Well, we're finally leaving. I feel sad, yet happy at the same time. It's hard to explain...
Right now we're finishing our packing and cleaning the apartments. We meet in from of the building in about 1 hour 20 minutes at 12:30. I think we have a train or something to catch at 1pm or so. I do know that we leave on our plane from Narita airport at 6pm so that should give us plenty of time to get there and checked in and such.
As you may or may not know, my team and I will be going to South Korea on the next part of our overseas trip. There we'll partake in CM (Campus Missions) 2007 (a conference/praise/fellowship celebration) with like 20,000 other Christians from Korea and around the world! It'll be great!
I got to go now! Some of my roomies were late in getting up and I think I'll have to help pick up the slack. I'll try to write from Korea. Toodles!
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
More detailed Disney Land trip update
Well, last Saturday a bunch of the people on my team and I went to Tokyo Disney. It was pretty fun, but the best parts were those spent with my friends.
Anyway, we had to take a train to get there. It was about an hour, hour and a half ride. The train stop that we got off on seemed to have the sole purpose of being the Disney Land stop. There was even a little Disney souvenir vending machine at the station. Heh, I guess that's for some last-minute purchases. When we got off the train (along with the vast majority of the people on it) we had to walk along this long, elaborate outdoors bridge then down some stairs to the main gate. At this particular location, there is both "Disney Land" and "Disney Sea" (whatever that's supposed to mean). We went to just the normal "Disney Land". The price was 5,800Y (which is about 50$USA). Once we finally got into the park, my friends made a beeline towards Space Mountain where we waited in line for quite some time. An hour or two in the sun is really not a fun experience when it's not intentional. Luckily, I remembered to bring some sun screen. Space Mountain was really cool! For those of you who don't know what it is, it's basically a little roller coaster all indoors and in the dark. It was a lot of fun because you didn't know which way you were going to go. I found out later that Space Mountain was the favorite of most of my friends that went. I think it is mine, too! While we were in line, one of the people in our group (Heather, I think...?) took all of our park passes and went to get some "Fast Passes" for Splash Mountain. Basically on each ride there are two lines. One for the "normal" people., and one for the people who got fast passes. The fast pass line is about 1/4 the size of the normal line but after you get a fast pass it only becomes active after a bit more than it would have taken you if you had stood in line the entire time.
After riding Space Mountain, we visited the Pizza Port (yes, same as the one in Toy Story) and got (duh!) pizza! We hit up the Haunted Mansion after that. They had a bunch of cars that would slowly take you through the ride into different rooms that had things that would either pop up or make sounds or just act creepy. I thought the entire think was a bit hokey but I enjoyed trying to find out how they did certain special effects. I think it was finally after that that we went on Splash Mountain. That was a lot of fun. The theme was brier rabbit and went through the story. The best part was the big drop at the end. They also took a picture at the bottom of the drop. My train/log decided to do YMCA. It was fun, cuz the ride was playing "Zippie-de-do-dah" in Japanese near the end but my friends and I were singing it at the top of our lungs in English. At one point we passed some of the people looking down at us so we all waved while singing and they just snickered at us. Japanese people are so funny sometime.
After all that we all went to get Fast Passes for Thunder Mountain in "Western Land." The park was divided into like 4-5 parts and the part that is normally called "Frontier Land" is called "Western Land" here. It was there that I remembered that I had brought my umbrella with me. I have to say that I think that was the first time I've used a personal umbrella for shade and not rain protection. Anyway, while we were waiting for our Fast Passes to become active, some of the guys and I went over to "Tom Sawyer's Island" to play sardines. Steve (aka "Daywalker") was the first to hind but I think that was a bad thing cuz he has almost no inhibition on places _not_ to go. After over an hour of looking for him unsuccessfully, he found us. It ends up that he hid past the fence, behind an artificial rock, in a bush, near a speaker at the top of the island for about 40 minutes then got bored and hid over a fence in a bush by the lake for the next 30 minutes before being found by a security guard. He said the guard was real cool about it and just asked him to get out of the bush and when he made the folded hands by his head gesture the guard went "Oooh! Sleeping!"
When we went back across the little river/lake to the main park we met up with some of the other people and did some other stuffs. I distinctly remember eating turkey legs, visiting the castle, and taking "jump" photos but a lot was a blur as well. Oh, by the way, the castle was the Cinderella castle, for those who care. Under the castle, they had a Disney themed glass blown trinkets and statues store. It was funny, but three people on our team received a little glass pig (really guys, they ARE pigs!) bough from there for our June 24, 1/2 Christmas Secret Santa gift exchange all unbeknownst to each other. After it got a bit darker, we watched as the big lights parade go by through the middle of the park. They had all the ost prominent characters from Disney movies represented like Cinderella, Peter Pan, Snow White, etc but also some of the newer ones like Boo, Mike and Sully from "Monsters, Inc." and Nemo from "Finding Nemo". When the parade finished, everyone went over in front of the castle for the fireworks display only to find out after another 10 minutes of waiting that it was canceled. A LOT of people were bummed out about it and quite vocal in expressing their dismay. So, instead of a fireworks display, we went of a number of the kiddie rides. The first one we went on was the Peter Pan ride. They put you in a boat-shaped car suspended from an overhead track and "flew" you over these gorgeous dioramas of scenes from the Peter Pan movie. My favorite on in there was the "above London" scene. They had tons of little houses, Big Ben, the London Bridge, and even little laser pointer dots on the ground to simulate cars. I think that one was my 2nd favorite ride. The next kiddie ride we went on was the Snow White ride. Each car held 4 people but we had an odd number of people so I sat alone in the bench right behind Cherie and Maria. It was SO funny how they screamed at everything that popped up at every turn. I think they got more scared there than in the Haunted Mansion! I basically laughed the entire time. The last ride we went on was the "Small World" boat cruise thing. They had the little singing children, doll things throughout the ride all dressed in stereotypical outfits and such. After the ride was almost over, I leaned back and asked my friends "Hey! Where's the Americans kids?! I want to see the overweight kids waving hamburgers!" It seemed I spoke too soon, though as there were some Americans: a cowboy kid and a native American kid standing right above the final tunnel of the ride. Haha!
