Team Japan 2003

Today we tried to fly solo and take the train to Shibuya to go to the Oriental Bazzar to get last minuite souvieneers (however you spell it). Well, we got there alright, but then got lost trying to find the place. It's been a little while since I've been there see, and I don't really remember it so well from the last time because we were walking around so much.

We got half-way lost, and decided to go to Denny's for lunch. Good stuff! I had the Chicken Ceasar with bread and a melon cream soda. I had to help order because we didn't have translation today. It was good practice.

We finally found the Oriental Bazzar after lunch, it was only about 5 min away. We shopped for a while, and enjoyed hearing English for the first time in a while. There were alot of foriegners there. Americans, Europeans, Australians. Isaiah said that one of the people there were also missionaries. Tim said he talked to a guy from Ventura.

Enough cheap, yet somewhat authentic, Japanese things. It's time for Snoopy.

Isaiah remembered that the Snoopy store that we saw a few weeks again was really close. So we sauntered up the street and went to Snoopy Town. Yeah, it looks like a Peanuts gallery, but the place had mostly Snoopy things. And when I say things, I mean just about anything you could think of. But, I never really was a Peanuts fan, so I just moseyed around for a while then waited for everyone to finish. And we made it home alright, in a much quicker fashion. We found a shorted way home and got on one of the faster trains.

Honestly, at this point, I'm beat. I think I'm getting Chris Mortimer's cold, which isn't a good thing because his is really bad. Plus, I think that as I am writing this, that it's starting to rain outside, and I have a 30 min walk home. I'm tired. I can't wait to be back home. I'm sure I'll be there soon enough, missing this place.

Tomorrow we meet at the bus stop at 6:30AM, then we'll get to the airport around 9AM and fly out at about 11AM. I heard that we arrive on Wednesday at about 8AM in the States. I'm not really sure, so just go look up Korean Air Flight KE001, NRT to LAX.

Meanwhile, Sayonara, Nihon!

It's debreif, so what are we going to do? Talk about things that matter? No. We're going to be tourists and go to Tokyo Disneyland! (Again!) Well, I won't complain, aside from the fact that I'd rather go to Tokyo DisneySea.

I did have a camera this year, which was nice. I finally was able to get a good picture of the castle, it is so much better. Plus, I got a decent nigh shot of the castle, too.

Other than that, I just tried to enjoy the rides. We went on It's A Small World, which has this nice, indoor waiting area. Big Thunder Mountain was my favorite again, it's in the background there. And of course, the (now) classic, Pooh's Hunny Hunt. Unfortunately, I really didn't get any good shots of the inside of the ride, but it's awesome! I think that the highlight of the day was Jessica and Joy getting in trouble for screaming on the Haunted Mansion ride... go figure! The fireworks got cancelled again, but the electric light parade came through instead. So cool! And, yet again, we went to the Blue Bayou for dinner.

Despite all of that fun, we did spend some quality time waiting in line with Yoshie, Maki, Tomo, Hiromi, and Hitomi. And if we weren't waiting in line, we were enjoying snacks in the shade.

Though after all of that rukus, the train ride back was the best experience. A drunk Japanese guy just leaned over and asked, in English, if he could talk with me. How cool is that? I got a share a little bit about why I came to Japan and say that I was a Christian, but I forgot my tracts at home today. Isaiah and Tim were both out too, because they had been giving them to the prostitutes that approached them almost daily in Tachikawa. Chris had given me some for such an occasion, but alas, I didn't have them with me today. It was a good experience, but I was frustrated that I couldn't communicate what was really important.

And I got home about 12:30AM, took a shower and crashed until Sato woke me up at about 7AM.

Well, this is our goodbye Sunday, probably one of the most depressing days of the trip.

We started this morning in Sunday school. Jessica and I taught in the elementary age group. She taught the lesson from 1 Samuel 18 and I taught a song. It really didn't go that well. We were putting so much effort into Gospel Night, that we forgot about Sunday School and had to rush the preparation for it.

During service, David shared about his experience in Japan. He did great, and I really appreciated his message. As for the main study, I don't remember it. I was having too difficult a time stayinga awake, just like everyone else. This last week has been very tiring. Plus, the waking up early is really wearing on me now.

At the end of service, they had us all stand up front and say goodbye to the church body. Jon invited them all to the Sayonara Lunch which was upstairs after the end of announcements. He preceded this announcement with his usual "maybe there is a..." which is rather funny in this situation, because there was a 100% chance that it wasn't a maybe.

