Late as usual

I don't know how it happened, but somehow I've become extremely behind schedule AGAIN. My apologies. For some reason I just never got around to writing a blog post. Right well, I left off at monday. So sunday evening some friends from Sendai, John and Sarah Grace arrived. I was busy cleaning during the day on monday, but that evening I met up with Philipa, Sarah, John, JP, and some of JP's friends in Shinjuku to go see Fast and Furious to celebrate JP's birthday. Okay, so I've never seen any of the Fast and Furious movies before (in Japan apparently it's called Wild Speed) but maaaaaaaan it was so good. It's a good thing we were taking the train home and not driving that evening because boy oh boy I just wanted to RACE! One thing I want to do this year is have a Fast and Furious marathon. Afterwards John took off to go hang out with some other friends and the rest of us went to a scrumpdiddlyumptious burger place where I got a provolone and avocado cheeseburger. Yeaaaah son. After that me and Philipa and Sarah went back to Philipa's house for slumber party round 1 :) The next morning I had Advanced English class with Alison North in Katsutadai, and Sarah went out to hang with a friend. After our respective morning activities, we had planned to meet up in Asakusa to do some proper touristing. However, we failed to realize that Asakusa does not have one metro station, but rather a maze of little exits that pop up all over the place. After looking for each other for about 1/2 an hour, by the grace of God I spotted her waiting under the giant lantern. phew! We ended up having a great time shopping and looking around and taking a bunch of hilarious pictures putting our faces in cutouts. Asakusa is definitely one of my top favorite places I've been so far. It's absolutely beautiful, and there's tons to do while still maintaining a sort of historical Japanese atmosphere. I totally recommend it. We dressed up in the classic maid dresses and got purikura taken (purikura is a photobooth type thing where you write cutesy stuff on the photos and all that jazz :D) and then went for a suuuuuuper beautiful boat ride down the river. We were diggin icecream, but we just couldn't seem to find the perfect place (truth; the first place we stopped was actually perfect, but we got too ambitious) so we ended up looking for like 30 minutes. It reminded me of that one episode of Jungle Jam when they're looking for the perfect picnic spot :p eventually we settled for a restaurant, and got some pretty delicious parfait type things. Too much effort though....the moral of the story is, be content with the first icecream shop you find :p That night was Sarah's last night in Tokyo, so we made the most of Slumber party round 2- about 34959 rounds of Dutch Blitz and watching cop shows until 2 in the morning :D The next morning Sarah had to go back to Shinjuku to catch her bus, and I was feeling waaay too tired to go to Japanse class, so instead I went back to the guest home and slept a bit. Once I'd rested I got to cleaning for the rest of the day- scrubbing genkans and shoe cupboards :D Also learned how to say 'kitchen cupboard' in swiss german. Apparently it's one of the hardest words to say, but the Abts said I pronounced it quite well :D not to toot my own horn but...'toot'. My neighbors the Sugayas invited me to dinner that night, so I went and ate delicious home-cooked Japanese food made by Yoko-san :) I was able to just talk and get to know them better, and also meet their daughters Yuui and Mei. Thursday was another big cleaning day though I didn't sleep well the night before so we didn't start until the afternoon. That evening I took my dinner (pineapple, udon and *gasp* blueberries!) to the river and ate while the sun went down. I also fed a rotten blueberry to a big fish. Good times. The bike path by the river is going to be one thing I miss a lot. It's so relaxing just to bike along or sit next to the river. Sigh. Anywho, thursday night I slept for like 9 hours, which after being sleep deprived I think it messed with my brain because the next morning I went in the complete opposite direction from the station I was supposed to go to in order to get to Beginner's English class. I didn't even realize I'd gone to the wrong station until after I swiped my card. However thanks to knowing the general direction in which I was headed and some help from a lady on the train, I found another way to get to Katsutadai. Unfortunately it was way more expensive, but I did end up getting there not too late. Beginner's English was as fun as always... I just have a great