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