Just over the weekend, SP used a text from Genesis 29 for his sermon. And it really had me thinking. You see, whenever we mention Jacob's family, at Jacob's level, not the next generation with his kids, we almost always immediately think of Rachel his wife, and then give an afterthought to his first wife, and Rachel's older sister, Leah. Which I'm guessing she got a lot of in her time, since Rachel was the pretty one, while she was the plain one.
And it was really strange, because in most Bible stories, Leah was made out to be the antagonist in the family. But when SP spoke from her viewpoint, it suddenly dawned on me that she had a really sad life. Imagine being compared to your sister all your life as the ugly half. Then you find a guy whom you like, but who wouldn't give you a second look because you're not half as good looking as your sister, who you probably took good care of. Then your father uses you to cheat the boy, to gain free labor from him (and probably to quickly marry you off). And then for your marriage, even though you give him what every man wants, many sons, he still loves your sister more.
I can't convey it here, but I really felt sad for her. I mean, not only for her life, but even after that, people have only seen her as 'that other sister'. And in a way, I felt a sense of solidarity with her, because very often, I feel as if I am an afterthought in people's minds. Not with regard to my brother, of course (or my sister, for that matter), but to others. Doesn't help that I seem to have an inferiority complex that regularly beats me down, though strangely enough, I seem to have enough arrogance for three people. Must be the OCS training.
So I could almost sense her increasing depression as she gave birth to Reuben, then to Simeon, and after that, to Levi. At first, it would seem that God was trying to help her, to make Jacob open his eyes and notice her, because she was providing him with a bloodline. And her thoughts, though each one barely measures half a verse in the Bible, marked her increasing sadness and desperation to gain just a little bit of recognition from her husband.
But finally, I guess she just gave up, and chose instead to honor the One who had given her all her sons. So when she got to her 4th kid, she called him Judah, as a form of praise to God. And then she stopped having kids (for a while).
And now we see what God was really trying to drive at. He wasn't being nice to Leah, allowing her to have sons, so that she could get Jacob to take notice of her. It was really for her benefit, to let her finally realize that she should not be looking to please her husband, but to give praise to God for being there and giving her things to be thankful for.
And while the Bible doesn't quite have as many "happily-ever-after" stories as Disney, in this case, there was a happy ending, as she ended as the honored wife, and after she died, she was interred in the family's plot. And Jacob, when speaking to his sons, told them to bury him next to her.
And as I still felt some solidarity with Leah, it really smacked me in the head a bit too. I mean, I know that I should choose to look at the big picture. To keep my focus on God, instead of on my friends, or my problems, or even myself. But sometimes, knowing it is not nearly enough. I can know all that, but I still end up looking down at my sorry situation, instead of choosing to look up at the heavens (空を見上げる, as I found in some of my songs).
So I tried to stop looking down, and to start looking up, to give all my troubles to God instead of trying to hide it inside me where no one else would see. To not worry about what would happen, but to just give praise up to Him. Which can be really hard at times. But sometimes, it's easier to try and do it just before you sleep. Then you don't need to think so much about it. haha.
And strangely enough, while talking to one of my friends just the other day, I found out that, at least for him, I'm not as much as an afterthought as I thought myself to be. Yes, I know, it's nothing much. In fact, it sounds somewhat off to be happy about such things, but I felt happy, so give me a break.
The Bible mentioned that Leah had weak eyes. I'm glad that she used them well, to find God, and look at Him instead of herself. And in my books, that means she had good eyes.
Here's to using our weak eyes in a good way.
Cheerio.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
聖書
I've never really been very good at memory verse. In fact, I've never really been quite that keen on reading my Bible. Because I'm so music-inclined (not musically-inclined. That's different. Music-inclined means I like music. Musically-inclined means I'm good at music, which I'm not. It's like the difference between 好きand 上手, which I always mix up in LAJ), I prefer to listen/play worship songs, to the almost total neglect of reading the Word.
I mean I do pray, since its relatively easy (sometimes, its not. Surprisingly, it can require quite a large amount of willpower to really sit down and pray), and because both church and VCF have placed an increased emphasis on the importance of prayer. But it takes a lot more for me to really sit down and read my Bible. Which is surprising, considering one of my hobbies is reading.