time with those ladies. Also, some of the women who bring their girls to Mainly Music brought them to class, and they remembered me! That made me so happy :) and I was able to practice Japanese a bunch at lunch (haha I rhymed, O the cleverness of me). The woman who took me back to the station really spoke very little English so we mostly chatted in Japanese :D I got back just in time for Tea at 3, which is becoming one of my favorite times of the week :) we had a most interesting discussion about how Japanese people deal with death, and about all the rotten things we did when we were little. Quite entertaining to hear a bunch of missionaries confess to having been complete goobers in their childhooods. Friday evening I ate dinner with the Abts, a delicious swiss meal called Raclette. We talked and talked and showed each other pictures of our family until quite late, so I slept fairly well that night too. Saturday morning I left for Mainly Music in Katsutadai, this time from the correct station :D I spent quite a bit of time playing 'touchie' (basically Tag with no point except to smack the tall American girl and run away as fast as possible) with a crowd of giggly little 4 year olds. Got more Japanese practice chatting with the moms and kiddos during snack time, so that was a bonus. I think I must have played 100 games of Ultimate Ninja with Isaac, Alison's youngest son. He's just the funniest kid- after every game he would level himself up to "King Isaac level 2" or "Super Ninja level 1". Somehow even when I won I never made it past Queen Ninja level 1. suspicious -_- I got home in the afternoon, and spent the rest of the evening relaxing, studying Japanese, and doing little chores and errands that had been building up. I didn't sleep well again that night, but it was okay because sundays I can sleep in :) The next morning I skyped the fam back in PA for like 2 hours which was super great. I hadn't been able to talk to them for a while so It was nice to see and hear everyone :D After that I watched some of a drama I've been watching to uh, practice Japanese...yeah..practice...until it was time to get ready for church. I got myself to church on my own which I was little proud of :) after church me, Philipa and JP went out to dinner because it was Philipa's birthday. We had a great time celebrating that super neat chica :)On the way back we had a well, *interesting* experience on the train. Let's just say it involved open wounds and oozery, and possibly scarred me for life. Yeesh. Back in Ichigawa I wasn't very tired yet so I got an icecream from the conbini and walked around in the night life for a while. Another thing I'm going to miss about Japan is being able to walk around around at night and enjoy it without feeling like I need to be in ninja-mode all the time. I can't tell you how much less stressful it feels compared to being in a big city in America. Sigh. Yesterday I cleaned my whole room top to bottom, which it needed very much, and did some cabinet cleaning and organizing with Anuk. In the evening I biked to a conbini that was a bit far, just to get out and get some exercise, and then I watched some more of my drama. I had a reallllly hard time getting to sleep last night though, so this morning instead of cleaning right after we had our morning coffee, Anuk told me to go back to sleep, which I gladly did and ended up sleeping for nearly 3 hours! I felt much more energetic after, so we got a lot of cleaning done in the afternoon! Then I studied Japanese for about 2 hours until I realized I was slowly shriveling up from lack of food. So I biked to the grocery store to grab some ingredients, oblivious to the rumblings in the sky. However right as I was checking out, the heavens burst forth a deluge so I ended up stranded under the bike port for about 20 minutes. However this was rather pleasant, because my bike was right next to a fellow strandee, and I ended up chatting in Japanese with her until the storm cleared. This is the first person I think I've met on my own accord, so it was really exciting :) We shared some of our food that we had bought, and I told her what I was doing in Japan and where I lived. She hadn't realized there was a church on the main road, so I told her where it was :) I don't know if anything will ever come of it, but if you think of it, pray for Naomi and for opportunities for her to hear the gospel. Anyways, that's what I've been up to for the past week. I'll try to update in a more timely manner :D I'll post the pictures later because right now I'm in the process of recovering some I accidentally deleted