As for the goodbye lunch, just look how packed it is, I had to take three pictures: Left, center, and right.

We said our last goodbyes there. Some of the Japanese people shared about the trip and we also shared on different topics, unlike last year's homestay thank-yous. I got to talk about our ministry at Josui Church, which is what I really wanted to share on. We finished the lunch by singing "I Will Call Upon The Lord". Then it was that awkward goodbye time. I had already said goodbye to the Saoshiros.

So, at this time it was farewell to Yuki, all of the girls from college group, and Ai and Prio who came to church and Sennen-kai.

After the lunch, we had Sennen-kai. Isaiah shared again, and it went really well. Then they went around the circle sharing their experiences with us these past few weeks. Ai and Piro were both really encouraged to come to church and be involved. A few Sundays back, Mr. Yoshizawa prayed that they would come back to church, and here they were in Sennen-kai sharing that they were really glad we came because it encouraged them to come back to church. Hopefully, Maki will be able to help encourage them to come back after we leave, since they are her friends. But it was cool to see an answer to prayer so quickly.

Then things got a little chaotic when Mrs. Hosokawa got out two yukatas for the girls to wear in pictures. Guess which two boys volenteered to wear them for photos: Tim and Isaiah, of course! Enough said. You know how crazy that got.

I took a relaxing walk home and took this picture of shin-yoen which is one of the major cults here in Tachikawa City. Its a weird sect of Shinto or Buddhism, I cannot remember exactly. However, people come here in droves, filling multipule tour buses, just to pay money for special prayers. The whole cult is money based. The place is huge too. It's several city blocks long. And every building has that gold symbol. Its very mysterious, but it all sounds like one of those pyramid-schemes.

And then, its been a while but, I have a golden camera award for this photo: Moon in the Sunset

They slept in two hours later. Today, I ended up getting up at 6AM, so I guess that's better. But still, I was tired. I do enjoy the Mortimer's munchkins, but you think they'd learn to behave after a while. Too bad that the Japanese school system really doesn't help to reinforce the discipline that they recieve at home. So, yeah, around 7AM I finally got up because Sato walked into my room to say "good morning". Chris wanted to keep his promise about biking that he made during yesterday's run. We boys went down and got our bikes and took breakfast with us to Showa Koen Park. Unfortunately, I didn't take my camera.

At Showa Koen, we found a nice spot to sit down and enjoy yogurt, choco bread, and some juice. The whole time, Mako was talking about bugs. He went to the park with his kindergarten to catch grasshoppers, and today he wanted to do that again.

Finally, we had all finished breakfast, and went over to the other side of the park to a grassy area that supposedly had grasshoppers. Chris stayed behind for a little bit to take care of the trash and lock up the bikes.

Here I am, in the middle of a park in Japan, with three Japanese boys who speak mostly English, trying to find grasshoppers to catch. Something was bound to happen. And it did, because one of the park caretakers rode up in his Showa Koen Park van to come over and talk to me. In Japanese. All I could understand was that he was talking about our bikes, the kid's dad (who I think he thought was me maybe, I really wasn't sure), and something called "abunai". I explained that my Japanese was not very good, and I attempted to recruit Mako to help me, because he understands much more Japanese than I do. Nope, it didn't happen, instead, Sato kept talking to him in Japanese trying to show him something that he had found in the grass. Then Chris finally walked up and he and the park worked chatted. Chris explained that "abunai" means dangerous. The man was trying to tell me that it was not safe to leave our bikes alone on the otherside of the park unlocked. Well, they were locked up, Chris took care of that. We thanked the man for his concern then went on to find some of those mushii (bugs).

It took a while, but I spotted the first grasshopper, and it was our biggest too. They looked just like a peice of long grass with legs. Quite difficult to spot. But by the end of our hunt, we caught ten of them. Mine was the biggest! It was about four inches long, the others were more in the two to three inch vicinity. We let them all go and tried catching a few of them again. The big one really took to Mako and let him take him all the way over to the bikes before Mako let him go. Then we biked home to take a nice cold shower before heading to church for the beginning of all of the Gospel Night preparation.

I spend the morning relaxing for the most part. Tim and I went to 4Gamers to check out the cool stuff there. I found a soundtrack for a new Japanese movie that was cool (the movie is called Last Exile, and it looks alot like Laputa).