And this glaring hole in my basics of Christian living has been pointed out to me (by God) many times before, like usually when I prepare for Bible study, I know many Christian concepts and ideals and morals, but I wouldn't know the verse references. And at last year's FOC, GY's station was a memory verse station, where he asked us to tell him as many verses from the four Gospels as we could remember, and then reminded us that in many countries, the Bible is a banned book, and they had to make do with what they can memorize, while here in Singapore, we can have as many Bibles as we have money to purchase them, but many of us don't treasure the Word.
All this still didn't really have an impact on me though. Like probably too lazy, or bo chup. Or both. So I still hadn't really started reading my Bible regularly. Even on the JMT, I didn't really read my Bible, sometimes because of the time spent on doing other things, but also cos I didn't really force myself to sit down and just read the Bible, to see what God is trying to tell me from His Word.
Strangely, I did start reading through a rather 'normal' situation. On the Tuesday of the week I was to leave Japan, I was supposed to meet DL and YM for follow-up Bible Study. And DL told me on the sad Monday morning (TLD) that he was going to go through Psalm 1, and asked me to take a look at it to see if there was anything I could get from it that we could use during the session.
So after moping and sleeping away my Monday, I read Psalm 1 on Tuesday morning, and I wanted to make a decision to continue to read, to live by the Bible, not just live with a Bible. Not sure if it was merely myself talking to me, or if it was God nudging me in this direction, but I asked God to help to continue reading my Bible, and I would start by going through the book of Psalms, one Psalm a day, just as a continuation from that Tuesday.
Now prior to that, all I knew about the Psalms was like you know, Psalm 23 (The Lord is my Shepherd), Psalm 1 (Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked...), Psalm 150 (Praise the Lord, praise God in His sanctuary), Psalm 42 ("As the deer pantheth [it's spelt panteth, T!]), Psalm 40 (The miry clay one) and Psalm 119 (which is the longest one and alphabetically arranged so that each verse starts with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet as the chapter heading, but I don't know any verses). Which you must admit, for a book of 150 chapters, is really rather sorry. And I'm not saying I'm better at the rest of the Bible. It's quite similar. Like fractals. Whether you take a micro- or macro-level view, it's the same.
But now that I've started, I've discovered even more nice things from the Psalms. Like Psalm 3:4-6 "To the Lord I cry aloud, and He answers me from His holy hill. I lie down and sleep; I wake again because the Lord sustains me. I will not fear the tens of thousands drawn up against me on every side." Or like Psalm 13:2, which seems to be like something I feel myself. The reassurance of the promise of Psalm 16. The reminders of what I should do to continue to walk with God in Psalm 18: 20-26. And even today, when I had to read yesterday's reading because I didn't read it, Psalm 19:13-14 is almost like a prayer I was saying this morning so that I wouldn't fall into sin.
Now I'm not saying that I suddenly feel happy to be reading. It still takes quite a bit of pushing on my part so that I would just sit down and read the Bible. Even after reading Psalm 1 and feeling refreshed by it a couple of weeks ago, I still don't feel an urge to read my Bible. I'm not even sure if I'll be able to continue pushing myself on like this to dutifully read my Bible everyday, to the point that it is no longer a duty, but a desire. But I do know that at the very least, up to today, I have been blessed through the words of the Psalms.
I had to force myself to read on the plane the day I left because it's hard to read when you leave home at 5.45 in the morning, and it's also hard to read on the bus when you're sleeping.
So I shall just hope that the Lord can sustain me in continually reading, even after I get a job.
Ok, now back to reading. I still have to read Psalm 20 for today.
Cheerio.
I mean I do pray, since its relatively easy (sometimes, its not. Surprisingly, it can require quite a large amount of willpower to really sit down and pray), and because both church and VCF have placed an increased emphasis on the importance of prayer. But it takes a lot more for me to really sit down and read my Bible. Which is surprising, considering one of my hobbies is reading.
And this glaring hole in my basics of Christian living has been pointed out to me (by God) many times before, like usually when I prepare for Bible study, I know many Christian concepts and ideals and morals, but I wouldn't know the verse references. And at last year's FOC, GY's station was a memory verse station, where he asked us to tell him as many verses from the four Gospels as we could remember, and then reminded us that in many countries, the Bible is a banned book, and they had to make do with what they can memorize, while here in Singapore, we can have as many Bibles as we have money to purchase them, but many of us don't treasure the Word.