BIC Day!

Unfortunately I am going to give up my dream of staying caught up in order to give this day the post it deserves :/ So bear with me... Anyways, Sunday ended up being one of the best days I've had so far, and you're about to find out why!. I woke up very early because in order to get to the BIC church I had to travel to basically the other side of Tokyo. It took about 1 1/2 hours and I had to change trains 5 times! I was so proud that I made it there, although I missed one of the trains I was supposed to get on by 1 minute, so I ended up being like 10 minutes later than I was hoping. So I met with Nobue in the station and her brother-in-law gave us a ride to the church. We were a bit early so we took that opportunity to meet the pastor, Tojo-sensei, and his wife. Tojo-sensei's parents were the caretakers of a really big and famous shrine, a job he was supposed to take over. When he became a Christian in college, he got a lot of backlash from his family :/ Really cool old guy. We had communion together and also water-less footwashing, a.k.a praying over each other's feet. Such a neat idea! It was during this time that I realized that the two women behind me were speaking in Spanish. After the service ended I decided to go talk to them...we ended up talking for a little over 30 minutes. One of the women is from Chile and has been living in Japan with her husband, son, and daughter for about 5 years, so she can speak a reasonable amount of Japanese. The other woman was from Peru, and spoke very very little Japanese. Both of them were so lovely and prayed for me. I got contact info for both of them so I hope to keep in touch :) The church ate obento together and I was able to talk to a family there who had 5 kids (super unusual, especially in Tokyo) and who are moving to Indiana next year so that the dad can go to seminary. Before leaving I exchanged contact info with a couple of people so I hope to keep in touch :) Here are some pictures from the morning:

Afterwards Nobue and I went to a cafe and talked for a while. I told her about Roxbury and she wants to come someday! That would be so amazing...she knows a lot about the BIC in Pennsylvania and places like Messiah college. Over the course of our conversation we discovered that we both know the Deyhles (the people who started the India table at Roxbury) Except she knew them BEFORE they even went to India! wowza. Talk about connections! Anywho, after that we parted ways and I headed to Roppongi for church round 2. Unfortunately on our way to church it started pouring so we showed up a bit late and rather wet. The good news is, I feel like I'm understanding more of the sermon every week (a.k.a going from like 5% to 7%) We had our usual tea/chatty fun times and then headed home, feeling rather pooped. Philipa ended up talking to a young guy on the train and was able to share what we're doing in Japan and just get to know him. You can pray that God will use little connections like this to plant seeds for people to be receptive to the Gospel in the future. As for some other prayer requests, you can pray that 1. I can get some rest. I've been totally exhausted today due to two nights of slumber parties with a visiting friend (more of that in another post :D) and one night of Insomnia Strikes Back. Really haven't been feeling well and struggling to get through the day 2. That I can get everything I need for college prepared. I'm starting to feel a little stressed about making sure everything is put together before I have to go, so prayers would be appreciated. 3. That many opportunities to build relationships will come in these last couple of weeks that I'm here. Alright, that's all for this post! Hopefully I will get around to posting an up-to-date update by tomorrow. Thanks for reading!

We're halfway there....