When we got back, we split up into groups for lunch. Things got a little chaotic after that. Tim and my group just couldn't decide where to go. I made a decision for everyone, but it didn't work out because the soba place didn't offer take-out. I had gone to pick up drinks at this point and went back to the church with them. They found out that they couldn't get take out and went to First Kitchen instead. There, it took them half an hour just to decide what to get because the girls just couldn't be adventerous and try something by pointing and saying "onegaishimasu". Tim was really frustrated when he got back becuase they just woundn't decide and made lunch such a drawn out thing.

Meanwhile, I was at church practicing and Megumi and Yo come find me to inform me that we need to change our mic check time becuase one of Megumi's band members can't make it for their time. Well, I'm not the leader, but alright, I'm making the decision. When everyone came back for lunch, I told them that we have to eat and practice because our mic check time has changed. We scarfed down lunch and then tried to sing. It's hard enough that one of the songs is high, but now we have to sing on a full stomach! It went well, and Megumi helped Joy find the harmony for part of "Come Thou Fount". Other than that, not much to report, because practice turned out great.

Then we just kinda chilled until the main event. Tim finished his collection of Coca-Cola Dragonball Z figurines. He's got the whole set!

Here was the lineup for the evening: Gospel Night Schedule

For the most part it went in order: Ekimae Band opened with some group participation worship; then the youth group performed a song with hand motions (ya' gotta love it!); the chior did a lengthy, yet beautiful performance of a hymn (I think, it wasn't in English so I can't be sure); Megumi's band, Avenue, performed three songs, one of which was Sensei's song, "Introduction" off of The Witness album; Ekimae band got up and did a few songs; then we took to the stage for "I Will Call Upon The Lord" followed by "Come Thou Fount" (I know that the schedule says otherwise, but that's just the order Jon remembered them when Tomo asked him what we were singing); Chris did the Gospel message, which was excellent; then Sensei showed up from a conference that he was teaching at, just to perform "Thank You Lord" for us again; Ekimae band was back up for a repeat song; and Sennen-kai closed the evening with a beautiful rendition of "Amazing Grace".

And look at our sell-out crowd! Really, this went great! Look at how much fun Sato had. We didn't mess up our songs, and they went great! Chris's message was an excellent presentation of the gospel. What an evening! Unfortunately, we had a few goodbyes to say today. The Yoshizawas were leaving, and so was Joshua. They will both graduate and move out of the area to become pastors next March.

But there were some good things about the evening, such as seeing all of the Hosokawas, all of the Iwais, Ai, Ai's boyfriend (who really liked it, and had fun with Isaiah), Piro, and few of our other English students who's names I cannot remember. No Mr. Satoyama this year. Joy said that he's been working weekends and couldn't come. Sad. I would've loved to see him there again.

Once 8:30 rolled around, Sensei started ushering people out. I went biking home. I saw the moon on the way home and though it would be cool to go over to the park and stargaze for a while since it was a pretty clear evening. But by the time I got to the park, the moon had set. And then the sky started exploding. Fireworks. It was at complete random. Apparently there's some sort of celebration going on at a park in Akishima. So I was able to take a few pictures of the fireworks but my camera died when I finally walked closer and found a good place for pictures. I stopped and watched the whole show. It was much better than the fireworks at Showa Koen last weekend.

When it ended, I headed home. Chris was putting Mako to bed. They had stayed up and watched the fireworks from their balcony. Mako was saying, "...but Andrew missed the fireworks. I want to tell him about the fireworks." I stuck my head in and said, "Hey, Mako, I got pictures of it. I didn't miss it." Then he was okay and calmed down. I chatted with Chris a little then went to bed, for it had been a long day.

That's right, 4AM. They woke up. I hear, "Daddy, I can't sleep." So, Chris, who has been coughing from a cold he has, gets up to try to coax Mako, Nono, and Sato back to sleep. But it doesn't work. Around 6AM, I hear Chris sending Make and Nono to the bathroom to wait for their punishment for disobeying their dad. Then finally around 7AM, I roll over and decide to just get up. Besides, I can hear them asking about me. I'm tired, but they are still some cool little guys.

So 7AM, I'm up and ready for the day. Chris decides that going for a run would both clear his sinuses and hopefully wear out the boys. The five of us went running down to the botanical farm. It's actually part of the laboratory for the junior college right next to it. They do botanical research there. We played tag and walked around the gardens. It was beautiful and quiet. Aside from Mako and Nono convincing the rest of us to play a game of tag. Chirs wasn't getting much running in, so he chose to chase me down to be "it".

