Great is Your love [O God], higher than the heavens; Your faithfulness reaches to the skies. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens, and let your glory be over all the earth.
-Psalm 108:4-5
Barb and I went to Mino earlier in the week, hoping to see the fall colors of Japanese maples. As you'll see in some of these pictures, there were trees scattered here and there that had already changed to vibrant shades of red and yellow. However, I think if we were to go again in about a week, the remaining majority of maples would be red, orange, and yellow. Even so, we really enjoyed spending a few hours walking through the dense, forested path up to the waterfall.
The reason I wanted to take a picture of this house was because it has a torii gate in the front yard (if you look closely you can see it behind the fence on the right). Usually a torii gate marks the entrance to sacred areas at a shinto shrine, so I'm not sure if it's just serving as yard decoration or if there's something significant about this house.
Wave to us, Barb! You can see that we came a bit too early in the season, as all those trees behind her are still green. It might be almost December before they change. (I'm not in Missouri or Indiana anymore!)
Isn't this a nice picture of Barb. I'm trying to convince her to use it as a profile picture.
Where are the blue skies?
Barb and I almost didn't make it to the waterfall. During our trek we saw a couple BIG monkeys along the path and were pretty scared (I think I was more scared the she was!!!). The monkeys at Mino have a reputation for being very aggressive and really want you to give them food. I had a bad experience with monkeys while at Arashiyama last year and have no desire to get near any monkey, especially wild ones, again. So, I wasn't so sure I wanted to keep walking to the waterfall if it meant I had to pass the monkeys. The solution, Barb and I saw a nice, older Japanese couple approaching and asked to walk with them...safety in numbers!
Since coming back to Japan I've been attending a Japanese house church, where about 13 believers gather each week. They've graciously welcomed me and have helped me get my feet wet in terms of praying, singing, studying and discussing God's Word in Japanese. I'm very thankful for these Christians and am encouraged to see how they express their love to one another.
Today after church a group of us drove to one of the nearby rivers to look at the fields and fields of cosmos that are in full bloom. We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful Fall day!
Here's one of my favorite pictures from the afternoon...how cute are these two!
Lovely backdrop and good company
Saturday, 14 November 2009
Five years ago while serving as a summer missionary in Thailand, Kib and I became friends through a ministry called The Centre (www.thecentrethailand.org). It's a place where university students go to improve their conversational English and also have the opportunity to meet Christians and hear about Jesus Christ. Since meeting that summer, Kib and I stayed in touch, mostly through snail mail and email. Surprisingly, over the last three years God has allowed our paths to cross three different times, the latest being when she and her husband Ben came to Japan for a couple of weeks. We had an awesome time together while they were in Osaka last week!
Never a dull moment with them! In Japan, this gesture means "no"
Waiting for our okonomiyaki to finish cooking so we can EAT!
For those of you who used to live here, I hope these pictures of food are making your mouth water =)
Japan lacks no shortage of drink options, so I think they tried as many different ones as possible during their trip.
Ben and Kib have lived in Canada since getting married two years ago. While studying English at one of the schools in Vancouver Kib met Shizuko-san, a Japanese gal who's from Kanazawa. Since Shizuko-san is now back in Japan she made the trip to Osaka to see Kib and Ben. For whatever reason, I didn't do much to help put dinner together this night...but I learned how to make the fish and curry.
Cutting up the ingredients for Thai green curry
I can practically smell the curry just from looking at this picture!
We also made sanma (the seasonal fish) and sauteed shitake mushrooms.
This is how I remember Kib from the summer in Thailand...she's an excellent photographer.
As they found out, Osaka has all sorts of good food. Here's a look at our spread at the yakiniku restaurant.
You get to cook the meat and veggies at your table.
Barb picked the right night to join us; the yakiniku was excellent.
Thanks again for making time to visit me while you were in Japan, Kib and Ben!
Monday, 02 November 2009
Here are a few pictures from our overnight prayer retreat last week. We drove a couple of hours down to Shirahama, a beach town on the Pacific coast; totally felt like we were in a different country. God blessed us with gorgeous weather and a beautiful setting for the retreat!!
Ocean view from our hotel balcony
Barb and Susanne sinking their feet into the white, powder-like sand
Jan (Barb's older sister) and Susanne (their friend) are enjoying their first trip to Japan. Unfortunately their two week trip will come to an end tomorrow as they fly back to Ohio; I wish they could stay longer!
Taking in the view
Water threatens to overtake their building project.
Waves rolling in as the sun begins to set
Saying goodbye to the beach until tomorrow
While driving along the coast we see this famous rock formation in the middle of the water...calls for a picture
Notice how our hotel room is multifunctional--a living/dining room during the day and a bedroom at night
Slumber party--three futons across and one in the other room behind the sliding doors. That would be Jan curled up sleeping.
A rare moment where the Sanders' boys weren't playing on the beach...they had a blast in the giant sandbox!
Patrick, Katherine, and little Sarah take a break from lunch to pose for a picture. So glad they could join us!