I can't believe it's only been 3 weeks...I feel like I've been here for so long, but I know once it's all over it will feel like it was too short. I've been packing my days so full, just trying to get in as many experiences as possible. Monday was my day off, but I ended up doing organizing work that had to be done that day and also some grocery shopping for the guest home. We had ladies lunch as usual, but this time Nobue came and so we made plans to go to the BIC church here in Tokyo together this sunday. After lunch I sort of lazed around for a while, until Philipa invited me over to her house to hang out for a while. We ate num num delicious ramen -which Philipa made even better by adding boiled eggs and seaweed- and watched Coraline. SPOILER ALERT: never ever let your child watch this movie, unless you want them to be sleeping in your bed for the next 5 years. It's a really interesting and well done movie, but it's also quite frightening, even though it's animation. Just warning you. On the bike ride home (about 15 minute) it was raining so I tried to steer my bike with one hand and hold an umbrella with the other. I'd seen countless Japanese cyclers do it, so I thought it must be do-able...word to the wise: do not ever compare your abilities with those of a Japanese cycler. They can do things which us mortal cyclers could and would never dream of e.g. transport their entire family on one bicycle, or bob and weave through a never ending stream of elderly pedestrians. Tuesday was Prayer Day, so all (er, most) of the missionaries in the Tokyo/Kanto area gathered together for a time of fellowship, prayer, and worship together. After lunch Jackie (another short termer who has been staying at the guest house for the past 2 weeks) and I went to the tiny second-hand shop on our street and bought some little doodads, checked out some other shops and then head back to the office to do some paper shredding (woohoo so fun!) We got a lot done, so much so that we accidentally over-heated the paper shredder. Whoops. After that Fumie invited me to go with her to Harajuku to attend an event called Coffee in the Sky, which is basically a place for Christians (Japanese or otherwise) to meet, invite, and hang out with non-christians. We had a really good time and met what seemed like so many people but probably was only like 10. Wednesday morning I went to the community center for my first Japanese class. It's only 100 yen (about $1) and it's 1 on 1 teaching for an hour and a half. Seriously good deal. The lady who was helping me let me pick from a bunch of packets the thing I wanted to learn. I picked the Restaurants, Stores and Services packet, since I've been going to restaurants a TON and I'd like to be able to order by myself without fear of not understanding a question or missing something. The packet was super thorough and helpful, and I also learned a lot of food names and kanji so now I can actually semi-read a large portion of menus! Also my teacher barely spoke ANY English, which I was really thankful for because I was able to practice Japanese just by listening and talking to her. The trouble has been that a lot of people, even if they speak a VERY minimal amount of English, they would rather use that than 'inconvenience' me by speaking Japanese. But if I'm not going to understand what they're saying anyways, I'd rather be 'inconvenienced' and learn some Japanese along the way. Oh well. Wednesday afternoon I went with Fredy and Anuk and Simon North to costco to do some major shopping. It sort of reminded me of the shopping center in Madame Blueberry because they had conveyor belt/ramps to take you and your shopping cart between floors, and also a little eating area which looked really similar. We ate lunch there as well and talked for a while. I got a Bulgogi Bake, which is basically 420 yen's worth of the best thing you could ever eat a.k.a Bulgogi meat with a bit of cheese and onions encased in a fat, steaming hot baguette. Think the Korean version of a philly cheese steak. Heaven. When we got home I went and ordered a certain surprise for a certain sister who is visiting me, and took a 30 minute power nap. Then I cycled on over to the Jeggos' house for scrumptious dinner, play-time with the kiddos, and talk-time with Mike and Liz. I got home at around 10 and worked on my blog post. Thursday I had planned to go on a sort of city-wide prayer walk with Philipa, but she wasn't feeling well again so instead I tagged along with Jackie and Nobue to the Edo-Tokyo History museum. The museum is in Ryougoku, which is known for the Sumo training school/place and so there's a bunch of sumo-themed stuff around. In the restaurant we ate at for lunch there was sumo wrestling ring in the middle! And this time I could actually read the majority of the menu and understand the waitress, thanks to my Japanese lesson :) after that we went to Ikebukuro to what we thought was a cafe, but actually turned out to be a tiny little community center. There was a kids English class being taught there, so we stuck around and talked to the lady on staff and the kid's moms. The woman who was teaching the English class was actually Armenian/Romanian and apparently was the Japan Champion in Karate? Crazy. But she'd been living in Japan for 13 years, so she speak Armenian, Romanian, English, and Japanese all flawlessly. Possibly my new hero. Unfortunately I have no idea what her name is, so I may or may not have met a world class butt-kicker. Anyways after that we went to Starbucks for like 2 hours to kill time and get out of the heat until the bible study we were going to that night would start. At 7 Jackie and I parted ways with Nobue met up with a girl named Shion who took us to bible study at a cafe in Shinjuku. Turns out a couple of people I met at Coffee in the Sky also attend this bible study. Since a lot of them had studied abroad or knew a bit of English and neither Jackie nor I are very adept at Japanese, we did the bible study in 1/2 Japanese 1/2 English. We had some really good discussions and were able to meet more people (it seems like this is becoming a daily occurrence) Afterwards we went out to eat at....you guessed it, Saizerias (This time I'm pretty sure I spelled it right) Me and Jackie and Shion were able to talk more and pray together. It was really encouraging and exciting to hang out with a bunch of young people who are all passionate about Jesus. There is one guy name Tooru who has been coming to the bible study every week for 2 months, but has not decided whether or not he wants to become a Christian yet. You can pray for that and that when (I prefer to say when and not if, because Jesus is the bossman and I'm preeeetty sure Jesus wants Tooru to become a Christian...) he does he will be able to feel supported and well rooted in the community he's become a part of. On to today, I basically cleaned all day. Not even joking. except that we took a little break in the afternoon. After cleaning I biked to the river and stopped to read a little bit of Sophie's World and be bitten by a tiny little centipede. Now I'm putting off cleaning my room, and should stop doing that. Enjoy a couple of pictures from this week! :)

