opposing team's section. They also were using sprinklers to water the field, and the water reached to the opposing cheering section. It was pretty funny. When the teams came out, each section sang a song for their team. The home team's ballad of choice? Elvis' "Can't Help Falling in Love with You". Robin and I found it to be quite funny. Because of a technicality, the game ended in a tie, 2-2.
After the game, we waited in line with fans for a bus. Then we headed down to the train station. We just barely missed the earlier train, so we had to wait an hour for the next one. Word to the wise....find a restroom before getting on a 45 min train. I was about to burst by the time we got the Sanjo. :S
Robin and I , back at the farm...I mean the apartment, watched a little bit of celebrity apprentice (IN ENGLISH :O!) And then went to sleep at 1. I woke up at 6! And I was wide awake. I didn't need to be up til 9 :S. So I tried to go back to sleep. Somewhere, someone was already up, listening to classical music and making something that smelled DELICIOUS! Ugg.... I actually found myself wishing to be back sleeping in my old futon. haha.

SUNDAY!!!
After sleeping a bit longer, I woke up, got ready and then Robin, Nathan and I walked down to the grocery store to buy ice and iced coffee before getting picked up and taken to the church in Kamo. Nathan was preaching and I was doing Sunday School :S. After communion, I took the chillens upstairs. We were learning about baby Moses, so we read the story and then played find the baby. We also made baskets to put our akachans (babies) in.
After the lesson, the kids went back downstairs to help Robin make ice cream which we enjoyed after lunch. The Morts and I then hustled back to Kashiwazaki so the girls could get back for a church thing.
Laura and I went shopping. I bought a waterproof track suit for our Fuji trip and a Yukata for Gyon Matsuri! (that's a cotton kimono).

Today!
Not too much happened on my end today. After lunch, we played some euchre, then I took the girls to Number 1 coffee. Don't worry, they got tea...i got coffee. And we all had cheesecake!
Right at the moment, I'm hurrying to finish this blog so I can join Jerry and Laura in watching 007 Quantam of Solace!

Please keep praying for English camp, coming up in 2 weeks.
Also, please pray for our safety at Fuji this weekend!

She turned me into a newt!

Yeah, that's right. I'm switching from one ridiculous movie to the next on my titles. Kudos to you if you know what movies I've been quoting. If you don't know.....sigh......you have not truly lived my friend.
Like I mentioned in my last blog, I'm going to try and give you a little tidbit of daily activities. So for your entertainment and pleasure..... we are proud to present......your dinner, I mean, my day.
So Thursdays are my days off. I don't really do much of anything except hang out with the girls and watch movies. Today's snack and movie combo of choice? Space Jam and cookies, gummies for the girls. It was raining pretty well earlier, so Kei and I shared a casa (umbrella AND a Spanish house/castle!) but really.... just the umbrella, to the birdie store where we bought our supplies. Bekah wasn't feeling too good, so she stayed behind. Josh, whom I normally babysit for a bit, was off with his mama at the hospital doing tests.
Laura, Kei and I also hoofed it back to the birdie store to grab dinner. And later I went to Senenkai (?) with Keiko. It's an adult bible study. Though, today I felt like I was just holding things up because no one spoke or thought they spoke very good english and they were trying to translate stuff for me. I did prove to be an excellent source of entertainment for Ami, Noboru and Maki Sasaki's daughter, as she kept stealing my slipper while hiding under the table. :S haha

Prayers:
Kota, the Sasaki's son, has been sick the past few days with asthema problems and a fever.
English Camp! We need more people to come!
Maki asked me to see if my friend Dong from Japanese class wanted to come to English camp...prayers for courage. I almost choked when I asked her to come to the bbq. :S
I am teaching Sunday School at Kamo this Sunday...Prayers please! I'm already freaking out about it.

Laminating dyed whales with intonation....they are yucky. Lemur Stickers can look like raccoons.