Psheeeewwww! It was perty fun there, yup, yup! ...dang this took a long time to write... nearly an hour! In an case, I got to get going. We have English lunch at Gakusuyuin today. Yesterday was the last day we spent at Waseda. (tear...) I can hardly believe it. I was so sure that we'd be fed up with this trip after about 3-4 weeks but here it is on the 5th week and none of us really want to leave at all! I... meh! what am I doing? I have to go! I'll write soon. Hopefully before I head to Korea, but maybe there. TTYL! Bai bai!
Anyway, we had to take a train to get there. It was about an hour, hour and a half ride. The train stop that we got off on seemed to have the sole purpose of being the Disney Land stop. There was even a little Disney souvenir vending machine at the station. Heh, I guess that's for some last-minute purchases. When we got off the train (along with the vast majority of the people on it) we had to walk along this long, elaborate outdoors bridge then down some stairs to the main gate. At this particular location, there is both "Disney Land" and "Disney Sea" (whatever that's supposed to mean). We went to just the normal "Disney Land". The price was 5,800Y (which is about 50$USA). Once we finally got into the park, my friends made a beeline towards Space Mountain where we waited in line for quite some time. An hour or two in the sun is really not a fun experience when it's not intentional. Luckily, I remembered to bring some sun screen. Space Mountain was really cool! For those of you who don't know what it is, it's basically a little roller coaster all indoors and in the dark. It was a lot of fun because you didn't know which way you were going to go. I found out later that Space Mountain was the favorite of most of my friends that went. I think it is mine, too! While we were in line, one of the people in our group (Heather, I think...?) took all of our park passes and went to get some "Fast Passes" for Splash Mountain. Basically on each ride there are two lines. One for the "normal" people., and one for the people who got fast passes. The fast pass line is about 1/4 the size of the normal line but after you get a fast pass it only becomes active after a bit more than it would have taken you if you had stood in line the entire time.
After riding Space Mountain, we visited the Pizza Port (yes, same as the one in Toy Story) and got (duh!) pizza! We hit up the Haunted Mansion after that. They had a bunch of cars that would slowly take you through the ride into different rooms that had things that would either pop up or make sounds or just act creepy. I thought the entire think was a bit hokey but I enjoyed trying to find out how they did certain special effects. I think it was finally after that that we went on Splash Mountain. That was a lot of fun. The theme was brier rabbit and went through the story. The best part was the big drop at the end. They also took a picture at the bottom of the drop. My train/log decided to do YMCA. It was fun, cuz the ride was playing "Zippie-de-do-dah" in Japanese near the end but my friends and I were singing it at the top of our lungs in English. At one point we passed some of the people looking down at us so we all waved while singing and they just snickered at us. Japanese people are so funny sometime.
After all that we all went to get Fast Passes for Thunder Mountain in "Western Land." The park was divided into like 4-5 parts and the part that is normally called "Frontier Land" is called "Western Land" here. It was there that I remembered that I had brought my umbrella with me. I have to say that I think that was the first time I've used a personal umbrella for shade and not rain protection. Anyway, while we were waiting for our Fast Passes to become active, some of the guys and I went over to "Tom Sawyer's Island" to play sardines. Steve (aka "Daywalker") was the first to hind but I think that was a bad thing cuz he has almost no inhibition on places _not_ to go. After over an hour of looking for him unsuccessfully, he found us. It ends up that he hid past the fence, behind an artificial rock, in a bush, near a speaker at the top of the island for about 40 minutes then got bored and hid over a fence in a bush by the lake for the next 30 minutes before being found by a security guard. He said the guard was real cool about it and just asked him to get out of the bush and when he made the folded hands by his head gesture the guard went "Oooh! Sleeping!"