Fantabulous Fun Friday (and Saturday and Sunday)

I'm working on being a better blogger, so as promised here are the deets on the supah dupah sweet weekend! Friday was early wake up day (7:00, you know me) to get to the train station in time that I could make it to Katsutadai for a Beginner's English Class by 9:30. There I met up Alison North who is the missionary who heads up a lot of the ministries I'll be taking part in. She's a really wonderful and awesome lady, I rather admire her a lot :) All of the members of this class are middle-ish aged women, and boy are they a fun group! A large portion of the group all particapate in a gospel choir together, even though not all of them are Christians. Turns out that Gospel music is a super big thing in Japan right now, which is awesome because people are accidentally getting to hear about Jesus all over the place! At the beginning of class Alison asked everyone to go around and introduce themselves and ask me one question about myself (all in English). I was surprised at how well many of them could express themselves, so I guess Japanese standards of a beginner's English class is a bit different than what we have back home :) We read the story of Lazurus and talked about it afterwards, which was so interesting to hear impressions that I never had, having known the story since I was little. After class we all went out to eat at Sezerias (i'm 100% sure I spelled that wrong) which is both wonderfully cheap and wonderfully delicious- double thumbs up! I had a great bonding moment when one of the women brought up Korean dramas- and we promptly spent the next 20 minutes talking about our favorite actors and dramas. I won much standing when I shared that I had the same birthday as Lee Minho, let me tell you. All in all it was just about the funnest thing ever. I got back to Ichikawa at about 3:00 in the afternoon, just in time for tea in the office with a great crowd of wonderful OMFers. BIC peeps, are you ready for something exciting? because it's really exciting...... okay here it goes. One of the people at tea happened to ask what church denomination I came from, so I replied "brethren in christ...it's kind of small..." And suddenly I heard a voice from across the rooms say "Hey, I'm BIC too!". Turns out Nobue, one of the missionaries from Japan homeside (missionaries going out from Japan to other places) grew up in one of the 7 church plants the BIC has in Japan. It was such a blessing to see the fruit of the BIC 's work in Japan, and to have a connection with someone with a similar background! I was excited, to say the least, and I get to talk to her again today and on Tuesday too! It's almost like randomly meeting a relative you didn't know you had :) Friday was also Fumie's birthday, so that evening Philipa, Fumie and I all went to the cinema to see After Earth. It was pretty good (I mean it's Will Smith, y'know)and I got an 800 yen discount for being a student. They also were selling jelly belly beans by the gram so i ate my 500 yen dose of the magical fruit :D After the movie we went to the arcade and got our pictures taken in those little photo booths that make your eyes all big and you can decorate the pictures and stuff. Let me just say that we were lookin tres kawaii in those pics mmmhm.c Saturday I woke up early again to catch the train to Katsutadai, this time for Mainly Music, which is a mom/dad/grandparent-and-kid together musicy/dancey time. I had so much fun playing with all the kids and talking with the moms (some of the women from the beginner's English class were there with their kids) Also Alison's youngest son Isaac was there being such helpful and goofy little guy. He's such a ham! But a real good egg. When I got home from that I passed out for about an hour and a half, because that night I was invited to attend Only English, which is a discussion group led by the Jeggos, an English missionary couple in Ichikawa. Between dinner, discussion, and fellowship I ended up staying there for 3 and 1/2 hours! time flies when you're having fun. They have three children, Timothy who is 1, Daniel who is 3, and Hannah who is 6. Darlingest dears in the whole world. Really really lovely children. Sunday morning I skyped with Cassie, and then headed to Roppongi in the afternoon for Tokyo Gospel Church. After church a couple people decided to go out to eat so I went along. We went to Sezarias (noticing a pattern?) where I actually purposefully ordered something with squid in it. However it was in doria, which is basically cheese sauce + rice so you couldn't really tell that it was squid. I've become a really huge fan of doria so I quite enjoyed my meal. I only took a few photos, and the last one is really a photo of a photo, but I hope you enjoy them anyways :)