Ok, childrens, gather 'round. I would like to have a lil heart to heart chat with you. (That's why I threw up a picture of me). I would like to take this short introduction and turn it into a quick apology. This is for all of you who check my page daily hoping for a new scoop only to be disappointed by my lack of new material. Though feeding my swimming fish may help calm the storm a bit, it doesn't change that fact that I have not been diligent with my blogs. Gomenasai. I seem to have fallen victim to 2 classic blunders.... and i don't mean asian land wars or Sicilians. What I mean is I have found myself falling to laziness and the all too easy cop out of labeling my days and tasks as monotonous or uninteresting to my readers. But I could be completely wrong. Maybe you want to hear about the little laughs and giggles we share in class, or the little surprises each day brings which don't really seem all too special... but it's better than nothing. Maybe you would like to here that I struggled with the laminating machine because it mysteriously switched to low heat instead of high. Maybe you would like to hear of the seemingly ridiculous words I have been teaching our students and little habits/sayings of mine some have picked up. I've decided to throw monotony out the window, and to kick myself in the butt to at least give you a paragraph of hopefully enjoyable reading. So whether you decide that my lil' paragraphs are a good chuckle or a waste of cyber space is completely up to you. I'm learning this summer that my all has yet to be tapped, and it's a good thing to put to use.

Ok, now, to get off my soapbox as Jerry would say. And to progress with this goal of daily rising to my potential as well as throwing proper grammatical rules out the window as I've seemed to have done with this sentence already. ^_^' Sorry Mr. Fielder.

To begin with, I'll let you in on some previous seemingly useless words that I've let slip out to the populace, i.e., Keiko. A few days ago it was raining, but between Jerry and I, we only had one umbrella. Well, I let Jerry use it for two reasons. 1) I like walking in the rain. Call me a romantic. haha 2) It was barely spitting. And I let him know that it was barely spitting, and Keiko overheard. So the three of us walked for a bit under the awning until the time came for Keiko to split off on another trail. Jerry asked if she would be ok with out an umbrella, and she just smiled and said "Dai jobu (it's ok). Spitting." I couldn't help but giggle and give her a thumbs up! I also let her in on wrinkly/pruney fingers at the swimming pool. Not really a useful adjective, but hey! it's a new word, right?
My biggest victory, I have to admit, came on Saturday at the bbq. I let Keiko in on my "nothing"ness. Those of you who have been around me recently will have noticed, or at least you should have (guilt stare), that if I drop something or make a big noise or something like that, I quickly fix the problem and say to those watching a quick and confident, "Nothing!"
I loved it when on Saturday, Keiko dropped a dish towel onto the sand, quickly picked it up and shook it out saying "Nothing!" Totally awesome, man.

One fun story to share was yesterday, in the intermediate class of Jerry's, we were talking about languages for a bit. Jerry brought up intonations in Chinese and how they mean different things. Mr. Go, one of the students asked me if I could speak any other language. I honestly cannot really speak any language other than English. I have a few phrases pulled from the pockets of other languages, but as for actually speaking? Janai! (That's a no!) But then Jerry made the comment that I can speak woman. All English speaking women, in his opinion, can speak a certain language between them. His example of said language was when his wife would ask me to grab the "thingy", I would know exactly what she is talking about and bring the right thingy. Where he, on the other hand, needed extra help figuring out what thingy was wanted. I cracked the joke that the reason we know which thingy another woman is talking about is because of intonation! haha

TODAY!!!!!
Today, today. What of today? In one of the younger kids classes, we learned bedtime words like bed, pillow, pajamas and the like. So to help put those words to use.....we played a little 10 in the bed...but with 6 people. Ya know, right? Six in the bed and the little one said, "Roll over, roll over." So they all rolled over and one fell off. That one. We put down a couple cushions on the floor and the kids immediatly SAT on them...because that's what they are for. So I had to squeeze myself in to show them how to "lay down". Then I somehow ended up being the little one 2 out of 3 times. Yes, I know I'm little, but I am still bigger than 5 year old Japanese kids. I assumed that postition because the kids weren't rolling when the song said to.


In another kids class, I was laminating some flashcards for future lessons. Then Laura called me in and I got this awesome Orca/Killer Whale tattoo, i.e. sticker. I put away a bunch of stickers to be used in the kiddies' alphabet books. But there was this one animal.....we couldn't decide if it was a lemur or a raccoon...? So instead of actually putting it away, we used it for the next class's homework as a "good-job" sticker.