When we went back across the little river/lake to the main park we met up with some of the other people and did some other stuffs. I distinctly remember eating turkey legs, visiting the castle, and taking "jump" photos but a lot was a blur as well. Oh, by the way, the castle was the Cinderella castle, for those who care. Under the castle, they had a Disney themed glass blown trinkets and statues store. It was funny, but three people on our team received a little glass pig (really guys, they ARE pigs!) bough from there for our June 24, 1/2 Christmas Secret Santa gift exchange all unbeknownst to each other. After it got a bit darker, we watched as the big lights parade go by through the middle of the park. They had all the ost prominent characters from Disney movies represented like Cinderella, Peter Pan, Snow White, etc but also some of the newer ones like Boo, Mike and Sully from "Monsters, Inc." and Nemo from "Finding Nemo". When the parade finished, everyone went over in front of the castle for the fireworks display only to find out after another 10 minutes of waiting that it was canceled. A LOT of people were bummed out about it and quite vocal in expressing their dismay. So, instead of a fireworks display, we went of a number of the kiddie rides. The first one we went on was the Peter Pan ride. They put you in a boat-shaped car suspended from an overhead track and "flew" you over these gorgeous dioramas of scenes from the Peter Pan movie. My favorite on in there was the "above London" scene. They had tons of little houses, Big Ben, the London Bridge, and even little laser pointer dots on the ground to simulate cars. I think that one was my 2nd favorite ride. The next kiddie ride we went on was the Snow White ride. Each car held 4 people but we had an odd number of people so I sat alone in the bench right behind Cherie and Maria. It was SO funny how they screamed at everything that popped up at every turn. I think they got more scared there than in the Haunted Mansion! I basically laughed the entire time. The last ride we went on was the "Small World" boat cruise thing. They had the little singing children, doll things throughout the ride all dressed in stereotypical outfits and such. After the ride was almost over, I leaned back and asked my friends "Hey! Where's the Americans kids?! I want to see the overweight kids waving hamburgers!" It seemed I spoke too soon, though as there were some Americans: a cowboy kid and a native American kid standing right above the final tunnel of the ride. Haha!
Psheeeewwww! It was perty fun there, yup, yup! ...dang this took a long time to write... nearly an hour! In an case, I got to get going. We have English lunch at Gakusuyuin today. Yesterday was the last day we spent at Waseda. (tear...) I can hardly believe it. I was so sure that we'd be fed up with this trip after about 3-4 weeks but here it is on the 5th week and none of us really want to leave at all! I... meh! what am I doing? I have to go! I'll write soon. Hopefully before I head to Korea, but maybe there. TTYL! Bai bai!
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Late Update
Phew! Today was crazy! We (meaning 14 members out of the 17 people team) went to Tokyo Disney Land. I didn't want to go at first, but when they said that they'd pay for tickets, I was decided to also go. It was really far away. The train fare was about 500-600Y each way. We had a lot of fun as a whole group and little groups and did a lot of events and rides and such. Unfortunately, the fireworks display was canceled. Boo! A lot of people were sad (including us).
I'll try to give a more comprehensive review later but right now it's 11:47PM and I'm a bit bushed. TTYL!
Oh, new info. Our team leader Megan is feeling sick, so please pray for her!
I'll try to give a more comprehensive review later but right now it's 11:47PM and I'm a bit bushed. TTYL!
Oh, new info. Our team leader Megan is feeling sick, so please pray for her!
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Continuation of Mid-Project Retreat Recap
WARNING! SUPER LONG POST AHEAD! READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION!
Oh, in the last post I forgot to mention something interesting...
When we were at the hotel, we noticed that they had something called a "public" bath. (Some of you probably already know where I'm going with this...) Anyway, some of the guys and I decide to hit it up and relax there at the end of our long Saturday of exploring Hakone ("Hah-koh-nay"), the city we were staying in. Anyway, we head down there in our swim trunks with our towels and head into the "men" section and see this sign in the changing room before the bath which reads "No swim suits allowed. You cannot bathe in your underwear. No towels. Do not dip your towel in the water." or something to that effect. Anyway, we're taken aback a bit by this but take it in stride and all go in there "au natural". It was the weirdest experience but not all too bad. Heh, God has really grown us together as a team which was evident in the fact what we were able to do something like that.
The next day we left for Yuneson at about 9am (but had to wait in line for about an hour before we could even get in). The first thing we did was hit the water slide and dark cave place thing. The slide was really cool! There were three tracks and we raced down them each time we went. The slides themselves were like molded out of this foamy, weird material that probably wouldn't hurt you even if you smashed your head against it (which was probably the point). We finally figured out that the first one was the fastest (but also the twistiest). Some of us almost flipped out on the final curve! It was a blast! The cave thing was also cool. It was basically a dark, cave-like enclosure under the water slide area that had water coming down from the roof. Oh, also all the water in every place was warm. Some of the people even tried to start playing Signs in the cave, even though we could barely see anything! (If you don't know what "Signs" is" I'll have to teach you when I get back).
