Inspire

Today Becky and I went to Nagoya (the nearest big city, about an hour away) for Inspire Union, or Inspa (インスパ) for short.  It's basically a monthly, I think, gathering for Christians who have lived overseas, most of whom are around my age.  I still can't get over how cool it is to see Japanese people worshiping the same God that you all worship in America.  This is a picture of the worship team practicing.   (Becky had to be there early, so I was there early too.  I'd definitely get lost, trying to get to Nagoya by myself...)

The actual event was about three hours long and went something like this (with totally necessary star bullet points):

☆ Greeting time, i.e. we were to talk to people around us, introduce ourselves, and try to find things in common.  I got to dazzle people with my stellar Japanese (lol, they may have been impressed but I still have a long way to go), and find out that I really do have quite a bit in common with them.  I'm amazed that so many Japanese people know where Sacramento is.  I mean, I know it's the capital of California, but still!

☆ Jeopardy-type game, but when it was my turn, I needed Becky to translate the questions, lol.  I did get the one about how many books are in the Bible though!  It was pretty fun~

☆ Worship time.  So cool to hear Japanese worship songs, and people singing them with such passion.

☆ Message.  I should've asked Becky to translate for me because I had a hard time following, haha.  Next time...

☆ More worship.  Equally awesome.

☆ Announcements, and finish.

Here's a picture of me, Becky and Becky's friend Shoko, taken from another girl named Aki's Facebook album that she just uploaded, haha.  But I really like this picture of us so I wanted to share it!

Afterwards, a bunch of us went to a Chinese restaurant around the corner.  So you know what that means...  Food picture time!  Hooray!

Egg rolls, karaage (fried chicken), and gyoza.

Xiao long bao (sp?), which I've never had before but have always wanted to try.

Mabodofu!  It was pretty spicy, but it, like everything else, was delicious.

And to prove to you all that I do not, in fact, only take pictures of food...

Fun times.  :D  And it was cool to meet so many new people!