Badly done Hope, badly done indeed

I'M SO SORRY I am literally the worlds worst blog updater ever. I thought I was only a couple days behind but it turns out it's nearly been a week! gomenasai! Anywho, down to business. Monday was a pretty chill day; I attended the 9:00 prayer meeting in the office, made breakfast' did some cleaning, updated my blog, etc. etc. Also joined all the OMF ladies at Anuk and Fredy's apartment for the weekly ladies only lunch :) It's a fun little tradition that gives us girls to sit around eating num nums and gabbing. So very much my style! Tuesday was redonkulously (yes I just used that, yes it is 2007 and I am 12 years old) busy, with the Irish team leaving and a German short termer and a team from Britain arriving from overnight flights approximately 2 hours later. Never have I sweated nor cleaned so quickly in my entire life! After the guests arrived I took a 20 min power nap (a skill I have honed to a razor sharp edge of getting to REM in under 5 minutes. Possibly an exaggeration, possibly not) before joining Philipa and the guests for lunch. While shopping for obento at a new supermarket I also discovered pineapples for under 200 yen a piece, a sweet elevens find in the landfin of Luxury Fruits. After lunch we started orientation, which lasted about 3 hours. I did a little shopping and found a store called Jeans Generation where they were having a 2 items for 1500 yen sale. So I bought myself some cutie clothes and headed back to get dinner out with British team and Roseanne and Philipa. I ordered a soup that was 'tappuri' of mushrooms...something like chock-full. Wednesday we had more orientation in the morning, but I was able bum about and go for a bike ride in the afternoon again. Thursday was also a stay-at home day, so I tried to clean my room (key word TRIED) somehow though even though I actually did clean for a while, it still looks all cluttered. boo. Anyways, I'm going to stop there because Friday and today were super awesome jam packed fun days and I want to dedicate a whole post to them. Much love!

Weekend Update

So Saturday was a wonderful lazy day. In the morning I was able to skype everyone in my family except Josiah and Lele which was wonderrrbah... other than that I just did laundry, cleaned my room, did some grocery shopping blah de blah de blah. Also I went for a bike ride and explored Ichikawa some more- I found a very inexpensive store that sells come cute patootie clothes, so I'll hit that place up asap with some yen a jingling in my pockets. Also I made a bad move and started listening to Kpop again which nunfortunately awoke the sleep Korean Language dragon in my brain, so now I've had a tough time bringing up Japanese for the past couple days -_- Someone needs to suggest some good Japanese music to me so that I can sleep eat breath it until I miraculously become fluent. That's how it works right? Saturday evening Philipa and Yoko (my neighbor! she's on the Japanese staff) invited me to go on a bike ride with them along the river. There's a wonderful bike/jogging path that runs (I think) the entire length of the Itokawa, which is the river that divides Chiba from Tokyo. You can bike for miles and miles without ever changing direction, and you also get the wonderful breeze from off the water so it's just absolutely peachy. We rode for about 2 miles to an absolutely gorgeous park that had roses and wonderful trees and bridges and paths and just everything nice you could ask for. I think it will turn into a little paradise for me :) After coming home I cooked my first dinner on my own! yay me *pat pat* Sunday Philipa and I planned to go back to the park to have our lunch, but the weather forecast said it would rain so we scrapped those plans... annoyingly it didn't end up raining so we could've gone -_- c'est la vie. Instead we went Roppongi which is where most of the Embassies are, and also where the Tokyo Gospel Church meets. There are tons of foreigners there! Church was so much fun, with wonderful singing in a tiny little room. I think we would use the term "raising the roof".It was certainly a joyful noise. I also met a lot of people, looking forward to going back next week :) Anyways, that was my weekend! Not super exciting to read about I suppose, but it was very pleasant for me :) Enjoy these pictures!

