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!