All this still didn't really have an impact on me though. Like probably too lazy, or bo chup. Or both. So I still hadn't really started reading my Bible regularly. Even on the JMT, I didn't really read my Bible, sometimes because of the time spent on doing other things, but also cos I didn't really force myself to sit down and just read the Bible, to see what God is trying to tell me from His Word.
Strangely, I did start reading through a rather 'normal' situation. On the Tuesday of the week I was to leave Japan, I was supposed to meet DL and YM for follow-up Bible Study. And DL told me on the sad Monday morning (TLD) that he was going to go through Psalm 1, and asked me to take a look at it to see if there was anything I could get from it that we could use during the session.
So after moping and sleeping away my Monday, I read Psalm 1 on Tuesday morning, and I wanted to make a decision to continue to read, to live by the Bible, not just live with a Bible. Not sure if it was merely myself talking to me, or if it was God nudging me in this direction, but I asked God to help to continue reading my Bible, and I would start by going through the book of Psalms, one Psalm a day, just as a continuation from that Tuesday.
Now prior to that, all I knew about the Psalms was like you know, Psalm 23 (The Lord is my Shepherd), Psalm 1 (Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked...), Psalm 150 (Praise the Lord, praise God in His sanctuary), Psalm 42 ("As the deer pantheth [it's spelt panteth, T!]), Psalm 40 (The miry clay one) and Psalm 119 (which is the longest one and alphabetically arranged so that each verse starts with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet as the chapter heading, but I don't know any verses). Which you must admit, for a book of 150 chapters, is really rather sorry. And I'm not saying I'm better at the rest of the Bible. It's quite similar. Like fractals. Whether you take a micro- or macro-level view, it's the same.
But now that I've started, I've discovered even more nice things from the Psalms. Like Psalm 3:4-6 "To the Lord I cry aloud, and He answers me from His holy hill. I lie down and sleep; I wake again because the Lord sustains me. I will not fear the tens of thousands drawn up against me on every side." Or like Psalm 13:2, which seems to be like something I feel myself. The reassurance of the promise of Psalm 16. The reminders of what I should do to continue to walk with God in Psalm 18: 20-26. And even today, when I had to read yesterday's reading because I didn't read it, Psalm 19:13-14 is almost like a prayer I was saying this morning so that I wouldn't fall into sin.
Now I'm not saying that I suddenly feel happy to be reading. It still takes quite a bit of pushing on my part so that I would just sit down and read the Bible. Even after reading Psalm 1 and feeling refreshed by it a couple of weeks ago, I still don't feel an urge to read my Bible. I'm not even sure if I'll be able to continue pushing myself on like this to dutifully read my Bible everyday, to the point that it is no longer a duty, but a desire. But I do know that at the very least, up to today, I have been blessed through the words of the Psalms.
I had to force myself to read on the plane the day I left because it's hard to read when you leave home at 5.45 in the morning, and it's also hard to read on the bus when you're sleeping. So I shall just hope that the Lord can sustain me in continually reading, even after I get a job.
Ok, now back to reading. I still have to read Psalm 20 for today.
Cheerio.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Memoriae
Today, when I met J to do up the trip report, I just started wondering what I had been doing exactly a week ago. It seems so strange and far away, when I think about it, because last Wednesday was when I ran all over Tokyo to do my own last minute shopping. It was only last week, yet it seems like a whole world away. Which is somewhat odd, considering how I mentioned in previous posts (I think the depressed one) about how I felt that three weeks seemed really short and easy to remember what had gone on then.
So anyway, here's what I did by myself for the last few days I was in Japan.
On Monday, like I mentioned, I was depressed in the morning. So after I got back from the bus stop, I had to blog about it, hence the sadness in the post. I then managed to fall asleep for a couple of hours (since I had only slept an hour and a half that night) before waking up just in time to catch the train to Kotesashi for E-crew at Waseda Tokorozawa.
So I managed to get on to the Waseda bus on time, even though the way I got on would be reminiscent of the second time the team went for E-crew (read: I was rushing on to the bus) and met SW, sitting in his favorite seat in the last row.
