Forget and Not Slow Down

First things first: Not that I ~need~ comments in order to validate myself as a person or anything, but, you know, don't be afraid to leave comments once in a while, guys!  Of course, it's kind of hard to reply to comments here since it doesn't really give notifications or anything, but I still read them!  Or comment on Facebook or LJ or wherever.  Yeah.  :D

So anyway.  I haven't posted since last Monday, so you may be wondering what I've been up to.  Allow me to inform you!

TUESDAY


On Tuesday afternoon, Becky, Carol and I met to do some planning for Christmas.  We are progressing!  More on that later~  After we finished meeting, we walked over to one of our regular restaurants, where I opted for katsu curry.

After we ate, Becky and I went to gospel choir, where we did the normal practice, went over all the songs the group did throughout the year (so of course I didn't know any of them lol), and something really cool: a couple (that apparently no one even knew that they were dating) announced that they're getting married!  Even though I don't know either of them, it was really cute, and the reactions of the other choir members were hilarious, because everyone was so shocked!

After gospel choir, I met up with Alicia (since apparently late Tuesday nights are our hangout times lol), and we went to karaoke!  Which is vastly superior to my previous experiences with karaoke in America, at the only place I even knew of in Sacramento.  It was much more reasonable in price (we were there for three hours and I only spent like 700 yen!), and it comes with a drink bar, and you can use the pool tables and stuff that are in there too, so it's a pretty awesome hangout spot.  And the karaoke itself was so nice!  Instead of a book, it's all electronic, so you can look up songs by title, artist, or browse new songs.  Plus, it has so many more songs than my previous experience!  It was pretty awesome.  Alicia and I didn't know too many of each other's songs, haha, so we both kind of got to know some new songs.  Good times!  I definitely want to go again.

Our room!

Not the best picture ever but whatever!  The event needed to be commemorated!

WEDNESDAY

I had my normal classes, and after class I went to the Mie University Bible study, where I kind of had a hard time following the discussion, haha.  After the Bible study, we talked a bit about the Christmas party they're having on the 22nd, and then we went to eat at a nearby cheap gyuudon (meat over rice) place.  After that, Nao-chan and Saki came over.  Saki was spending the night, but Nao-chan lives upstairs in the Center, and we wanted to chat with her about helping us out with some stuff for Christmas.  She'll be speaking at the end of our Christmas story presentation!  Yay!

THURSDAY

I had Japanese in the morning, and as usual, it was wonderful, and I feel like I'm learning a lot!  Ishikawa-sensei said that she feels like the book I have is perfect for my level of Japanese, which is great!  After class, I went to lunch at McDonald's, hoping they'd still have the Texas Burger.  They didn't.  Man, their limited time stuff really goes quick...  But!  They did have an amazing chocolate pie that only cost 100 yen and I totally recommend!  And since I went to the McDonald's in Saty, I did a little bit of shopping while I was there.

In the afternoon, Becky and I joined Carol and one of her students for Carol's first Christmas party (she's throwing parties for all of her classes).  I've met her student before, but it was nice to get to know her better, and the four of us had a good time chatting, eating fresh strawberry pie, and drinking coffee.  After that party, Becky and I left, then came back to another of Carol's parties, this time with the two kids that she's been teaching art to.  We played games and stuff, so it was pretty fun!

After that, the three of us went to dinner at the cutlet place.  I got regular katsu this time, and it was super good!

I then had my first party, although mine are way more low-key than Carol's, haha.  I had class with three teenage girls, so we read a Christmas story in English, then they made a craft, a cute little nativity scene.  After  that, I worked on some Center-related stuff.  I think it was sometime while I was working that Becky gave me this, which was from Aki-san, who is her student on Thursday nights.  It was cute and delicious, so I figured it was photo-worthy.

FRIDAY

The first part of my day was pretty low-key.  I did have an awesome lunch though.

So American!  So good!

I then had my class with three elementary school kids, where we read a Christmas story, played some games, and did crafts.  They seemed to really enjoy themselves!  After that, Carol had brought over some lasagna, so, along with Becky, we had dinner, and then Carol and I had a joint party (with my one student and her two, all kids), where we played games and had awesome pumpkin cake that Carol had made.  After that, I had class with my two high school girls, where I had them read a Christmas story, and they made (or attempted to make, haha, the glue wasn't very cooperative for either of my classes) the little stables.  One of the girls gave up and I taught her how to play 13, one of the best card games ever.

After that was movie night!  Julia and Anna came early, so I had some time to chat with them before the movie started.  We watched The Nativity Story (called Maria in Japan).  I'd seen it before, like in the theater back when it came out, so it was great to watch it again.  It really humanizes Mary and Joseph, and it was a really perfect choice because many Japanese people have never heard the Christmas story before.  One of the girls who came hadn't known before that Jesus was born in the Middle East, and one of the guys in my group told me that he'd never heard the story before either.  We had a good amount of new (or new-ish) people, many of whom aren't Christians, so we're all hoping that the movie had a positive impact!