Field Conference

First, my apologies to those of you who were not expecting me to fall off the face of the planet. I am sorry, I truly am... the hotel didn't have easily accessible internet so I wasn't able to update as I wished. However I'll make up for it by giving you a Moby Dick of a blog post. On Monday we woke up bright and early (for me, that is) to catch to 9 o' clock train to Haneda airport. Twas a bit stressful for me since I have never been in such a busy train station, but I think I'll get the hang of it quite soon. Once at Haneda we loaded onto an airplane full of OMFers heading for Sapporo for the OMF Japan conference. The flight was a sweet 1 and 1/2 hours :) fairly bearable so soon after a 12 hour flight. We landed at Chitose airport and met up with some more OMFers to take a 1 and a 1/2 hour bus ride to the hotel. Let me tell you, if you want to see beautiful, lush mountains, go to Hokkaido in the summer time. It's absolutely lovely. We arrived at the hotel in late afternoon hours, and I was promptly in awe. This hotel was THE swankiest hotel I have ever seen. Chandeliers, marble everything, mirrors and bedazzlements everywhere...it was like a palace! Even more to my surprise were the rooms, which had classic tatami mats and futons instead of beds. Supa cool. Anywho, I met my roommate, Winnie (we're chums :D) who is from Hong Kong, and went to the main meeting where we all introduced ourselves and so on and so forth. After that I went swimming with the other girls doing under 3s childcare, Katie and Jesse. I am so thankful for those two... I had a wonderful week spending time with them and getting to know them. So sad to have had to say goodbye so soon :( On Tuesday, we had a full day of baby-sitting from 8:30-12:15 and from 1:30 to 4. Needless to say we were quite pooped, yet me and Katie gathered up the energy to head out for a bit of exploring with Winnie. It was well worth our while though, because we happened upon a path which led down to a great little secluded beach area along the river. It was close to sunset so everything looked absolutely peachy and nice, so we decided the next day during free time we would go for a swim. On Wednesday after a morning of childcare we gathered some friends and headed down to the river, though sadly the sun was not shining quite as sunnily as it had the day before. We were not deterred however and all summoned the strength to plunge into the icy waters of the river. Now to understand just how icy this water is, you need to know that for the majority of a Hokkaido year, there is at least 1 meter of snow on the ground at all times. let that sink in Pennsylvanians. 1 meter. is tame. Remember that 4 foot snowstorm that shut the whole state down? Sapporo residents powder their noses with 4 feet of snow. 5 feet? sugar on a funnel cake. 6 feet? a bad case of dandruff. Basically, nothing to sneeze at. Now that you have that picture in your head, you can fully appreciate how blessedly brave we were to enter that river. I shall take the applause now and later, thank you very much. After our plunge, all of us ladies headed up to the Onsen for a good soak in reward of our exploits. After experiencing onsen, I've decided that I will slowly squirrel away money until I have 1 million dollars with which to build my own. I am fully convinced that heaven will be 50% onsen and 50% strawberry tres leches. Where will the throne of God fit, you might ask? why, in the onsen, for there is no more blessed throne than that of a steaming hot marble pool. Need I go on? onsen is great. Wednesday night the young adults played Dutch Blitz and also some Jungle Speed, which I think is a game that the armies of the UK use to toughen the ninnies among them. I'll leave its contents to your imagination. :D Thursday was a full (and rather difficult) day full of childcare, as the children were tired and fed up with being stuck in a room with strangers who deceived them into thinking their mums would be back soon and toys they'd already drooled on. Thankfully that night we had a wonderful time playing Dutch Blitz, Never Have I Ever, and Jungle Speed so it ended up being a good day :) Friday was our last day. At the end of the last session they called all the helpers in and thanked us and gave out sweet little thank you gifts, so we felt very appreciated :) lastly we had lunch in the fancy restaurant and those of us leaving Hokkaido boarded the bus to Chitose. While waiting for our planes we got in a few last minute Dutch Blitz games and then parted ways :( Very sad to meet so many wonderful new people and then have to say goodbye, but that's the life of a short termer so I suppose I'll have to get used to it :/ Anyways, on a happy note, enjoy these pictures! The rest will be loaded on Facebook :)