Got down to the canteen there on time, but this time C wasn't there yet. So I took this shot:
This really reminded me of Empty Chairs at Empty Tables. Remember, I was in a depressed mood, even though I didn't show it. And it only reminded me of the title. I don't think "Now my friends are dead and gone" is accurate.
E-crew felt really different without the team around. A whole lot quieter, everything was toned down a bit. And it didn't help that that particular day was a busy day, so only C, as well as (my look-alike) W were there. But it was nice to meet them both again.
Went back after that, and was contemplating going out to do some of the shopping, but I felt so sleepy that I ended up sleeping most of the time, and ate dinner from what I could find in the house, which for Monday night, consisted of half a can of Pringles, two packets of Pocky, and two fried fish that M had left in the fridge from the morning. Decided not to go to sleep in the room, so I slept on the sofa, like how I had been doing all day. It would prove to be a continual sleeping spot for me for the rest of my stay in Japan.
Took this shot in the evening of Monday. I wasn't quite so depressed as before, but this sort of sad shot sort of catches the mood. It was an Orange Time.
Tuesday woke up as per normal, did some QT, then proceeded to wash the rest of the bed sheets and stuff, and cleared out the tatami room, and cleaned up the place a bit. While clearing out the tatami room, I noticed a charger stuck to the wall socket. Now initially, I thought it was the Au charger, since I didn't know where that charger had been since first week, so we hadn't used that phone. On closer examination, however, I realized that charging jack was like no phone charger I had ever seen. And on even closer examination, I saw the "Nintendo" on it. And so I knew that it had to be that someone (who's name starts with W) had left it behind.
Went out to Mr. Donut to meet DL and Y for Bible study again at 3. Then after Y left, DL and me chilled out for a bit at the Mr. Donut (no donuts, only coffee. Strangely enough, I think the last time I ate donuts on that particular trip was when we went to Costco and everyone bought Lil' Donuts), then I bought my bus ticket. And when DL heard what I ate for dinner the night before, he and J invited me over for dinner at their place, as they had gone to Costco (wow. What's with the Costco connection) and had just come into ownership of food, so they could afford to have me over for dinner. Spent the evening watching Brave Story (not too bad a show) and chatting with them.
Wednesday, as mentioned, was when I did all my shopping. Morning was QT again, then I left at about 1130 to go out. First stop was the Christian bookstore at Shinjuku where I managed to spend quite a bit. Didn't go by Yamanote, took the Seibu-Shinjuku instead, and walked from Seibu-Shinjuku station over to Shinjuku. Not too bad.
After that I took the Yamanote all the way out to Ueno. Because it was at such an odd time, the train was really quite empty.
So empty I could've gotten a seat if I wanted to.
Bought some stuff at the anime shop again, then walked up and down Ameyayokocho trying to find a particular t-shirt for brother, but I just couldn't find it. Such a bother. Then was preparing to go to Ikebukuro, when I realized that Akihabara was just a stop away. One of my friends said she found a certain pair of ear pieces very nice, and I didn't know where else to go, so I took a short hop out to Akihabara, bought the earphones, and then went to Ikebukuro, where I did even more shopping in Sunshine City and Loft. Went back to Tokorozawa after that, met C for a bit, then ate dinner (a proper one at Matsuya) before toddling off to D&J's house to pass them some stuff and to chat a bit more.
Thursday morning was more cleaning. And packing. I started to feel worried that I wouldn't have been able to pack all my stuff into my bags, cos there was really quite a bit of stuff. But up till that point in time, I was able to stuff most of it in, so yeah. But I knew I had to stop buying stuff soon. Went to Shin-Sayama to help HJ do some furniture moving for her counselling place. It was like some dude's house, and it's really cool. It's a two-storey building, but with two separate houses inside. The bottom floor is where his mum lives. He lives with his family on the top. And there's no real master bedroom. He has a loft. Like I would have taken a picture, just that it's not nice to take pictures of people's rooms like that. I want to have a loft in my own house next time. As if. HDB flats aren't exactly very accommodating when it comes to wanting to have a loft.
The weather was like Singapore weather then. Warm, just not quite so humid. But yes. It was starting to get hot.
