The team from my church arrived today!!! Man, having people from Tennessee here feels so great! It's like home came to me! I think you can tell from the pics that I am pretty excited that they are here! Looking forward to the next 10 days!! Whoo-hooo!!
Whenever I have alot to do, I do the most unimportant things first. Thus, the randomness that follows...
Ah, the infamous 100 Yen Store in Japan...where everything costs 100 yen (or an American dollor, give or take a little). They have anything you could desire...fish-flavored crackers, origami paper, toilet slippers. It is my most favorite place in Japan.
Would anybody like some Corn Frake?
Liz's hair actually looks like that when she wakes up in the morning.
I am imitating Chris Daughtry from "American Idol" with my bald look.
This is a Mo Smoking area! Mo Smoking!
"The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." Zephaniah 3:17
My beautiful older sister, Kristin, got married a few weeks to her long time boyfriend, Michael, somewhere in the Caribbean on a cruise. Now they are off living in Las Vegas, NV. It's sad I missed the wedding, but now when I go back home, I have a new brother...welcome to the family, Michael!
Got back from Guam yesterday...it was amazing and sooo much fun! Here's a few quick pics from our trip. But there was a lot of drama while we there....this is just a glimpse! More pics coming later!
This is the beach right outside our hotel! Amazing!
Koni and Shiona with an amazing view of southern Guam. This beach is where a Japanese warship sank during WWII.
A view of Two Lovers Peak. The story goes that two young lovers jumped from the top because their parents wouldn't allow them to marry.
Shiona got a perm while in Guam...what a hottie!
Cutie-patootie Kaori at Burger King...what a blessing to eat at Burger King!
Someone please talk to Koni!
The website for our hotel said we would have a "mountain view"...it was more like a parking lot and a construction zone. But if you look out the window to the far right, you could see one mountain.
And this is our "Guam Bomb" that we rented from Ghetto Fabulous Car Rental. It broke down twice...once while we were still at the car rental place parking lot. What can you expect for $20 a day to rent a car?
I AM LEAVING FOR GUAM TODAY!! Me, Shiona, Kaori, and Koni soaking up the sun, enjoying the world's largest K-mart (not kidding, it resides in Guam), eating some Taco Bell, and shopping at Payless Shoe Store and the Dress Barn (cheap thrills, I know)!!!!
And here's a map of Guam, especially for my family who is a bit concerned about where I am headed. Guam is an American territory, so it provides all the goodness of my homeland but is only a three hour flight from Osaka. GUAM!!
Saw "Elizabethtown" this weekend and it made me what to do three things...1.) Talk on the phone to someone for hours on end. 2.) Take a roadtrip across the US. 3.) And get in a car, turn up the music really loud, and sing at the top of my lungs in any key I wanted. I totally had a "I miss America" moment while watching the movie which lead to me creating these maps. You can create your own map too at www.world66.com.
The states in red are the states I have been to in America. I been to 21 states (that 41%). Now that I am looking at the map, I guess I have been to Pennsylvania or New Jersey also because I drove to New York and had to get there somehow.
Ok, the dark red countries are where I have lived (that be the US and Japan). The regular red is where I have been (that be Canada, Thailand, and I included Guam, because I am going there this THURSDAY!!). The gray is where I want to visit. I have been to only 2% of the world's countries (5 countries)...hopefully it will be more someday!
May 5th is a very busy day...it's Children's Day in a Japan that provides a day off from work and school, it's Cinco de Mayo in Mexico but for some reason some Japanese think they should celebrate it as well, and it's Mika and Yuka's birthday (they're cute twins!). For their 22nd birthday, we celebrated all three events with Mexican food, print club pictures, and ice cream!
Me with the birthday girls, Yuka and Mika!! Our cups are suppose to be the colors of the Mexican flag but I think the middle color of the flag is white, right?
MEXICAN FOOD!! It was pricey, but it was soooo yummy!!
Yuka, Shiona (with another classic Shi face), Koni, and Maya!
Then we did Print Club, where you get in a photo machine, take pictures, and then can decorate the pictures yourself with writing, hearts, stars, just about anything. Then the pictures get printed really small and they're stickers. It's really popular to do here. Here's Kaori holding up a few of the Print Club pictures.
Me and Shi trying to look like the girls on the Print Club machine.
The girls looking at our Print Club pictures, and Yuka jumping in front of the camera.
Yuka and Mika with their birthday presents...earrings with their initials.
And to top off the night...ICE CREAM!!! The saying is that every Japanese woman has two stomachs...one for dinner and one for dessert. I do believe that is true for me, too.
"Peter and the other apostles replied: 'We must obey God rather than men!' " Acts 5:29 Every Wednesday morning, the missionaries in my area get together for worship and prayer. This week we read Acts 5 and were sharing what God had shown us through that passage. Collin, a 11-year-old missionary kid who has lived his whole life in Japan, told us that he liked verse 29 because Peter and the apostles must obey God no matter what may happen if they disobeyed man's rules. Then Collin went on to tell us that there were people who didn't read their Bible before they went to church on Sunday, so they don't really know what the Bible says, they just listen to whatever the preacher says, and therefore they are really obeying man and not God. Pretty deep insight from a 11-year-old, huh?
Sometimes when you leave the house in Japan, you end up in places you hadn't planned on. Take, for instance, a few mornings ago when Liz, Barb, and I decided to go to a Japanese cooking class we saw advertised in a magazine for foreigners. When we arrived the train station, we were suppose to take a bus to a community center. Because there was too much confusion on which bus to take, we decided to take a taxi straight to the community center. The first taxi man told us he didn't know where it was. The second taxi man told us he didn't know where it was, but he would drop us off where the bus would have dropped us off. We take the second taxi and get dropped off in some random neighborhood. We roam around a bit to see if we can find the community center, and we decide to ask the police station for directions. The police man didn't know either, but he was a kind man and spent some substantial time making calls to find out where the community center was. He found it and called the community center to tell them there were foreigners who wanted to go to the cooking class. By this time, we are already 30 minutes late, but the community center said they would come get us at the police station. A few minutes, a Japanese lady in a dress comes running towards the police station. She's from the community center, and she informs us there is no cooking class that day! But there's an origami class. So, it was another random adventure in Japan.
Koban means the neighborhood police station. The kanji on the police car means Osaka.
The nice police man who found the community center.
Making origami!
And our random origami class. We made origami for Children's Day. There is a boy fish and a girl fish and the fish are hanging off a sunflower stem and at the bottom are little lilies. My fish were a little frumpy and looked more like whales. Yay, origami!