Last but not least, the promised discussion about toilets. I have made further discoveries into this realm, this time concerning public toilets. While using the restroom in Haneda Airport, I took the time to do some light reading a.k.a examining the numerous buttons found on the side of one's toilet- often times they resemble R2D2 more than a human waste receptical- and I happened upon a button which read "Flushing sound" with a little music note. Now of course I had to try this button... but I'm not sure what kind of tom-foolery I was expecting, because it did indeed just make the sound of a toilet flushing, without actually doing the job. Of course I wonder to myself, why the need for such a feature? And then the pure genius of it comes to me; how many times would shame and embarrassment in the public sphere have been avoided if only one had had the option of drowning out certain noises? how many times would a person have had a relaxing, relieving experience rather than a stressed experience of walking on eggshells, so to speak? The answer is uncountable. Truly, the Japanese have mastered the art of the toilet. Hats off, kudasai.

1st day in Tokyo!

So sorry to be late everyone :/ by the time I got back to my room on Sunday night I was too tired to bathe let alone update my blog, and this hotel has unusable internet unfortunately, but thankfully someone had a pocket Wifi I could use. So here we go! Sunday I woke up rather late (8:50) because I didn't have to go to church until 11:30. I unpacked a bit, made my first breakfast, and rather enjoyed the morning. Then I went to church at the Chapel of Adoration, which is the OMF affiliated Japanese church which is part of the compund. There I met Fumie and Megumi who are both part of the Ichikawa staff. Afterwards I ate lunch with Fumie and her friend Rei and the rest of the church members. Since I was a newcomer my obento was free :D Next came my first lone Japanese adventure: buying a prepaid card for my cellphone. So I grabbed a bike (which by the way, is the best way ever to travel in Tokyo. It's so fast and much easier to maneuver in the tiny streets than a car) and headed off towards Softbank to purchase a card. Unfortunately I was too excited about seeing everything for the first time that I forgot to take pictures, but that will be remedied as soon as I get back to Tokyo. Anywho, I got to Softbank where i successfully (in Japanese!)requested and signed a 3000yen contract. I was extremely proud of myself, so I bought myself a ice cold bottle of green tea from a vending machine. nums. After that I went for a bit of a bicycle ride around Ichigawa, found a nice little park, and witnessed and extremely zealous high school boys' soccer team. After getting a back I napped for a bit and then went down to Fredy and Anuk's for dinner. After this we walked up to Shapo, which is basically a gigantic underground shopping mall. We took a ride up the high rise building (where the pictures are from) to take a look see at Tokyo. On the way home Fredy bought me Taiyaki which is basically a waffle with red bean filling cooked in the shape of a fish. Delicious. After this I was well and truly pooped, and now I am nearly well and truly out of time, so I'll have to leave it at that until I have more time to update. For now, pictures!

When I update again I have more to say on the topic of toilets, so stay tuned!