Went back home for a while first, then went to Takadanobaba to meet AM for dinner. Met him long ago in church, but only really got to know him from the 2006 JMT, and he's at Waseda Uni on exchange. Had quite a good time just talking and eating around Ikebukuro.
Got home around 10, hoping D&J would be able to make it for supper like they said they would, but they were both feeling out of sorts that day, so D called to say they couldn't come over. A bit sad, since I wouldn't see them again there. Did all my last minute packing, and managed to stuff everything into my luggage. It still weighed a ton though. Caught one and a half hours of sleep (just like on Monday), then ran to catch the Seibu bus.
It seems that everytime some member of the team leaves Tokorozawa, it's drizzling. Makes it so much sadder. When R left, it was drizzling. When the team left, it was drizzling. And when I left, it was drizzling too.
Why does it always rain on me
The trip to the airport was uneventful. Wanted to see if I could take any nice pictures, but I just sorta fell asleep (it's due to lack of sleep) and woke up at Narita. Did quite a bit of shopping there, especially for some chocolate biscuit that brother (and later I found out, V) really liked and wanted.
The plane ride back was pretty ok too. First meal, from Tokyo to HK, was decent. It was some sort of pasta with meatballs. But the best part was that I got this for dessert:
It's a mochi! It's really nice to eat. Sorry to hear that you didn't get any on your flight J!
The other meal, from HK to Singapore, wasn't that great. I didn't want to eat pasta again, and since J wasn't around, I thought I could eat pork. Tasted pretty bad though. Really salty. Good thing there was other food there to help get rid of the taste.
Got back to Singapore at about 8pm local time. Was really surprised (and touched) when I got through the gate and saw my team and V, along with my parents. Wasn't expecting it, since there was JPM on that night, and I had told them to go for the prayer meeting. Still, it was nice to see them at the airport. Was torn between going with them for dinner and going home, but went home in the end because parents wanted to go home, and V had to go meet her mum and so we gave her a lift.
Final installment for the JMT was as mentioned, today, where I met J at Ang Mo Kio Hub for lunch and then wrote out the report. Going through the itinerary, remembering all that we did, and typing it out, as well as remembering all that we did, and not typing it out cos it's within the team only, was quite a nice experience. But that's about it for JMT 2008. Maybe have to do a presentation, but if not, this is officially the end of JMT 08.
Cheerio.
P.S. J, if you can guess the title of the CD I bought today, I'll, er, give you a melon candy. haha
So anyway, here's what I did by myself for the last few days I was in Japan.
On Monday, like I mentioned, I was depressed in the morning. So after I got back from the bus stop, I had to blog about it, hence the sadness in the post. I then managed to fall asleep for a couple of hours (since I had only slept an hour and a half that night) before waking up just in time to catch the train to Kotesashi for E-crew at Waseda Tokorozawa.
So I managed to get on to the Waseda bus on time, even though the way I got on would be reminiscent of the second time the team went for E-crew (read: I was rushing on to the bus) and met SW, sitting in his favorite seat in the last row.
Got down to the canteen there on time, but this time C wasn't there yet. So I took this shot:
This really reminded me of Empty Chairs at Empty Tables. Remember, I was in a depressed mood, even though I didn't show it. And it only reminded me of the title. I don't think "Now my friends are dead and gone" is accurate.E-crew felt really different without the team around. A whole lot quieter, everything was toned down a bit. And it didn't help that that particular day was a busy day, so only C, as well as (my look-alike) W were there. But it was nice to meet them both again.
Went back after that, and was contemplating going out to do some of the shopping, but I felt so sleepy that I ended up sleeping most of the time, and ate dinner from what I could find in the house, which for Monday night, consisted of half a can of Pringles, two packets of Pocky, and two fried fish that M had left in the fridge from the morning. Decided not to go to sleep in the room, so I slept on the sofa, like how I had been doing all day. It would prove to be a continual sleeping spot for me for the rest of my stay in Japan.