The final class of the night was also pretty fun. We talked about the word can. Also, thanks to me and tangents, the class also got to learn about the words flirt, braggart (these 2 were slightly relevant to the lesson) and yucky. As well as the difference between die and dye. Aki, when asked what was new, said she dyed....meaning that she had dyed her hair. But it was kinda funny seeing as though she just said dyed. One of the fun parts of class was when Laura went around asking everybody if they could do certain things. Like... can you play an instrument? What sports can you play? What is something else you can do? Then Laura, giving an example, said, "I can cook!" to which I quickly responded with "I can eat!" The whole class bursted out laughing and they all said they could eat but their cooking was so-so.

So....yeah. There's my day in a nutshell for ya. Hope to have more fun things to share tomorrow, though it may be a special on cleaning and doing laundry. haha

Just a few pics from the bbq for ya.

Culture + Water Activites

Hello readers! Sorry it took me so long to post, the week's been kinda busy. And I've been kinda lazy.
This week during English classes, we talked to the kids about the 4th of July. I've done crosswords puzzles, word searches, pinwheels and fans this week. Friday was special, though.
FRIDAY
Friday started out normal, with bible study and lunch with the ladies. After study, I was to go to Japanese class, and then, after some schedule rearranging, Laura and I were going to have a half hour or so of free time of which to get coffee at #1 coffee.
Well, I went to class, and we started reviewing some verbs, but then......Urrrrch! We hit the brakes on the language learning to make ornaments for this festival that I can't remember the name of :S. But it's a fesitval on July 7th. The festival is from a chinese story. The story goes a like a this (again, like....not the exact story, only what I remember from what Jerry told me :D):
The King of Heaven had a daughter who was a weaver. She weaved this magnificent garment, and came down to earth. A fisherman saw her fell in love with her, and stole her garment. He then pretended to show up and comfort the weaver because she could not return to heaven without the garment. The weaver fell in love with the fisherman, but eventually found out he had taken her garment.
She returned to heaven with the garment, but she still loved the fisherman and asked her father for permission to marry him. Her father didn't like this, but gave the fisherman three tests. With help from the weaver, the fisherman was able to complete the first 2 seemingly impossible tasks. His third task was to watch the King's melon patch, but not eat or drink anything while he was guarding.
After a few days of no food or drink, the melons started looking pretty good, so the fisherman picked one out, and as soon as he bit into it, a river gushed forth from the melon, separating the fisherman and the weaver. The weaver complained to her father that he had cheated, knowing the fisherman could not resist the melons because he was mortal. So the father agreed to let them see each other once a year if there were no clouds in the sky.
The weaver and the fisherman are two stars separated by the milky way, and every year around this time, they come together. But you can only see them together when the sky is clear. The end.

Anyway, we made ornaments that went on bamboo stalks to celebrate this festival. We also tied papers with our wishes and dreams written on them to the bamboo.
The streets actually have lines and lines of this wish paper hung up...when they blow in the wind they sound like rain...so almost all day Friday, we couldn't tell if it was raining or if it was just the wish paper.
After Japanese class, a lady in my class, Dong Jing Hao from China, asked me if I had some free time, so I took about 10 minutes after class to help her correct an English paper she wrote. I then invited her to our bbq on Saturday and she said she would like to come. So we treked over to ECS, I gave her my phone number and then we went over to #1 coffee, catching Laura just as she was leaving. I don't have to be at ECS for Friday classes, so I stayed and had cake and coffee with Dong and we talked a bit. She is really nice. I like her a lot.
After coffee, though, I did stay for Jerry's classes...which is not normal for me. I taught 4th of July stuff in his kids class, and then just sat in on the rest of his classes.

SATURDAY~JULY 4th

Today was pretty busy. After a quick lunch, I helped Laura cut hamburger buns and veggies and make potato salad for the bbq. It was a lot of work, but we did get a 20 minute break before we had to load everything into the van, stop by ECS, and head to the beach. I was very happy that Dong was able to come to the bbq. We hung out and tried to find shells in the ocean. One of the students from ECS, Kanon, was finding big shells and even live clams. Dong and I, both ocean novices, only found really tiny ones. haha.
After eating some very much missed burgers and hot dogs, the kids lit sparklers, here called hanabi.