Around 8:45, we rounded up the horses and headed home for breakfast and a shower. I was off to the church after that.

Once again, we practiced for Gospel Night and the girls still complained that the key was too high. And nothing happened after that except English lessons.

Not exactly. Jessica, Tim, and I went north to go shopping at a mall that we hadn't ever really been to. It's basement floor is a large 100 Yen store. They went there and I went up to check out the mall. They had a huge music store on the top floor! They had tons of magazines with Paul Gilbert on the cover, they had several chord books for his music and Mr. Big's. And they even had a Paul Gilbert Ibanez guitar! It was actually a pretty good deal, and it came with a case too! Then I went to the other side and saw the $2000 John Patrucci guitar by Ernie Ball Musicman. Wow. Nice guitars. But I went back and thumbed through the chord books. The Paul Gilbert ones look really good. But I'll have to think about it.

I had a lesson at 3PM with Shin, but he showed up at about a quarter after to explain that he is too busy for a lesson today. Daijobu, no problem, it was alright. So I went with Hiromi to shop for that thing that still won't be talked about, because it's a rather special gift for someone I know back at home. And we finally found one that was affordable!

And... I went back to the guitar store and bought two Paul Gilbert Chord books. I'm stoked. I finally get to learn I song that I've been wanting to learn for the longest time, Paul Gilbert's "Six Billion People" off of the "Aligator Farm" album. Great song! I love it.

Tim, Isaiah, and I went out for dinner together. We really weren't sure what to do so we headed north to find somewhere new. I suggested that we try the Jonathan's that was below the HMV music CD store. The Jonathan's chain is kind of like a Denny's and it was recommended to me by JELI students.

It was good. A bit pricy, but I enjoyed a good plate of somewhat traditional American institutional food. Plus, they had melon Fanta! We had a time ordering though. No English menus, but between Tim and I we were able to understand that we were being asked if we wanted bread or rice as a side dish for our meal. (Bread of course, this is supposed to be somewhat American)

And then I rushed back to church for my last English lesson, and it was with Yoshio. I was in a guitar mood, so we learned "Penatonic scale", "Major scale", "root note", and "key". Nice way to end the evening, I think.

I still haven't eaten dinner at home!

Nothing was on the schedule today except for a meeting with Yoshie. I went to church a little early to practice guitar again. Caroline also went early, so we talked alittle. She says that Hitomi has done a 180! They spent most of their time last night talking together and hanging out a home. No more did she just laugh and walk away. Instead they stayed up so late, that Hitomi just slept in the same room as Caroline! Praise the Lord! Caroline and I both want to invite Hitomi to Disneyland, so we're going to ask Jon.

Then the meeting started. We went over the various thank-yous that we had to write and all of the last minuite things that had to be done before we leave. Yoshie also shared on missions in Japan. She advised against being a "tent-maker", that is, trying to be a self supporting missionary like the Mortimers are doing. She says it's too difficult and she sees it wearing on the Mortimers. Instead, she says that the best thing to do would be to go through a missions agency and try to learn the language first, then worry about evangilism after maybe two years. That's what the Winters are doing. They aren't even allowed to have responsiblilty in the church. Or, she said to just work in Japan and be a part of the church. You don't have to be a pastor or a teacher, just living and being a part of the body is a great way of ministring to the Japanese. They need mature Christians to be examples.

Once that converstation died out, we went to lunch at Granduo. We went to "Koke Kokko" which is Japanese for "Cock-a-doodle-doo". I had yaki-tori, but Jon and Isaiah had cow-tounge. It was good actually. It tasted just like any other beef.

Yoshie had to go back to work after that. But before she left, we went down to Club Sega to take team photos in one of those awesome photo booths. All nine of us crammed into one booth and took about three or four photo sets. We used photos on bookmarks that we made for the church body. So we had to have a totaly of 100 photos. Since you can only get (at most) 36 photos at a time, this took a while.

Once we got enough pictures, we went to the church and made the bookmarks and started on Thank-you notes. One for each homestay, one for each demanding beuracrat in the church (sad, isn't it?), and one for each individual that helped us in a significant way (music, tourism, translataion). I only got a few done; I have to finish them later.