After that we finally went over to the onsens. The first one we tried out was the "Dead Sea" onsen that had really salt taken from the Dead Sea in Israel in it. It made you float like crazy but also stung like crazy if you had any sort of cut. (Poor Maria! I told her not to stick her foot in!) The next one was out the door (and, yes, most were outside) was the coffee onsen. (Oh, and by the way, swimsuits were mandatory there.) At first I thought it'd be nasty, but it really wasn't that bad. When you looked into the onsen, it looked really dark (like coffee) but if you cupped out some of the water, it looked normal. You could also smell it if you got close. After that one was the HOT onsen. It was really nice. There was even this little rock bed under the water that you could lie on with your head on a rock pillow and some rock seats that you could sit on underneath the hot water streams that were coming from above. After that was the red wine onsen. That was interesting, too, because it was bright purple-ish red. It was really funny, cuz' there was this sign next to the onsen that said "Please do not drink the water." After that we went up to the green tea onsen which was really bright green and hot! There was a hot waterfall on one side that renewed the water and there was some little kid sitting directly under it. Yow! That takes guts! I think after that, we had lunch, which was great!! It was a all-you-can-eat buffet with tons of yummy things! We also didn't have to worry about "eating and swimming" because there really wasn't any swimming happening... only loafing. Wen went back up to the onsen when lunch was over and continued up the side of the hill that the onsen were located on. The next one was the sake (rice wine) onsen. It was also hot and smelled a bit sweet. The onsen next was located directly above on the deck of this structure and was super hot and smelled of flowers. I know it sounds "girly" but I think this was my favorite one (as well as the favorite of several other guys). I think that they had just refilled it with color/smell as it was really dark purple and smelled very strong. Near the top of the hill was the charcoal onsen. While that sounds really weird, it was actually not that bad. The water was black, but past that, it was perty nice. Comming back down the hill on the other side were several "water only" onsen that cascaded into each other with the hottest one at the top. There was also this steam geyser near the middle but we couldn't tell what it was for. After we went back inside, some of the girls had us go to this place where there were little fish (a variant of coy, but only 1-3 inches long each) in a pool that you would stick your feet in and they'd nibble at your toes and eat the dead skin off. While most (if not all) of us were quite hesitant, I'm glad I didn't pass this experience up! Man! It tickled like crazy! I think they liked me, cuz' I had about 20-30 on my feet at one time! Anyway, we completed our onsen spree by visiting the curry onsen and the honey onsen. The curry onsen was really weird and spelled funny, so I didn't stay long. The honey onen was equally weird and actually looked a bit green. After I had made sure that we had hit each and every onsen, we went back outside and soaked in some of our favorite ones again. One funny thing to note was that Chad made it a personal goal to dunk his head into every onsen. I think he actually did...
Well, that's basically a recap of the time at Yunneson. We have "Men's Night" in an hour and I still need to grab dinner so I think I'll stop here.
Also, if you even read this far, please, please, please(!) leave me a comment. It's really easy and will take but a minute of your time but mean a whole lot to me, really!
I'll write soon! I promise! There's still some things I want to talk about.
Later, then!
Oh, in the last post I forgot to mention something interesting...
When we were at the hotel, we noticed that they had something called a "public" bath. (Some of you probably already know where I'm going with this...) Anyway, some of the guys and I decide to hit it up and relax there at the end of our long Saturday of exploring Hakone ("Hah-koh-nay"), the city we were staying in. Anyway, we head down there in our swim trunks with our towels and head into the "men" section and see this sign in the changing room before the bath which reads "No swim suits allowed. You cannot bathe in your underwear. No towels. Do not dip your towel in the water." or something to that effect. Anyway, we're taken aback a bit by this but take it in stride and all go in there "au natural". It was the weirdest experience but not all too bad. Heh, God has really grown us together as a team which was evident in the fact what we were able to do something like that.
The next day we left for Yuneson at about 9am (but had to wait in line for about an hour before we could even get in). The first thing we did was hit the water slide and dark cave place thing. The slide was really cool! There were three tracks and we raced down them each time we went. The slides themselves were like molded out of this foamy, weird material that probably wouldn't hurt you even if you smashed your head against it (which was probably the point). We finally figured out that the first one was the fastest (but also the twistiest). Some of us almost flipped out on the final curve! It was a blast! The cave thing was also cool. It was basically a dark, cave-like enclosure under the water slide area that had water coming down from the roof. Oh, also all the water in every place was warm. Some of the people even tried to start playing Signs in the cave, even though we could barely see anything! (If you don't know what "Signs" is" I'll have to teach you when I get back).
After that we finally went over to the onsens. The first one we tried out was the "Dead Sea" onsen that had really salt taken from the Dead Sea in Israel in it. It made you float like crazy but also stung like crazy if you had any sort of cut. (Poor Maria! I told her not to stick her foot in!) The next one was out the door (and, yes, most were outside) was the coffee onsen. (Oh, and by the way, swimsuits were mandatory there.) At first I thought it'd be nasty, but it really wasn't that bad. When you looked into the onsen, it looked really dark (like coffee) but if you cupped out some of the water, it looked normal. You could also smell it if you got close. After that one was the HOT onsen. It was really nice. There was even this little rock bed under the water that you could lie on with your head on a rock pillow and some rock seats that you could sit on underneath the hot water streams that were coming from above. After that was the red wine onsen. That was interesting, too, because it was bright purple-ish red. It was really funny, cuz' there was this sign next to the onsen that said "Please do not drink the water." After that we went up to the green tea onsen which was really bright green and hot! There was a hot waterfall on one side that renewed the water and there was some little kid sitting directly under it. Yow! That takes guts! I think after that, we had lunch, which was great!! It was a all-you-can-eat buffet with tons of yummy things! We also didn't have to worry about "eating and swimming" because there really wasn't any swimming happening... only loafing. Wen went back up to the onsen when lunch was over and continued up the side of the hill that the onsen were located on. The next one was the sake (rice wine) onsen. It was also hot and smelled a bit sweet. The onsen next was located directly above on the deck of this structure and was super hot and smelled of flowers. I know it sounds "girly" but I think this was my favorite one (as well as the favorite of several other guys). I think that they had just refilled it with color/smell as it was really dark purple and smelled very strong. Near the top of the hill was the charcoal onsen. While that sounds really weird, it was actually not that bad. The water was black, but past that, it was perty nice. Comming back down the hill on the other side were several "water only" onsen that cascaded into each other with the hottest one at the top. There was also this steam geyser near the middle but we couldn't tell what it was for. After we went back inside, some of the girls had us go to this place where there were little fish (a variant of coy, but only 1-3 inches long each) in a pool that you would stick your feet in and they'd nibble at your toes and eat the dead skin off. While most (if not all) of us were quite hesitant, I'm glad I didn't pass this experience up! Man! It tickled like crazy! I think they liked me, cuz' I had about 20-30 on my feet at one time! Anyway, we completed our onsen spree by visiting the curry onsen and the honey onsen. The curry onsen was really weird and spelled funny, so I didn't stay long. The honey onen was equally weird and actually looked a bit green. After I had made sure that we had hit each and every onsen, we went back outside and soaked in some of our favorite ones again. One funny thing to note was that Chad made it a personal goal to dunk his head into every onsen. I think he actually did...