SUNDAY
Today was church. After church service, we split off into respectable Sunday school classes. I joined the young adults class. They were learning the books of the bible...and I was trying to follow along since no one in the class spoke or thought they spoke very much English.
After class we went and bought bentos (lunchs). I got corndogs! And then we went to Aqua park with Keiko, Aki, and Robin from Sanjo. It was pretty fun. i haven't been swimming in forever, so I was pretty exhausted when we were done. We also went to a ramen restaraunt after swimming...I ate almost my whole bowl of ramen this time!

Ocha + July 4th!

I didn't really do much yesterday, so I will only talk about today. Today, for our ususal Advanced Ladies' Class, we went to a tea museum. Machiko is a tea ceremony teacher, so she took all of us (plus her daughter in law) to the museum where we got to sit in on a pretty casual tea ceremony. It was a lot of fun.

First, a lady brought us a Japanese sweet that we were to eat before the tea. The tea, or ocha, is supposed to be pretty bitter, so they give you the sweet to sweeten your mouth before the tea. Another lady was making the tea. We were each served tea in a bowl like cup. Each of the cups are around 500 years old. They even change the cups according to the seasons. The cups we used? Today was the last day they were used this season. They are changed out tomorrow.

I was complimented on my sitting by both the man telling us about the museum and the ceremony and the lady who served us. Machiko also said that I was very good at the ceremony, and in 3 weeks she is going to teach me how to actually make the tea! I am way excited!




The museum is built in a very large, beautiful Japanese garden! Oh man! I want to live there! The place was gorgeous! We walked around a bit after the tea ceremony.




If you would like to see more pics of the garden and tea ceremony (courtesy of Laura! :D):

http://www.facebook.com/karissa.dennis?cropsuccess=#/album.php?aid=276712&id=814700376&ref=mf

After we got back from the tea museum, I hurried on over to ECS. I was kinda in charge of the kid's classes today :S. I was to teach them a little about July 4th and then do some activities. for the first class, it was only the one girl. We read a book together called The Fourth of July Mice....I found it to be kind of ridiculous. haha. After that, we colored a US flag and made a flag Japanese fan. The second class, we colored flags, counted stars, and then made pinwheels. They really seemed to like it. We also ate watermelon popsicles. The looked like watermelon slices and tasted pretty much just like a watermelon...only with chocolate seeds. mmm.

The last class of the night was the Intermediate class with Takako and Misaki. We talked about too and enough. After the class was over, Misaki gave me a present. She gave me two packages of paper balloons, one pufferfish and one strawberry and a takoyaki (octopus ball) key chain. It was so sweet. :)

Arigatoo Gozaimasu!

This is one of two blogs I will be doing today. This one is going to be a quick note about Sunday and a quick thank you for those who supported me financially.

Ok. Sunday was church. Then there was lunch at the church. I cannot tell you what all I ate, but it was all Oishi! (delicious!) And it was all Japanese. :)

After church, we went shoe shopping. This is the quick thanks to the supporters. Thanks to your support I was able to reach enough money so that I had a lot of extra spending money. About $50 went to buying me some decent waterproof hiking shoes for when I climb Fuji. Another $100 or so will help pay for the Fuji trip. Thanks everyone for allowing me the opportunity to experience so many awesome things while I am over here in Japan. Arigatoo gozaimasu! (Thank you very much!)

Man vs Mountain, Season 1

Yoni-yama

Today we climbed Yoni-yama. It is 1/3 the size of Fuji, and the average time getting up the mountain is about 3 1/2 hours.

We left for the trip at about 10. The trek was pretty hard; the trail being mostly stairs. We ended stopping for a quick breather every couple of minutes. When we reached the half way mark, we were able to see our destination: a little house on the top of the mountain. The above picture is a pic from half way.

We passed a bunch of people on their way back down the mountain. They were really nice and some even chatted with us for a bit. One man who was stopped talked to me in English :). About 400 meters from the top, there was a little trail that led down to a well. Jerry and Rebekah filled up our water bottles while Robin and I stayed on the original trail. I cannot tell you how good cool water tasted on a day like today.

Like I said, most of the trail was stairs or stair like parts, but there was this one glorious stretch of mostly flat, slightly up and down trail. It was soooo beautiful in more ways than one. Haha. There were also parts on the trail that were so steep they put up ropes on the side of the trail to help you climb it. Yoru-chan, a man who works at number coffee, invited me to climb with him sometime. Jerry told me he goes fast and he goes at night. :S I don't think that that will happen anytime soon. haha.

