SUNDAY 3/6
Our friend Nao-chan, who until last week lived in the womens' dorms on the third floor of the Center, played the flute in the Mie University Concert Band (I guess? lol I only really heard what they were called in Japanese...). After church this day, we got lunch at a Chinese restaurant (which was delicious), then met up with a couple of people and went to the bands' big concert. This was the final concert of the year, and had been advertised all around our area for months (I saw the posters in all kinds of places around town). The concert hall was pretty full, and I was surprised to find out that Nao-chan was the concert mistress. The band was amazing and played a variety of different kinds of music. It was great! In the evening, we had our second to last Purpose-Driven Life Bible study, and shared delicious snacks and chatted. Everyone there seemed to have a great time! I'm going to miss that group when the study ends.
TUESDAY 3/7 - THURSDAY 3/10
I don't recall doing anything out of the ordinary. Becky and I checked out Curves, an all-women's gym that also exists in the States, as many of you probably know, and made an appointment for Friday morning for a free trial. I taught classes on Wednesday, and went to Japanese on Thursday morning. After my class, I checked out a foreign foods store recommended to me by a friend, where I ordered a case of Mountain Dew and picked up a few other things that aren't easy to find in Japan, like oatmeal, flavored cream cheese, a taco kit, etc. That evening, before my class, Carol, Becky and I went to eat at Coco's, and I got jambalaya. You wouldn't think a family restaurant would make good jambalaya, but it's pretty awesome! Probably not at all authentic haha, but delicious nonetheless.
FRIDAY, MARCH 11
This is a day most people have heard a lot about by now. But like everyone else in Japan, I woke up this morning thinking it was just going to be a normal Friday. Becky and I went to Curves for our free trial, which went well, so we decided to officially sign up. After that, I went to lunch with Carol at the karaage (fried chicken) place near us. Super good! With lots of mayo, in typical Japanese fashion. Japanese people are shocked to learn that Americans aren't as obsessed with mayo as they are haha. It does taste a bit different though.
After that, I think I went online for a little bit, then decided to be productive and clean the bathroom. At around 2pm, just as I was finishing up, Becky came home from getting her haircut and asked if I'd felt the earthquake.
me: What earthquake?
...yeah. I totally didn't feel it at all, haha. Becky said she felt it as she was getting into her car to come home. I didn't think much of it at first; as most of you probably know, Japan is prone to frequent earthquakes. But when Becky turned on the tv, we both started to realize how serious the situation actually was. When I saw that the earthquake was pretty serious and that the tsunami warnings for up north where the earthquake happened were pretty major, I decided to post on Facebook that I was okay so that no one would worry about me. I also started to see one clip of the tsunami washing some cars away over and over. I knew it was bad, but the tsunami warning for our area was pretty minor (although tsunami warnings were in effect for the entire coast of Japan for days), so we more or less carried on as normal with classes. But it was a strange feeling for the rest of the day, and I spent every spare minute online, checking with my friends in various parts of Japan, making sure they were okay (everyone was, thankfully). I was also watching the news, watching the death/injury toll rise. It was only about 10 at first, and rose to around 30 by the time I went to bed, I think. At this point, I don't think anyone really realized the full scale of this disaster. I knew it was bad, but I couldn't have imagined that the casualties would end up in the tens of thousands, with entire towns being completely wiped out. I would find this all out on the news in coming days. For days after the earthquake, there was nothing but news to watch, not surprisingly, and all of it was heartbreaking.
SATURDAY 3/12
As it was the second Saturday of the month, Inspa, the returnee event in Nagoya, was held as usual in spite of the disaster the day before, since our area was all but unaffected. We all prayed together for the earthquake and tsunami victims before starting our planned program. The rest of our meeting was more or less normal: we had a gospel workshop, in which we split up into parts and learned a couple of gospel songs from a really great teacher. After that, we heard a message from Jun's father, who is Japanese but is currently a pastor in Canada. (Jun was born and raised in Canada; he jokes that he's Japanese on the outside and white on the inside.) Afterwards, a bunch of us went to the Chinese restaurant around the corner, where we had a great time. At our table was Becky; our friend Saki; a friend of hers who's an American; Jun; and a girl named Aki, if I remember right. We had a lot of fun, and the food was amazing. It was a great day, and I think kind of helped me feel normal again after the crazy events of the day before.
...yeah, I'm still behind on my blog, but at least I'm making progress :D? I think I should have time to write again tomorrow~ I did lots of exciting stuff, so expect lots of pictures in the next few posts.
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