Well, that's basically a recap of the time at Yunneson. We have "Men's Night" in an hour and I still need to grab dinner so I think I'll stop here.
Also, if you even read this far, please, please, please(!) leave me a comment. It's really easy and will take but a minute of your time but mean a whole lot to me, really!
I'll write soon! I promise! There's still some things I want to talk about.
Later, then!
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Mid-project Retreat
Hey, y'all! This Saturday and Sunday our whole team went on a retreat to Hakone, this awesome resort place. Saturday we got on the train from our station in Koenji and went a bit to somewhere else and got on this other train that took us a looooong way to another city place thing. (Yeah, I'm really tired now... it's 11pm and we just got back so I'm not at 100%.) So, anywho, we got on this cable car (which was actually this train car type thing that had a cable that pulled us up a mountain). What was really cool was when we met the car coming down. The track like split and our car went right and the other car passed on our left. After that we got on this real cable car that took us in a little car over top of the trees and stuff. When we got off, we got on another one that took us down the other side of the mountain to this little place where we got on a pirate/cruise ship. THAT was cool! It took us to the other side of the little lake there (we were in the middle of a bunch of mountains) to another little city place where we cruised around for a while by the lake. There was this big shrine there on top of a tall, tall big place (very stereotypical) that we checked out for a while (some friends took pictures) then came back down to the harbor. There were a bunch of pillar things down there so we took a group picture of some of us standing on them doing the Karate Kid crane move.
Then the bus came and took us to our hotel. That was cool too, as we each got our own room! I can't remember the last time I slept in my own room by myself!
The next day after then we hit up the local onsen (hot tub/spa) attraction, Yunneson, for the entire day! Apparently, this is the largest onsen resort in all of Japan! There were all kinds of different themed onsen that we tried out. Here's a list of all of em'!
Coffee
HOT
Red Wine
Green Tea
Charcaol
REALLY HOT
Some sort of flowery smelling bath
Curry
Honey
Um, yeah... a lot of those were weird but they were all fun.
Wow, It's getting later and some of the guys were going to watch a movie yet tonight so I think I'm just gonna' end this here. I'll write soon! Tomorrow is our free day.
Then the bus came and took us to our hotel. That was cool too, as we each got our own room! I can't remember the last time I slept in my own room by myself!
The next day after then we hit up the local onsen (hot tub/spa) attraction, Yunneson, for the entire day! Apparently, this is the largest onsen resort in all of Japan! There were all kinds of different themed onsen that we tried out. Here's a list of all of em'!
Coffee
HOT
Red Wine
Green Tea
Charcaol
REALLY HOT
Some sort of flowery smelling bath
Curry
Honey
Um, yeah... a lot of those were weird but they were all fun.
Wow, It's getting later and some of the guys were going to watch a movie yet tonight so I think I'm just gonna' end this here. I'll write soon! Tomorrow is our free day.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Pepsi Ice Cucumber
Ok, so I popped into the local 7-11 by our apartment (it's about 2 short blocks away) and grabbed one of the new flavors of Pepsi. Can you guess the flavor? Get this: it's "Ice Cucumber." Is that weird or what? Apparently this flavor has only been released into Japan and for good reason! The only way I can really describe it is if you had clear Pepsi and then squeezed into it the liquid extract of a cucumber. Yeah, not that appetizing sounding but quite the experience! I guess that's just another weird thing I've got to experience here in Japan! I'll try and upload a photo when I can.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
God is moving
Wow! It's amazing how God is totally moving on these campuses!! Sunday night we made a group goal of how many people we want to present the gospel to this week. I was a bit daunted when we added up everyone's personal goals and got 299! However, this morning (Wednesday) Greg told us that over only Monday and Tuesday we were already at 106! Wow! Numerous people are also coming to a Christ and making personal decisions to follow Jesus. Amazing! Many of us had set low expectations of what we thought would happen here, not wanting to be discouraged or disappointed but God has already blown the top of anything and everything that we expected. All we can do now is trust him and aim for the sky!
Oh, also, we've bumped the schedule up an hour so group meetings start at 8am (instead of 9am) and we leave for campus at 9 (instead of 10) so we get to campus at 10 (instead of 11) and have an extra hour on campus. While that sounds great and all, it also means (for most of us) one hour less sleep. Please keep our sleep in your prayers as a number of the people on the team have had trouble getting to sleep and then bad dreams when they are asleep. Since most of you are 13 hours behind, if you could pray any time during the 9am-6pm (Michigan time) time, that'd be when we're sleeping!
