WEDNESDAY
I got back from Tokyo that morning, and sleeping on the bus is not the same as actual sleep in bed, so I pretty much put my stuff down, changed into sweats, and went to sleep. I got up in time to go to lunch at Casa Mia with Becky and Alicia. I didn't take a picture of my pasta, but Alicia and I got cappuccino mousse for dessert~
After that, Becky had to go, but Alicia wanted to do a little shopping, so I went with her. We also went and took purikura, which was pretty exciting since neither of us knew what we were doing at all, and the instructions are really fast and in Japanese, haha. And then we went to eat at a little cafe called Silk that I've walked by many times but never stopped to eat at. It was pretty good!
Katsu curry. And you can kind of see Alicia's omurice~
Coffee and dessert that came as part of the set. All for less than 800 yen!
And cream soda. Because apparently one dessert is not enough.
Later that night, Carol came over and gave me a bunch of addresses to type up for her New Years cards, so the rest of my night was pretty much spent doing that.
THURSDAY
I ended up spending a big chunk of my day working on printing Carol's New Years cards. (She knows a lot of people, you guys don't even know.) And then I had class that night, and after class Alicia came over and we practiced a song (me on guitar, her singing) for her to perform in church on Sunday. Kind of a good, productive day.
FRIDAY
Carol, Becky and I went to have lunch at Denny's, which, even though it's technically the same restaurant, it's really totally different. Get this: the food is actually good. I know, shocking, right?? I got cheesy omurice with demiglace sauce. It was pretty amazing.
The other nice thing about Denny's is that you get unlimited refills on coffee there. That might not seem special until you realize that, unless you're at a restaurant with a drink bar (in which case you can get coffee, soda, tea, whatever you want), refills are basically unheard of. So unlimited coffee is pretty awesome. Especially since I've become a coffee drinker since coming to Japan...
Anyway, after lunch, the three of us did a little grocery shopping. I also stopped in at the drug store next door, which was interesting, since it's hard to buy stuff like moisturizer when you can't really read the labels... But I figured it out and everything was cool.
So I had my classes that afternoon, which were pretty normal, and after that was movie night. We watched Marley and Me, and to be honest, I was a little skeptical at first. I mean, it's a dog movie... But it stars Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston, and the story is really about their family and how the dog was a part of it, and um, I think I cried watching that movie more than I cry for most movies... So yeah, anyway, movie night went pretty well.
SATURDAY
Inspa! :D Or Inspire Union, the monthly returnee event in Nagoya. Here we all are (except Jun, who was taking the picture). (Note: Pictures from this day all shamelessly taken from Facebook. I was too lazy to take my own pictures...)
A couple of people had gone to the Equipper Conference in California, which is basically a conference to help people who have become Christians overseas to get ready to return to Japan, where being a Christian is not easy. So the people who had gone talked a little about their experiences, and also had met some people who will be returning to our general vicinity in the near-ish future, so we broke off into small groups and prayed for those people. My group was me, Jun, and a couple who had come for the first time, Ken and Mika, who were pretty cool. I feel like I add at least one person on Facebook every time I go to Inspa, haha. Which is not a bad thing!
After the actual event, many of us went to go eat at the Chinese place around the corner, which I think is the regular place because 1. it's close and 2. it can accommodate our large group. And also, the food is super good. Here we all are~!
We want ume chahan (plum fried rice)!
Afterwards, Becky, Jun, Kumiko, Makoto (all people from Inspa), and I went to Mr. Donut. Man I love that place. Jun was all upset because they wouldn't give him hot water so he could have more tea, haha. They are very strict about free refills only on coffee, even though all the wanted was water. Oh Japan... Anyway, we stayed there and talked for some time, which was really fun. When we left, Jun lives in Yokkaichi, which is halfway between Nagoya and Tsu, so he came on the train with us. We had to stand almost the whole way to Yokkaichi, since we had to jump into the first car since we barely made the train and it was pretty crowded. And once we finally sat (one whole stop for Jun), I'm pretty sure the guy sitting next to him threw up, and then was cleaning it up with tissues that the people sitting around him gave him. A nice way to end the day... But overall, it was a really fun day. :)
SUNDAY
Another busy day! That morning in church, Alicia gave her testimony, and then sang the song we'd practiced, so I accompanied her on guitar. And then after church was mochi making! Mochi is a really traditional thing to eat for New Years, and making it made me feel super Japanese. Basically, it's made by pounding rice until it gets all sticky and...well, mochi-like. A lot of people got to try it.
The pros hard at work.
Juri-chan giving it a shot.
Me. Not gonna lie, it was pretty fun. A great way to take out your aggression. Don't worry, the guy gets his hand out of the way between hits. It's part of how mochi-making works.
Alicia.
Nao-chan.
Yuri-chan.
