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! :)