Anywho, that's my 2 yen for the day. I got to hurry up and get ready! We leave in 10 minutes!
Oh, also, we've bumped the schedule up an hour so group meetings start at 8am (instead of 9am) and we leave for campus at 9 (instead of 10) so we get to campus at 10 (instead of 11) and have an extra hour on campus. While that sounds great and all, it also means (for most of us) one hour less sleep. Please keep our sleep in your prayers as a number of the people on the team have had trouble getting to sleep and then bad dreams when they are asleep. Since most of you are 13 hours behind, if you could pray any time during the 9am-6pm (Michigan time) time, that'd be when we're sleeping!
Anywho, that's my 2 yen for the day. I got to hurry up and get ready! We leave in 10 minutes!
Monday, June 11, 2007
Spreading the gospel!
Here's a bit of an update where we're at in sharing the gospel and spreading God's love to the people of Japan...
Last Wednesday, Gen and I (but mostly Gen) were talking with this guy right before we left Waseda. Gen was feeling a bit discouraged because he "had to" use the Four Spiritual Laws" pamphlet when he really would have preferred sharing without it. However, when we came back to the campus on Friday we bumped into that very guy and found that he had decided to accept Christ! Praise God, hallelujah! Today Megan was also able to lead a girl to Jesus at Waseda! God has really blessed us, here! We've heard from the other teams that God is also working in their midsts.
Prayer is really needed now! We've bumped up our schedule so that we're spending one extra hour a day on the campuses so that equals one less hour to sleep for the most of us. However, through God's grace, we can make this the most productive week, yet!
Last Wednesday, Gen and I (but mostly Gen) were talking with this guy right before we left Waseda. Gen was feeling a bit discouraged because he "had to" use the Four Spiritual Laws" pamphlet when he really would have preferred sharing without it. However, when we came back to the campus on Friday we bumped into that very guy and found that he had decided to accept Christ! Praise God, hallelujah! Today Megan was also able to lead a girl to Jesus at Waseda! God has really blessed us, here! We've heard from the other teams that God is also working in their midsts.
Prayer is really needed now! We've bumped up our schedule so that we're spending one extra hour a day on the campuses so that equals one less hour to sleep for the most of us. However, through God's grace, we can make this the most productive week, yet!
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Asakusa (revisited)
Early, early today (about 4am), some of my team members went to visit one of the local (read "only 30 minutes away") fish markets. They said it was totally gross and really smelly but they got the freshest sushi that you'll ever get! I was too tired, so I didn't go, but they said it was a blast.
Later today at 2:30pm a bunch of us went to Asakusa to do a bit of shopping and sightseeing. Since I went there the week before, I was able to guide them around a bit and made sure that we got some manju (a yummy hot, sweet red-bean paste filled pastry) before we left. I was able to do a bit of shopping, as well, and got some presents for my family. (wink, wink!) For dinner we went to this totally out-of-the-way tiny restaurant. The old lady waitress/owner didn't speak any English and we didn't have any Japanese speakers with us so we had a bit of trouble at first but in the end we all managed to order something.
Afterwards, some of us went on to hit up the town a bit more with one of Greg's Japanese friends that he met last year. I forgot where we were, but we visited this HUGE building in Tokyo that I think Taiwan uses for something or another and went to the 45th floor where they had a neat observatory and gift shop where I bought this really neat little ink stamp thing that has my name in kanji, a Japanese form of writing. (gasp! wheeze, wheeze, wheeze! Was that all grammatically correct? Long sentences are fun!)
After that we decided to try and visit, BA-DA-DAAH!, the only Burger King in all of Japan (which happed to have just opened yesterday)! We finally get there (it took quite a bit of walking) only to find that there's this HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE line there and this employee guy who's handing out fliers says that there's about a 2 hour wait so we decided to skip BK and go to good ol' McDonald's. I was so happy to sit down for a bit.
Sheeeewwt! I still haven't put up many pictures. Ok, here's the deal, then. I've put a number of photo's onto my photobucket account so, if you want to, you could go over there and look at them directly. Just head on over to my photobucket page and see what's going on!
Well, I guess that's it for now!
Later today at 2:30pm a bunch of us went to Asakusa to do a bit of shopping and sightseeing. Since I went there the week before, I was able to guide them around a bit and made sure that we got some manju (a yummy hot, sweet red-bean paste filled pastry) before we left. I was able to do a bit of shopping, as well, and got some presents for my family. (wink, wink!) For dinner we went to this totally out-of-the-way tiny restaurant. The old lady waitress/owner didn't speak any English and we didn't have any Japanese speakers with us so we had a bit of trouble at first but in the end we all managed to order something.
Afterwards, some of us went on to hit up the town a bit more with one of Greg's Japanese friends that he met last year. I forgot where we were, but we visited this HUGE building in Tokyo that I think Taiwan uses for something or another and went to the 45th floor where they had a neat observatory and gift shop where I bought this really neat little ink stamp thing that has my name in kanji, a Japanese form of writing. (gasp! wheeze, wheeze, wheeze! Was that all grammatically correct? Long sentences are fun!)