Tonight the Mortimers come home, but that will be after dinner time. Mrs. Omura had me over for dinner. Because of the short notice, Yuki was unable to attend. I biked home with Tim and Isaiah, and we stopped at a cool little recycle shop. Isaiah found some cool mini-cds, but I didn't find anything. (Although I did find a section that I really did not want to find! Can you believe it? Even in a recycle shop!)

I went and grabbed the Laputa DVD hoping that we could watch it after dinner. On the bike to Mrs. Omura's, Tim informs me that she doesn't have a DVD player. Well, it was a nice idea.

We arrived and then she fed us. And fed us. And fed us. She cooked way too much food! Again! But it was great. We sat an veged while watching "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" in Japanese. They even got a Regis look-alike! So funny. They can only win 10,000,000,000 Yen too, which is about $82,000. Then that got boring and we started watching and American movie called, Hackers. It was cool, but I had to leave because the Mortimers called me saying that they were home. I went home, even though they didn't say I had to. I wanted to be there to give them a bit of a welcome.

Chris and I chatted about their trip for about 20 min, then they were all out for the night. Me too.

For me, this is the start of the end of English lessons. (Aside from last week's early end with Kazue Aido, that was quite unexpected.) Again, we practiced Gospel Night songs to start the day off, then we didn't have anything except lessons today.

I did lots of things that I've forgotten. I probably went shopping again, but I don't remember. That's what I get for being so far behind and having zilch pictures to show for the day.

Okay, so it's starting to come back a little bit. We did practice our Gospel Night songs together, both music and lyrics. We had a lengthly discussion about the lyrics to "Come Thou Fount". There's a verse that starts with "Here I raise my Ebenezer..." and that just isn't really common anymore. (Do you know what an Ebenezer is?) But that's only half of a verse, and I know we don't just sing a half-verse of this song in chapel at Master's. Thankfully, Jessica was a music major and has a music major boyfriend to boot, so she dug up the alternate verse for us. I'm really thankful for her help because I'm no authority on hymns.

And it turned out that everyone knew how to sing "I Will Call Upon The Lord", but "Come Thou Fount" was much different. Typically hymns are played slower, making it difficult to strum on the guitar, especially since hymns are heavily laiden with chord changes and I'm really not trained in the art of picking. I came up with a four chord version that was upbeat and easy for me to strum and sing, but I wasn't sure if it was kosher to play a hymn that way.

Rather than just dumping the fast four-chord version on them, I tried it slow. I explained my delimma and that I couldn't find the right kind of chords online or a picking pattern. Plus, they just didn't like the key I was comfortable with.

The search began. First we tried E, then F, then F#, then Jessica said, "I'll call Dan and ask him what key he usually plays it in because I've had an easy time singing it with him before."

And we let Jessica call Dan, and they chatted while us guys waited and the girls went out for a while to shop. Isaiah, Tim, and myself were sitting around and I just threw out the upbeat four-chord way in my key.

They loved it. I was shocked. They even had an easy time singing it. I went and told Jessica to just go ahead and enjoy chatting with Dan and that she didn't have to worry about us, because we found something that seemed to work. But, ended up being too high for the girls still.

I tried different keys, but E just seemed to work the best. I think the hymn just is one of those that jumps up in the middle and you just have to sing high. We practiced this version a few times and everyone loved the beat and sound, so we're going with it.

Finally, 2PM rolled around, and so did my lesson. Mrs. Iwai and I had a good time talking about Fuchu and the seminary and Miyazaki films. Then it was time to go and she gave me a Momo-taro wall hanging (It's awesome!) and a door-cloth thingy (you hang it in the doorway) that says "yu" which is what the door-cloth things that hang in the doors of sentos. Cool!

Then I did something in the afternoon, but I forget because I'm writing this about four days later.

We had our last meeting with Sensei. He asked about our final English classes. Yoshie also explained why Hitomi has been scarce this year. Hitomi has taken up piano and is dedicating most of her time to it. However, she was in a competition/recital thing and didn't do well and has become rather depressed. Caroline is staying there and she said that Hitomi acted really weird.

So when prayer meeting came around at 7:30PM, we prayed for Hitomi. I remember being so involved last year, but now she's sad or mad at the world, I'm really not sure, but I miss having her around.

I was in Yoshie's group for prayer and we had a good time talking for a little bit after the prayer. We talked about missions in Japan some and how difficult it is for the Mortimers. She says that they have been doing good though, but it is very difficult because they are not supported by a missions orginization.

Then I went home for a very uneventful evening.

