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!
Saturday, June 23, 2007
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!
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