After that we decided to try and visit, BA-DA-DAAH!, the only Burger King in all of Japan (which happed to have just opened yesterday)! We finally get there (it took quite a bit of walking) only to find that there's this HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE line there and this employee guy who's handing out fliers says that there's about a 2 hour wait so we decided to skip BK and go to good ol' McDonald's. I was so happy to sit down for a bit.
Sheeeewwt! I still haven't put up many pictures. Ok, here's the deal, then. I've put a number of photo's onto my photobucket account so, if you want to, you could go over there and look at them directly. Just head on over to my photobucket page and see what's going on!
Well, I guess that's it for now!
Friday, June 8, 2007
Other Team Members' Blogs
Hey y'all! I just put links to the blogs of other people on my team out here. Check the links on the right side over there. ---->
Yeah... just try clickin' one of 'em! --------->
They have more pictures and interesting alternative views on stuff. Perty cool!
Yeah... just try clickin' one of 'em! --------->
They have more pictures and interesting alternative views on stuff. Perty cool!
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Japanese Animals
I know it sounds weird, but I swear that Japanese animals sound different! Right now, I'm listening to a cat meowling outside my window and it's making a distinct "nyaooo! nrouuuu!" sound. Earlier today at Gakusyuin University there was also a crow (they're absolutely everywhere, there!) that was insulting us by calling "Aho! Aho!" (which basically means fool or idiot in Japanese).
Weird stuff happens here!
Weird stuff happens here!
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Connected to the Internet
Hey, ya! I finally found a solution to my internet problem. It seems that the wireless box that they were using from the room in the second floor had a second jack in it and the team leader, Greg, just so happened to bring a 20 foot (-ish) Ethernet cord with him so we strung it down from the second floor to our first floor apartment!
So, this means that I'll have pictures up as soon as possible.
K' then, bye!
So, this means that I'll have pictures up as soon as possible.
K' then, bye!
Quick Post
Hey y'all! I've been a bit slow on making posts here because of the apparent lack of interest in reading my blog. If anybody really is, please send me an email (RussellChamp@gmail.com) or leave a comment here. It would do TONS to encourage me.
Anyway, today (Wednesday) my group of five went to Gaksuyin (Gahk-shwin) University again. It was really cool.
After lunch, my team and I decided to walk through the club room building (there they call clubs "circles") to see if we could find any interesting clubs with people we could talk to. Kris (one guy on my team), and I stopped at this one room where we saw some guys playing video games and decided, "well, I guess this is as good as any!" We introduced ourselves with a "Sumimasen? (excuse me?) Do you speak English?" "Yes, yes. A little," they replied. "Wellll.... we're just visiting friends here in Japan and visiting some of the campuses here. What club is this?" "Ooooh... this is the calligraphy club." "Really? Well, that's interesting. Can we play with you?" "Sure! Come sit down! Team battle! Team battle!" So Kris and I took on the guys for a several rounds of Super Smash Brothers with teams then some singles matches. Wow... they spanked us good! Japan has good players. The one guys was like "Japan numba' one playa'!"
Anyway, it was really cool. We promised to come back next week and play them again! We got the contact info for 2 of them so that's cool and told them about the Christian "circle" that we were in.
OK, well I really got to go now!! Team meeting! Bye now!
Anyway, today (Wednesday) my group of five went to Gaksuyin (Gahk-shwin) University again. It was really cool.
After lunch, my team and I decided to walk through the club room building (there they call clubs "circles") to see if we could find any interesting clubs with people we could talk to. Kris (one guy on my team), and I stopped at this one room where we saw some guys playing video games and decided, "well, I guess this is as good as any!" We introduced ourselves with a "Sumimasen? (excuse me?) Do you speak English?" "Yes, yes. A little," they replied. "Wellll.... we're just visiting friends here in Japan and visiting some of the campuses here. What club is this?" "Ooooh... this is the calligraphy club." "Really? Well, that's interesting. Can we play with you?" "Sure! Come sit down! Team battle! Team battle!" So Kris and I took on the guys for a several rounds of Super Smash Brothers with teams then some singles matches. Wow... they spanked us good! Japan has good players. The one guys was like "Japan numba' one playa'!"
Anyway, it was really cool. We promised to come back next week and play them again! We got the contact info for 2 of them so that's cool and told them about the Christian "circle" that we were in.
OK, well I really got to go now!! Team meeting! Bye now!
Sunday, June 3, 2007
My Current Internet Situation
Well, I've hit a bit of a snag here. For some reason or another, it seems that the room I'm staying in is the only one that dosen't have an internet jack in the wall and all the other ones do. This is only a problem because the wireless on my laptop isn't working. (For those of you interested, it's because the wireless signal the team leader is broadcasting from his room is encoded with WPA and the wireless card I have can only decrypt WEP. Jah, it's old!) Anyway, because I haven't had internet access from my computer, I can't upload all the pictures I've been wanting to. Currently I'm using a friend's laptop to write these posts but I'm sure he wouldn't want me to mess around with puting stuff on it and such.
So... to make a long story short, I won't be able to upload photos until I find a viable solution to this problem. Any suggestions are welcome.
I guess that's it for today... oh, shoot! I just remembered that I left my laundry in the washer. We don't have a dryer here in the appartment (most people let things air dry) so I'll have to go to the laundrymat (or however you spell that) and I don't think they'd be open at 10:15pm! Oh well, I guess that'll be a high priority for tomorrow, then!