When we reached the top of the mountain, you could see the ocean! There was a little rest house where we stopped, ate lunch, and played Euchre. Rebekah and I won... but just barely!

The trek down was easier, but at the same time, for me at least, really hard. I have a terrible sense of balance as well as gravity.... the earth likes to suck me down to its surface when I'm going down hill. My legs were shaky, and I was taking it pretty slow. Jerry and I decided that my dad is thankful for the trail ropes today. If it weren't for said ropes, Jerry might have fell down, running into me and making us both tumble down.....well, stairs!

Thankfully we all made it up and down the mountain in one piece and then we all went and got cappachino shakes and donuts at Mr. Donut!

Prayers:

I think praying for those of us who climbed the mountain today would be a good idea. We will all be really sore tomorrow.

Prayers for the 4th of July BBQ next Saturday

This next week at ECS, we will do some culture learning. I will learn about Japanese tea ceremonies, and the students will be learning about the 4th of July and maybe make matchstick rockets? (like we did at home in the kitchen, dad :D)

Laura's back is doing better

Thanks for all your prayers. God bless!

P.S. If you would like to see more pictures of our trip visit this site (provided you haven't already seen these on facebook :P)

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=7542253&id=814700376&saved#/album.php?page=1&aid=275200&id=814700376

Your strength, his steal, and my brains against 60 men, and you think a little head jiggle's supposed to make me happy? hmmm?

Ok. Update.
Last I wrote was Sunday... so I have about 3 days to catch up on.... No problem!

Money
I mean Monday.....
Soooooooo, yeah. Mondays are days off, basically, for everyone but Jerry. Haha. I mean... sorry Jerry. Before we shipped Jerry off to work, we all drove out to Yomiyama to figure out where the trail is at. On Saturday, Jerry, Rebekah, Robin from Sanjo and I will be climbing Yomiyama. It's a practice run. haha. In July we are planning on hiking up Mt. Fuji!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's right!! Wooohooo! But we decided to climb a smaller mountain to see if Rebekah, for one, can handle the whole Fuji climb and just for practice to build up some strength. Yoniyama is about one third the size of Fuji.
Anywho, after we found the trail, we drove Jerry to work at the University and then went summer clothes shopping. I didn't buy anything, but the girls needed shoes and Bekah needed shorts and stuff. I did SEE some pretty interesting clothes, though.
After supper, I went out for a walk. I was going to go to Number 1 coffee, but they were going to close soon, so I just went over to 7-11 and bought some ice cream. Mmmm.... ice cream. I was really hoping that it was going to rain on me while I was walking. It didn't. Kinda made me feel silly carrying around an umbrella. :S
It DID rain later at night though. I put on my shoes and went outside and stood in the rain. No umbrella, that would have wasted ... i dunno, something. I'm used to rain being cold, but the rain here is not really that cold. I stood outside for almost 10 minutes before I felt silly standing in the street outside the house in the rain.
I apparently locked the door on the wrong side when I came back in also. :S haha
Oh well. At least it was locked!

TUESDAY
Didn't do much Tuesday morning....I lounged about. But Laura had to go to the chiropractor this day because she had twisted her back or something. So I got to lead Laura's advanced ladies class by myself! It was fun! One lady, Tomomi, is expecting a baby in September. We talked about what she was going to name the baby, and we also talked about how the other ladies in the group, Noboko and Machiko, named their kids. I really love these ladies. They are so much fun. Machiko's oldest son's name is Dai (pronounced die). She was saying how in Japanese it means Great, but in English die means die. ahaha... they both named their kids easy names. :D
After we were done talking for the most part, we were talking about Japanese culture, and Machiko is a tea ceremony instructor. We all decided, without Laura (haha), that next week for class we would go to this tea museum. We would also get to participate in the tea ceremony. Jerry told me the cups we will be using their are really really old. I think it was either 6 generations or 6 centuries old. Either way, they're pretty old.
Machiko even taught us the basics of what we would be doing in the tea ceremony. I am WAY excited!!!
I helped Jerry out with his ECS classes today. In the first class, I helped the only student who showed up, Rae, with some flash cards. She is a very bright girl. The next class was the giggly girls class. They were doing a review of the alphabet and counting. The last class we had for the night was the intermediate class. Only Takako came to class. We talked about the difference between hope and wish. In the book the class is using, there is a dialogue that uses hope and wish. It is between a princess and a frog. Takako and I were supposed to read it. It made us laugh really hard. She was the princess and I was the frog. She started off by wishing she could meet a handsome prince and go somewhere romantic. I, the frog, chirped in that I was a handsome prince. Now that made me giggle a little, but when Takako read "Oooo, may I kiss you?" I lost it and she started laughing as well.
The advanced class was canceled because neither of the students showed up.