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
Tama (front and center) invited me to join her, her sister's family, and some other friends with their kids for a Japanese bbq over the weekend at Hattori Ryokuchi Park.
They were making fun of me because I pretended to be grilling just for the picture. Mai-chan was nice enough to point this out. Most of the time I was hanging out with the kids at the playground.
In addition to eating familiar meats like beef or chicken, here are pictures of the more interesting meats that we grilled (and that I at least tasted): kidney, pig neck, and cow tongue.
We also made yakisoba (stir-fried noodles) over the grill. No one went home hungry Yuna, Chiharu, Chisato, and Yuka (below)...aren't they adorable!
Priceless!
Had a chance recently to catch-up with Yuko and her daughter Koyuri who's now 9 mos old. When I think of how she looked 4 mos ago her appearance doesn't really seem to have changed much at all, but I noticed that now she's definitely a lot more interactive with people and is more mobile. To my delight she seemed quite content to sit on my lap for a while...perhaps the blueberries and strawberries in my bowl were the draw. She ate every berry in the bowl! I'd say her outfit for the day was very appropriate.
A few weeks ago I had the privilege to do a homestay with Noriko and Shoko's cousin's family. They live about a 20-min train ride from my place here in Osaka and graciously opened their home to me for a little over a week. What a great opportunity to learn more about Japanese culture (especially in the context of a family with school-aged children) and to be completely immersed in the language.
Here's a picture of my homestay family (Tomoko and Kazu-kun are the mom and dad; Ririka, Kenshiro, and Momoka are their three kids). Their nephew also came to visit a couple of days during my stay, so he joined in the picture as well.
One of the most enjoyable parts of the homestay was getting to spend time with the family's kids as well as others from the neighborhood. Everyday after school they played together outside in the street in front of their houses. With such limited space, there are no yards for kids to play in so they naturally congregate in the street. This came as a bit of a surprise to me, as most of the places I lived in the past had yards.
This fancy skateboard seemed to be one of the most popular activities for the kids; considering how badly everyone wanted to ride, I was impressed with how well they shared and took turns.
Has anyone seen this kind of skateboard before? There are only two rollerblade-type wheels and the two platforms twist back and forth.
Ririka and Momoka with two of the other neigborhood girls...so cute!
One night we played with slime!
which kept them entertained for hours
This was one of the nights that Raiki (the kids' cousin) came over, too! They're all very close in age and spends lots of time together...in fact they seem more like siblings than cousins.
Cheesy smile from Momoka and seaweed smile from Ken-chan.
Momoka was quite the helper, folding clothes with her dad.
-----
ιεδΌ (sports day)
The first Sunday we went to Ririka's sports day at her elementary school. Unfortunately my camera ran out of battery juice, so I was only able to take a handful of pictures. At Ken-chan's and Momoka's pre-school sports day the following week I made sure I charged the camera battery...you'll notice the difference in volume of pictures. =)
2nd graders marching onto the sports field
There's Ririka with her cute pink socks
One of the teachers, here, addresses all the students and explains the purpose of the sports day and encourages them to do their best.
They have PTA in Japan, too.
Parents arrived early to reserve places by setting-up tarps, tables, and chairs. During the noon hour everyone takes a rest and eats a picnic lunch (bento) with their family.
Ken-chan's and Momoka's sports day
Each age group wore a different colored hat. Also, the boys wore blue shorts while the girls wore red. Definitely made it easier to pick out Ken-chan in the crowd.
Doing radio taiso before the start of sports day...various calisthenics to get warmed-up.
This event is called tama ire, where the kids throw bean bags into a tall basket (very similar to basketball only without the backboard)
Tomoko helped Momoka (pink hat) run through the obstacle course.
Tug of war...brought back great memories from when we did this at my elementary school. Pretty much with every event that I watched I found myself wishing I could join in!!
Marching band...not kidding, these 5yr old kids marched in playing drums and other instruments. Very impressive!
Here they are playing taiko drums. Ken-chan is on the front row to the right, wearing a blue coat.
To my surprise, the school incorporated Buddhist tradition into the sports day. The kids here were carrying what's called an omikoshi (portable shrine).
Lunch break with the whole family
Hina-chan (the homestay family's niece) sporting her mom's shades.
Found this hat among all the bags as we were packing up to go home. Don't know what possessed me to put it on...
------ So that's a brief look into some of the things I got to see and do during the homestay! Many thanks again to Tomoko and Kazu-kun for welcoming me into their home for the week, for their patience in communicating with me, and taking time to explain various aspects of Japanese culture!
One evening my homestay family took me to the Danjiri Matsuri, a festival where people did dragon dances, played taiko drums/bells, and paraded four different portable shrines (called danjiri) through the streets up to the main shrine. I've heard that some festivals like this can get out-of-control and be quite dangerous as people fall off the top of the danjiri or that the danjiri damages buildings when rounding corners. Thankfully that kind of danger was avoided.
Tons of people ...gathered in the streets to take part in this Shinto festival and went to the shrine to pray.
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