Becky.
Everyone taking pictures.
Random English of the day, courtesy of the hot water pot. "Princess Flower. There are nice goods nearby. Come hither, come hither, come hither!"
Alicia~
The assembly line, turning the giant lumps of mochi...
...into something like this. Mochi in all kinds of flavors!
Yummy~
That night was Crossroad, but some of the girls from church came early to prepare for the next day's youth/young adult event. Carol had made salad for us to eat, and there was enough to share with them too.
lol, Eri-chan loves food in every picture...
So during Crossroad, one of the games we played was Knots, a teambuilding game I've played before where everyone gets in a circle and holds hands with someone across from them, and then, without letting go of anyone's hand, you try to untangle the circle. There were some pretty hilarious results.
This group was pretty fast.
This group...tended to have a hard time. But they had lots of enthusiasm!
Somehow this group ended up as two groups. Go figure...
Looks like it was interesting getting there though.
And the other group. Good times~
The whole group.
Kensaku from the Chita Nozomi church (for those who know them, the church the Stollers work at in Nagoya) came and shared his testimony. He and his wife Hiroko help out a lot with Inspa too, as well as JBC youth events in general, as far as I can tell. They're both really great.
Hiroko giving her testimony while Kensaku translates.
After Crossroad, the young people (by which I mean both teenagers and young adults) headed over to the onsen (public bath), which was really nice~ The idea of a public bath is really weird from an American standpoint, but once you try it, it's really not awkward at all, and ahhh, the hot water feels really good.
Anyway, the group at that time included people from the Tsu church, the Chita Nozomi church, and a couple of girls from another JBC church. Most everyone spent the night in the Center guest rooms, so a bunch of the girls ended up crashing mine and Becky's apartment for a couple hours that night. It was really nice to get to know them a little bit better!
MONDAY
After what was definitely an insufficient amount of sleep, we had breakfast, and then a short break before the main session. The session started out with a couple of games, and then we had worship, and our speaker was the pastor of the church in Ise. After all of that was the main event: takoyaki making!
The table before. It's so nice and clean...
My takoyaki-making group!
Alicia joined us~
Yama-chan (lol, I doubt people normally call him Yama-chan but we kind of all made up nicknames for this event) and Aya-chan from my group. Alicia working on the takoyaki~
The finished product! Very delicious with ponzu sauce and mayo~
Kensaku trying our takoyaki~
So much going on!
Whoops, forgot to rotate this picture... Anyway, this group had...interesting...takoyaki. The regular takoyaki batter got mixed up with the pancake batter that we were using to make dessert takoyaki, so using that batter, they added azuki beans, octopus, strawberries, banana, chocolate, crab...and that white stuff is whipped cream... Yeah, I politely declined to try it.
The group that made the...special...takoyaki.
Poor Eri-chan didn't know what she was eating...
What the table looked like after. Not so clean anymore...
The event was rounded out with a little more worship before we parted ways. I finally took a picture of the worship team.
And a group shot, of course. It was a really fun event~
So everything got cleaned up and put away, and after a while it was just the Tsu and the Chita Nozomi people left. The night before us girls had talked about a song some people knew about joy, and for fun we decided to sing it. So we actually separated into parts, Kensaku taught each group their part, and we sang it together. It was a really catchy, upbeat song with nice harmony, so it was actually a lot of fun to sing, even though I didn't really know it very well.
I rounded out the day by having dinner at Denny's, where I had the "American club sandwich."
I mean, I guess it was relatively American, but it had ketchup, egg, chicken and ham. Not so much the turkey and bacon that I think of when I think of a club sandwich, but you know...
TUESDAY
Pretty normal day. I was feeling industrious in the afternoon, so I actually cooked lunch for myself!
Chicken, rice, and kabocha (Japanese pumpkin). I think I did a pretty good job!
I spent the rest of my afternoon doing some lesson planning, teaching a once-a-month class, and having the normal weekly meeting with Carol and Becky. After our meeting, Becky had to prepare for a class, so Carol and I went to eat at Bronco Billy, which is apparently an Australian steak house. It has a drink bar and a salad bar, which is pretty sweet.
Caesar dressing, bacon, corn, cheese... Whoever said salad was healthy obviously wans't eating the kind of salad I eat.
Hamburger topped with bacon, fried onion, and egg. And why yes, that's melon soda~ <3
WEDNESDAY (THIS WEEK)
Ahhhh finally caught up! Today was pretty chill. I spent some time online chatting with friends in the States, cleaned out my desk (it was a total disaster), taught a couple of classes, went to the last bit of the Mie University Bible study, and a few other things. And maybe my next entry won't be super long, now that things are more or less back to normal (whatever normal is!). Anyway, here's hoping I can stay caught up on what I'm doing here in Tsu. :D
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