SATURDAY

Another busy day.  In the afternoon, a couple of families who are friends of ours helped us out by letting us dress them up in costumes to take pictures of them for our Christmas presentation, which will be kind of a narrated slide show?  One family dressed as shepherds for us, and of the other family, the brother was Joseph, the sister was Mary, and their dad was Gabriel.  We took our first batch of pictures at an actual stable, which was pretty awesome.  The rest we took at the Center.  Thanks to Carol's creative eye with costumes, backgrounds and everything, as well as her and Becky's hard work in taking pictures, I think it's going to be pretty cool!  I'm going to start working on putting everything together in Power Point soon.

In the evening, Becky and I met up with her friend Yukari, and we went out for okonomiyaki!  If you don't know what it is, most people call it a Japanese pancake, but that's really not a very good explanation.  So have pictures!

It comes like this!  You cook it yourself.  Mine was chicken cream croquette or something like that.  You put the meat on first and then mix the other ingredients together.

All three of our okonomiyaki cooking!

The finished product!  Mine kind of sustained some damage when I flipped it, but whatever!  It still tasted amazing.

So that was a first: making my own okonomiyaki.  Another first that night: the three of us went to an onsen.  Onsens are hot springs, which are plentiful in Japan, and are really popular.  The idea of a public bath made me a little uncomfortable at first, but once I was there it really wasn't too weird at all, and I really enjoyed it!  The water felt really nice, and the three of us had a good time.  There's even an outdoor section, which was super beautiful because it was night, and the moon was out, and there were some really pretty trees and everything.  A great experience!

SUNDAY

Ahhh, I'm finally caught up!  So today was church.  We had to be a little early to practice our choir songs, O Holy Night (in Japanese of course), which we sang during the service this morning.  After the service was a churchwide lunch, where we had some amazing bentos!  So of course I needed to document every detail.

Lid!

No lid!  Look at all this awesome food!

Hamburger with star-shaped cheese!  A croquette ball!  Chicken with foil and a bow on the bone!  Lettuce!

Spaghetti!  Gratin!  Vegetable gel stuff!

Rice stuff with shrimp!

Ham and cucumber sandwiches!  Smoked salmon!  A lemony thing!

The whole thing was wonderful.  <3  Here's a picture of our table.  It's Eri-chan (eating her chopsticks lol), Carol, Becky, me, Youko, and Uehara-kun.  :D

After lunch, the pastor and his wife were presented with gifts, and then so were we missionaries.  We got some pretty awesome-looking coffee!  Three different ladies gave the three of us our gifts, so Eri-chan gave me mine.  It was so nice!  Then Becky said a few words, and then Carol wanted to as well.  I...decided not to, haha.  And, unbeknownst to me, Eri-chan took a picture for me!

After lunch was over, there was a kind of run-through of the Christmas Eve service.  The only part I'm participating in is the choir singing, which is towards the end, so I spent the rest of the practice time playing with my phone, and trying (unsuccessfully) to remain fully conscious.  There was some pretty cool stuff though, like hand bells and a song sung by the kids in the church.  The service is gonna be really nice!

When the practice was over, Carol, Becky and I made a stop at McDonald's to get coffee, then went shopping at a pretty cool mall-like shopping center.  We spent a decent chunk of time in a store that sells fancy coffee, foreign foods, etc.  I didn't buy anything (although I did see real cheddar cheese- which is apparently red cheddar cheese- a tiny block was like almost 500 yen o_0), but Carol found a whole bunch of stuff she's been looking for, like pretzels to make a certain dessert.  We started to get hungry for dinner after that, so we went to a restaurant in the mall.  It was pretty good!  I got "taco rice," which the only thing "taco" about it is maybe the meat.  It was pretty good though!

We did some shopping at Daiso, the hundred yen store, where we got a bunch of stuff for Christmas, as well as a couple of other random things.  We stopped at Baskin-Robbins, and then called it a day.  It was pretty productive for Carol especially, but really for all of us!  Also, there was this pretty amazing store name.

Some kind of clothing store.  Called Pee's Prayer.  Yup.

And now I'm home, writing this, thinking of going to bed, knowing I have a bunch more Christmas stuff to work.  In the morning we're gonna go see some artifacts here in Tsu from the time when Christians were persecuted in Japan (like the kind of stuff we saw in Kyoto), so that should be interesting.  Hopefully I'll get a lot done tomorrow!  I can't believe how close Christmas is!  Seriously!