So... to make a long story short, I won't be able to upload photos until I find a viable solution to this problem. Any suggestions are welcome.
I guess that's it for today... oh, shoot! I just remembered that I left my laundry in the washer. We don't have a dryer here in the appartment (most people let things air dry) so I'll have to go to the laundrymat (or however you spell that) and I don't think they'd be open at 10:15pm! Oh well, I guess that'll be a high priority for tomorrow, then!
Friday, June 1, 2007
Japan is so efficient
One thing about Japan that has surprised our entire team this past week is just how efficient they are. From big things down to little things, it seems that conserving space, resources, and time seems to be on the minds of Japanese inverters/tinkerers. Here are some examples that we've seen:
When throwing away trash, there is not one can or bucket, but three! One is for burnable trash (eg paper, cardboard, tissues, etc), one is for non-burnable trash (eg plastic bags, food trash, etc), and one is for recyclables (eg bottles and cans). In this way they can conserve on landfill space by burning the burnable trash and recycling the recyclable trash. Neat, huh?
Here's another way they are efficient. On the top of the tank lid of most toilets, there is a little spigot that turns on every time you flush to refill the tank. THis way, when you are done using the toilet, you can wash your hands in the water, which will be reused for the next flush. Ingenious, eh?
Japan's public transit system is surpurb, too. There are multiple train stations (usually either raised high or underground) that you can go to that have trains or subway cars comming in and out of every minute or two which go to every part of the city. Often times you'll have to switch trains (which can be really confusing if you're not sure what's going on!) but every place in Tokyo is within about a 15 minute walk of a station.
Well, that's what I got for today. I think tomorrow I'll talk about some of the big differences in similarities that Japan has. Until then, ja na!
When throwing away trash, there is not one can or bucket, but three! One is for burnable trash (eg paper, cardboard, tissues, etc), one is for non-burnable trash (eg plastic bags, food trash, etc), and one is for recyclables (eg bottles and cans). In this way they can conserve on landfill space by burning the burnable trash and recycling the recyclable trash. Neat, huh?
Here's another way they are efficient. On the top of the tank lid of most toilets, there is a little spigot that turns on every time you flush to refill the tank. THis way, when you are done using the toilet, you can wash your hands in the water, which will be reused for the next flush. Ingenious, eh?
Japan's public transit system is surpurb, too. There are multiple train stations (usually either raised high or underground) that you can go to that have trains or subway cars comming in and out of every minute or two which go to every part of the city. Often times you'll have to switch trains (which can be really confusing if you're not sure what's going on!) but every place in Tokyo is within about a 15 minute walk of a station.
Well, that's what I got for today. I think tomorrow I'll talk about some of the big differences in similarities that Japan has. Until then, ja na!
English Lunch Review
Well, today (Friday) we had our "English Lunch" at Waseda. They basically have been advertising to students that every week on Friday, people will be there to eat lunch and speak English with them in this park area in the middle of campus.
It was pretty cool! I got to talk with one of the "Student Impact" (Tokyo's Campus Crusade for Christ) staff member and a guy named Yagi (who goes by the nickname "Mei") for quite a long time. Today was _beautiful_! The sun was out and the sky was just cloudy enought to be pretty. Anyway, Mai seems eager to speak with me, even though his English isn't all that great. Tomorrow (Saturday), I'm going to hang out with him in Asakusa. He hasn't visited there either and wanted to explore the city. It's really funny... it is sooooooooooooooooooooooooo true how they say that the only way you can tell when you go from one district in Tokyo to another is that the signs say so. They are all squished together that you can't really tell quite where you are. It should be fun!
Pray that he would be he would be open and that I would have an oppertunity to share the gospel with him. Also, pray that language wouldn't be much of a barrier.
I took some pictures with him today, so I'll try some time to put those up.
Man! Sorry, ya'll! I keep saying that I'll put up pictures but I haven't had time. Ok, how about this. If you want picturs, leave me a comment. There should be a "comments" link right below this post. Give it a click and write me a comment. If you want to leave your name, click the "other" button and put it in there.
Ok, thanks, bye!
It was pretty cool! I got to talk with one of the "Student Impact" (Tokyo's Campus Crusade for Christ) staff member and a guy named Yagi (who goes by the nickname "Mei") for quite a long time. Today was _beautiful_! The sun was out and the sky was just cloudy enought to be pretty. Anyway, Mai seems eager to speak with me, even though his English isn't all that great. Tomorrow (Saturday), I'm going to hang out with him in Asakusa. He hasn't visited there either and wanted to explore the city. It's really funny... it is sooooooooooooooooooooooooo true how they say that the only way you can tell when you go from one district in Tokyo to another is that the signs say so. They are all squished together that you can't really tell quite where you are. It should be fun!
Pray that he would be he would be open and that I would have an oppertunity to share the gospel with him. Also, pray that language wouldn't be much of a barrier.
I took some pictures with him today, so I'll try some time to put those up.
Man! Sorry, ya'll! I keep saying that I'll put up pictures but I haven't had time. Ok, how about this. If you want picturs, leave me a comment. There should be a "comments" link right below this post. Give it a click and write me a comment. If you want to leave your name, click the "other" button and put it in there.
Ok, thanks, bye!
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