Wednesday..... (that's today)
I was slow going this morning too. Have been every day this week. But after I finally got up, Laura and I went to the birdie store (once again, i don't know the name. It's Ma...something something). We found a coat for Josh, since they are going to the States for Christmas. A coat might come in handy.
After the birdie store, we went to ECS. After playing around with cute little kids for the first two classes and talking with some girls for the third, we ate supper (mine included speghetti and melon ice cream.... mmmmm....) and then made hamburger patties. For the 4th of July, ECS puts on a bbq on the beach. I can't wait. I believe there are fireworks also, so I can be patriotic and light things on fire to celebrate our independance even abroad!!!
For the last class, we played a little bit of scattegories...only, we just wrote down as many ___ words we could think of. It was fun. And now here I am, blogging for the knowledge and enjoyment of YOU, my reader. :D

Prayers:
Please pray for Laura's back. She got it checked, but she was still hurting today.
Please also pray over our 4th of July BBQ coming up, that it will be a great ministering opportunity.

My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father, prepare to die!

Welcome, fair maidens, to our fair village. I would like to start off this blog with an ode to a very special person, near and dear to my heart: my daddy!

I would like to say, "Thank you, daddy, for being so supportive of me and always being an encouragement. You are so sweet and loving. You are uplifting and I always enjoy talking with you....even if it takes five unanswered phone calls. ;) But it's ok, because you bought that webcam and mic just to be able to chat with me online. I love you soooo much, daddy. Thanks for always being there for me. Happy Father's Day!"

TODAY!!!!! =FATHER'S DAY!!!!

Today was a pretty fun, simple day. We went to church.... i didn't sit by Jerry this time, so I ended up writing out sounds to the hiragana that I knew in the bulletin and reading about 4-5 chapters of Genesis. I read about Joseph :). I was proud of myself, though. I kept up on most of the Japanese hymns they sang written in hiragana! Woot, Woot!

After church service, they took a church photo. Their church photo includes everyone who was at the church at the time of the photo, so I am in the church photo! It was fun because Keiko and Aki were getting me to do silly things in the pictures with them. :D

We stayed for lunch at the church and this week was bento week. A bento is basically a box lunch.... and they bought bentos for everyone. It was pretty tasty. The only thing I knew for sure that I ate was bamboo rice. haha

When we got home, we played a couple games of euchre, then me and the girls walked down to the 7-11 and the birdie shop and explored. After we got back, Laura, Kei, and I walked down to the river. On the way back, I almost stepped on a little crab. It kinda freaked me out cause all of a sudden this little rock was moving. ahaha

We had pizza and then finished off the night with some Princess Bride, which makes my title doubly relevent today. Father and Princess Bride. It fits! I actually didn't need to watch the movie. I was sitting in the back mouthing the whole thing. I've seen it enough to know all the lines in it.

Have fun storming the castle!

What to say, what to say. I've learned a couple things about myself the last couple days. Hot showers don't tend to melt away my grumpiness, a day without any form of caffiene is like a day at sea with no wind, and I cannot eat a whole bowl of ramen. Nope. Can't do it.

