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!