...Tuesday seemed much more quiet. We had a our morning lesson with the kids. It went well, but yet again, we had very few students. Isaiah and Tim were running around from quite some time after the lesson, just playing with the kids. They obviously had a blast.

Then in the afternoon I practiced the Gospel Night music several times, just finding the right way to play the songs. I'm still not sure if the way I'm playing them will work for everyone. I'm playing "Come Thou Fount" faster than most other ways you'll hear it.

Other than that, I really didn't have much to do. I might've done something cool, but I have since forgot it. I do know that everyone had their last Tuesday lessons though. I was on the schedule for the TELI class, but forgot and missed it. I had told Yuki that I'd be home at six. Last week, Hiromi said it was the last class, so I just assumed that there wasn't a class. I feel rather dumb for missing it, but oh well.

I went shoping today to find a certain souvineer (the details of which will not be revealed at this time) but I really wasn't sure how to buy one or what kind to get. I had heard that they are pretty expensive, so I tried to at least get an idea on prices.

That night, I went home and Yuki cooked for us. It was good. He asked me what I did that day, and then I asked the same of him. He told me that he found the Mortimer's Playstation 2 and played a game for a while, and then watched the Star Wars Episode II: The Clone Wars.

After dinner, we went and played the PS2 game together. It was the Ultraman 2 fighting game. I know it sounds pretty dumb, but it was fun! And once we played until about 11PM, we decided to look at the DVDs that the Mortimers had. They have Laputa: Castle of the Wind. Yuki said it's his favorite, so we started watching it in the Japanese with English subtitles, but then I realized it was late and he just informed me that it is about 2 hours long. Since Mrs. Omura invited us over for dinner sometime, I thought we could watch it later with Tim and Isaiah over at Mrs. Omura's. And then Yuki and I crashed around 11:30PM.

I finally got a few snapshots of some of the changed things in Tachikawa.

First, the building on the right that is brown is completely new. They are also building behind the homes place on the left, as you can see by the crane there.

Second, this Vodophone place just didn't exist last year. They finished the escalator on this side, and built this building.

Third, the McDonald's here used to be two and a half floors, as Mike and I used to say, but they've remodeled and made it a real two floors and added the McCafe.

...you've got to love them! Especially when they are your day off! Mr. Yoshizawa suggested to Jon that today we go up and visit the seminary (shingoku, I believe). He said it would be a great place to visit then go on a picnic lunch and play baseball. And so we did just that. But, before all of that we had a few adventures.

First off, we had to take the Ome Line (Ome-sen) to Ozaku. Sounds simple right? Well not so. We were waiting in one train on the platform at Tachikawa (Tachikawa is one of the terminal stations of the Ome Line) and Tim has this idea that some of us should run across to the other train and "race" to Ozaku. However, we forgot that Ome Line isn't really a straight line, but is shaped more like a tuning fork. At Hajima, the tracks split. Guess who was going on the wrong side of the split? That's right, Tim, David, Isaiah, Jessica, and myself.

But, by His providence, two stops past Hajima, the gentleman next to me suddenly leaned over and asked me in English, "Where are you going?" I had fogotten the name of the station, so I directed him to Tim. Then he was so kind as to communicate that we had to go back two stops to Hajima and get on the train on the other side of the platform. We thanked him, and got off and did just that. That put us about 30 min behind the other group (consiting of Joy, Lindsey, and Jon). Once we finally arrived we met up with Mr. Yoshizawa and Yoshio (who had biked all the way from Tachikawa, due to his incredibly competitive nature)

Mr. Yoshizawa took us over to the seminary. He showed us around the building. The place is built just like Hotchkiss, two wings joined by a central walkway. He took us up to the chapel which had a beautiful pipe organ. There, Isaiah did his Art Azurdia impression for the rest of us.

We also looked in on Joshua's (Yoshuya for those of you who remember his Japanese name from last year) dorm room where Isaiah claimed even more of the lime-light. From there, Mr. Yoshizawa offered to show us the library... as if we are going to say, "No." Of course, we want to see the library!

And here it is, in all of it's moving-bookshelves glory. That's right! To save space, part of the library had shelves on motorized wheels so that you could just open an isle between the shelves you needed and shove all of the rest of the shelves to one side of the room. Pretty cool, huh?