Let's begin. Once upon a time, there was.... me. Friday, if you haven't begun to notice a pattern, is lunch and bible study with the ladies. Friday's lunch was egg salad and tuna salad sandwiches....mmmmmm. I was given the task of going down to the birdie shop (yeah, I don't know the name of the store. But there is a bird on the sign, so.....) and buying some butter rolls for the salads to be put on. Easy enough, right? But apparently they have some butter rolls here that come with butter in them....that would not be all that great for a sandwich. Luckily another growing trend on my Fridays is Japanese class, so I happened to have my Hiragana and Katakana alphabet worksheets on me. That was lucky!! All of the signs at the bakery were basically in Katakana.....I'm struggling to remember Hiragana right now...and sooooo....trying to remember Katakana at the spur of the moment to find bata-ro was not happenin'. Another lucky occurance...the sign actually said bata-ro, well, in katakana of course, and not some Japanese word that I didn't know the meaning of. If you still don't get it say ba-ta-ro slowly.
Ba-ta-ro=-bu-tter-roll :D. I managed, thankfully, and the rolls I bought? DELICIOUS!!! They were sooooo good.

After bible study, (we learned about Moses and the Red Sea, if you were wondering) I headed on over to Japanese class. Again, lucky moment. I walked into the building right after a girl that was in my group and followed her to where the class was. Why is this lucky? They had class in a different room than last week. I would have been soooo lost. We learned about seasons and a few other things like weather and the difference between "o" and "oh" in speaking and writing. I still like the class alot....even though I'm pretty sure I'm behind everyone else in my group. haha.

I chilled for a bit when we got back to the house. For some reason, I was kinda in a grumpy mood. I went and took a hot shower, putting on some coffee before I went. Nice long hot shower+ hot cup of coffee+ the added bonus of peanut butter popcorn apparently did not = good mood. I didn't snap at anyone or anything like that. I just took my coffee and popcorn back to my room to get away from it all. After the chillins went to bed, I hiked downstairs to have my weekly meeting with Laura. And then we started talking about a bunch of other things.....for like 2 hours. It was really nice though, and I appreciated it greatly.

Today!
I woke up this morning at about 9 or so, stumbled downstairs, took a shower and then went to get my usual cup of coffee and.....bum, bum, bummmmmmmmm! There was hardly anything in the pot! I felt pretty awake anyway so I thought I'd go without. I hurried up and finished getting ready just in time to head out the door to take Kei to her friend Ami's to study science and then go grocery shopping with Laura. I was feeling fine....until we actually got to Ami's house and Laura went inside for a few moments. I was stranded at the drive-in, branded a fool, what will they..... wait.... that's not right at all.... I was just left in the car for a bit and then that lack of morning coffee hit me hard. I almost fell asleep in the car. I dunno what it is about Saturdays and no coffee lately, but it's really starting to bum me out. Laura noticed my distress and said we could get coffee at the grocery store, which is what I did last week. We both forgot. How I forgot, I do not know.

After we got back to the house and put groceries away, I hung out for a bit before Keiko came over. We had planned about a week ago to go to a ramen shop today. So she came over about 11:30. We walked over to the ramen shop and then waited outside for about 10-15 minutes because it was so busy. I was told to just order ramen, which is kinda a soy sauce ramen. Keiko was going to order miso ramen and then let me try it. I didn't get a picture, but those bowls were huge! Like huge huge! I also learned that Naruto, you know the ninja? Naruto is actually this white thing with a pink swirl that they put in ramen..... that's all I know. Keiko didn't know how to describe it. I think it tasted funny. The ramen was pretty good, the miso ramen tasted a bit better, though. I didn't eat all of my ramen.... but that turned out to be ok cause Keiko finished it off. :D

Keiko hung out around the house with me and Rebekah til about 2-2:30. Rebekah showed us how to make this.... flower looking thing with origami... it was pretty fun. We also played spoons. I told Laura about SCC games of Extreme Spoons. It very well may be an English camp activity. She was warned about the hazards, though. Like violence over a spoon. haha.

By the time Keiko left, the fact that STILL no caffiene had been added to my body was hitting me hard. I fell asleep for 3 hours before waking up for supper. I will definately have to make sure to get my coffee tomorrow because between this cold and no caffiene, I am really tired at the writing of this blog, only 4 hours after my 3 hour nap. Plus I have a withdrawal headache. haha.