Alright, enough of the seminary, on to the Tama river, once again, for some baseball! Yet again, we went down to the water and soaked our feet in the refreshingly cool water. But we had to cross a large area fully of small rocks that weren't entirely comfortable to walk on with bare feet. But you can see in the background of that picture that there was some beautiful country side just across the river. (Rachel: That bike bath that you found in that book, well here's a picture of that path by this part of the river. It would be a great ride, but I don't think I'll get the chance.)

We played in the river then took to eating a lunch that the Yoshizawas cooked for us on a frying pan thingy that they brought to the park. Good stuff! Then we took up the bat and the glove. I pitched for a while. I'm still into pitching after playing last Monday. (Or was that the Monday before? I can't Remember!) I did pretty good. Gave Jon a few nice swings. Too nice. I knocked two of our balls into the bushes that separated the field from the river. At that point, we switched fields so that right-handers couldn't nock balls into the river. Of course, David is up to bat right after his brother. Stinkin' lefty! No, actually, he kept the remaining ball in the park. Actually, he kept hitting straight to my glove in the outfield because Jon had started pitching in my stead. I've got to give others a chance sometime. But it got to hot and we started dropping off and heading to the shade of some of the trees.

We were so beat! On the long haul back, the Yoshizawas suggested that we stop at their house. And we enjoyed the A/C for a bit while munching on ice cream that they bought for us. Then he even gave us a ride back to the station in a car he borrowed from one of his seminary friends. (Sounds like college, huh?)

We men were so beat that we decided to try out the "cool" sento by Mrs. Omura's house. Tim and Isaiah told us about it. We started walking over there and picked up some towels at our respective houses since they were all on the way. As we were on our way there, Isaiah just had to be in the lime-light a little bit longer today. He decided that he wanted a new bike.

Just as we were starting to cross an intersection (the light had just changed for us to walk) when Isaiah goes out ahead on his bike and a car just refuses to let him have his way and hits him.

"Oh no", I think. Then, "Well, nothing looks broken," and as he stood up, I thought, "He stood up, that's a good sign." And he stood up. The gentleman who hit him pulled his car over and got out to talk to us. In Japanese. We try to explain that Isaiah is completely fine and that he can go, but then Tim decides, "We should call the police and be formal about this." So we called Mrs. Omura on Jon's cell phone for help with translation. She was in the middle of a lesson and just told her students to study and rushed over to where we were.

The jist of it is this:

Isaiah won against the car. The hood of the car had a huge dent in it from Isaiah's weight, and Isaiah has a scratch on his knee and wasn't even bleeding there. His bike took most of the damage. The wheels couldn't even turn. Eventually a police officer came and took a report on the accident. He suggested that Isaiah go to the hospital. "Why?" he asked. Nothing's broken, no blood, and everything is bending fine. He didn't even go into shock.

We later found out that the 72 year old man had a kidney dialysis recently and was also tired from a day of shopping. He just wasn't able to hit the breaks in time. But he felt so horrible he gave us all a ride to the store where he bought Isaiah a nice new bike. Not too expensive, of course. Isaiah is going to mail him an invitation to Gospel Night. Alright! I was thinking the exact same thing when he mentioned it. This is a great opportunity! I hope that the gentleman comes. It would be awesome.

Oh, and mind you, this all happened across the street from a hair saloon where everyone saw it happen. So as we were going back to go to the sento we passed the hair place and took this picture of Isaiah on his new bike at the intersection where it all happened. Then he motioned to the people in the saloon that he was alright and got a new bike! They smiled and started acting out the incident to the new customers who came to the store while we were still out shopping.

And after that, we finally made it to the Super Sento as we called it. Isaiah said it felt great after the whole event.

Now, this place was cool. They had a larger shower area and even had an outdoor porch that you could sit on and enjoy the breeze next to a small koi pond. Spiffy! Except for one thing... I was sitting next to Isaiah and noticed that someone with rather long hair was sitting in one of the soaking tubs. I asked Isaiah, "Is that a girl or a boy with really long hair?" and he said that he wasn't sure. We went back to scrubbing when suddenly he takes a second glace and says, "She stood up." Yeah. That's right, a girl on the men's side of the sento. Fortunately she was leaving with her dad. (She was pretty little so she probably didn't want to go to the girl's side alone) But she kept stairing at us! Talk about uncomfortable! Especially since I was an only child and was never used to having a little sister or anyone around the house when I was young.

After trying to enjoy the rest of our Super Sento experience, we decided that home is best and that we liked the smaller sento by the Takahashi's best. And the trip home was quite uneventful.