Oh! In case you were wondering, Kids' Club was canceled this week due to a lack of people signed up for it. That's why there are no little paragraphs about kids' club in this blog. Well, except for this one. :)

There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead

Sorry all my readers. I kinda made myself a liar by not posting yesterday as I had promised. I didn't count on the fact that I would be completely exhausted and barely functioning as a living organism the past two days. I really don't have anything exciting to report from the last two days, as I really didn't do anything but wander around the house looking for the brain I had lost. Laura was in the same boat as me. Hopefully we are both up to snuff tomorrow, or it's going to be an extremely long day. :S

Oh yeah, that reminds me. I would appreciate prayers for both me and Laura because we are pretty sure this slight brush with mostly deadness is caused by an ambush by the cold. So far, we have done our best to fight it off, but it's a tough advisary.

Enma Ichi Adventure

Hello loyal readers and those joining us for the first time. You may have noticed that there has not been any posts for like, the past 3-4 days. There is a reason for that. From Sunday til today was Enma Ichi, a street festival in honor of the Chinese god Enma, Lord of the Underworld. Bum Bum Bummmmmmm.
Anywho, I decided that I would give you Enma Ichi in one big serving instead of little pieces. So, here you go. My Enma Ichi experience.

Before the Festival

Like I said, Enma Ichi started on Sunday. But because it is Sunday, we went to church. It was kids Sunday, so the preacher, well, preached about the Israelites in the wilderness using what looked like pictures from a coloring book. During Sunday school, he elaborated on the story more for the adults.
After the church service, the church has lunhc. Usually the Mort family goes home for lunch, but today we stayed. Most of the food was Japanese, which is a given. I sat betwen Aki and Keiko, and Keiko made sure that I tried a little bit of everything. haha

After lunch, I helped some of the ladies wrap flowers. The kids in the church had been learning how to play this instrument made out of wood that is kinda like bells in a bell choir. They were practicing because they were going to an old folk's home to play and pass out flowers. They were really good. I had a video too of them playing Jesus Loves Me, but it wouldn't load. Sorry:S



At the Festival

Each day, we went down to ECS and took the doors off the front and had an open door for any weary festival goers. We offered free Mugie-chaw, a barley tea, which i'm pretty sure I spelled completely wrong haha. We also had a bean bag toss game where kids could win snacks. For the adults, we had a chance box where they could pull out a slip of paper from this box and depending on which color dot they got, they could win a free text book, half-off tuition, or 10 free lessons. Or a tissue pack.

Keiko and Aki are in a band called Morning Glory, and during the festival, they sat out front of ECS and played and sang praise songs both in English and in Japanese. Keiko has an amazing voice! I somehow ended up playing a jimbe (?) drum. I don't think I have very much rhythm, but I wasn't doing too bad. Jerry played the tamborine.



On Tuesday, Nathan Worley, the intern at Sanjo, came down and stayed at the Morts'. He's an education major, so he came down so he could go to University classes with Jerry. Blog readers, meet Nathan Worley. He was a lot of fun to hang out with. And he's in Jerry's office..... where he slept. haha







When Nathan arrived, he, Jerry and I walked around the festival and to Enma's temple, the eventual end stop to all Enma Ichi goers. Out in front of the temple, they had three statues. One was of a preist. One was three headed, and I'm not quite sure who it was supposed to be. And the fancy looking one with the aura is a statue of Buddha.









Luckily, they allowed photography inside the temple. I took a picture of the main wall of Emna's temple where a statue of Enma and his court sat. Jerry was telling us that people come once a year to bribe Enma and make requests of him. He is an unmerciful, unrelenting god, but he takes bribes. :S Go figure. I also took a picture of the seven hells. This is what one would bribe Enma for: a favorable hell.


Other Fun Stuff

I got to eat a bunch of festival food and I also got to buy some really awesome bowls and cups from a pottery booth!

Today, as in Tuesday, I also got to go eat at an Italian restaurant called Rigalo(?) with Laura and two of her students, Noboko and Machiko, both older women. It was alot of fun and the food was delicious!!!!!!


Also, for reader ferrero, I investigated a little on Pokemon. It seems that they catch young pikachus and use them for festival things. For some, they slice off their faces and use them as masks. I found that they are also very popular as a snack. This picture here is from a vendor who caught a young pikachu and coated it in candy. It is somewhat disturbing, but kids seem to love it here.

Thanks to all of you who have been praying over this festival and our outreach. The next event on our calender is Kid's Club on Saturday. I ask for prayers over this event also! Thanks and God bless. Next post tomorrow! Promise!