Took this shot in the evening of Monday. I wasn't quite so depressed as before, but this sort of sad shot sort of catches the mood. It was an Orange Time. Tuesday woke up as per normal, did some QT, then proceeded to wash the rest of the bed sheets and stuff, and cleared out the tatami room, and cleaned up the place a bit. While clearing out the tatami room, I noticed a charger stuck to the wall socket. Now initially, I thought it was the Au charger, since I didn't know where that charger had been since first week, so we hadn't used that phone. On closer examination, however, I realized that charging jack was like no phone charger I had ever seen. And on even closer examination, I saw the "Nintendo" on it. And so I knew that it had to be that someone (who's name starts with W) had left it behind.
Went out to Mr. Donut to meet DL and Y for Bible study again at 3. Then after Y left, DL and me chilled out for a bit at the Mr. Donut (no donuts, only coffee. Strangely enough, I think the last time I ate donuts on that particular trip was when we went to Costco and everyone bought Lil' Donuts), then I bought my bus ticket. And when DL heard what I ate for dinner the night before, he and J invited me over for dinner at their place, as they had gone to Costco (wow. What's with the Costco connection) and had just come into ownership of food, so they could afford to have me over for dinner. Spent the evening watching Brave Story (not too bad a show) and chatting with them.
Wednesday, as mentioned, was when I did all my shopping. Morning was QT again, then I left at about 1130 to go out. First stop was the Christian bookstore at Shinjuku where I managed to spend quite a bit. Didn't go by Yamanote, took the Seibu-Shinjuku instead, and walked from Seibu-Shinjuku station over to Shinjuku. Not too bad.
After that I took the Yamanote all the way out to Ueno. Because it was at such an odd time, the train was really quite empty.
So empty I could've gotten a seat if I wanted to.Bought some stuff at the anime shop again, then walked up and down Ameyayokocho trying to find a particular t-shirt for brother, but I just couldn't find it. Such a bother. Then was preparing to go to Ikebukuro, when I realized that Akihabara was just a stop away. One of my friends said she found a certain pair of ear pieces very nice, and I didn't know where else to go, so I took a short hop out to Akihabara, bought the earphones, and then went to Ikebukuro, where I did even more shopping in Sunshine City and Loft. Went back to Tokorozawa after that, met C for a bit, then ate dinner (a proper one at Matsuya) before toddling off to D&J's house to pass them some stuff and to chat a bit more.
Thursday morning was more cleaning. And packing. I started to feel worried that I wouldn't have been able to pack all my stuff into my bags, cos there was really quite a bit of stuff. But up till that point in time, I was able to stuff most of it in, so yeah. But I knew I had to stop buying stuff soon. Went to Shin-Sayama to help HJ do some furniture moving for her counselling place. It was like some dude's house, and it's really cool. It's a two-storey building, but with two separate houses inside. The bottom floor is where his mum lives. He lives with his family on the top. And there's no real master bedroom. He has a loft. Like I would have taken a picture, just that it's not nice to take pictures of people's rooms like that. I want to have a loft in my own house next time. As if. HDB flats aren't exactly very accommodating when it comes to wanting to have a loft.
The weather was like Singapore weather then. Warm, just not quite so humid. But yes. It was starting to get hot.
Went back home for a while first, then went to Takadanobaba to meet AM for dinner. Met him long ago in church, but only really got to know him from the 2006 JMT, and he's at Waseda Uni on exchange. Had quite a good time just talking and eating around Ikebukuro.
Got home around 10, hoping D&J would be able to make it for supper like they said they would, but they were both feeling out of sorts that day, so D called to say they couldn't come over. A bit sad, since I wouldn't see them again there. Did all my last minute packing, and managed to stuff everything into my luggage. It still weighed a ton though. Caught one and a half hours of sleep (just like on Monday), then ran to catch the Seibu bus.
It seems that everytime some member of the team leaves Tokorozawa, it's drizzling. Makes it so much sadder. When R left, it was drizzling. When the team left, it was drizzling. And when I left, it was drizzling too.
Why does it always rain on meThe trip to the airport was uneventful. Wanted to see if I could take any nice pictures, but I just sorta fell asleep (it's due to lack of sleep) and woke up at Narita. Did quite a bit of shopping there, especially for some chocolate biscuit that brother (and later I found out, V) really liked and wanted.
The plane ride back was pretty ok too. First meal, from Tokyo to HK, was decent. It was some sort of pasta with meatballs. But the best part was that I got this for dessert:
It's a mochi! It's really nice to eat. Sorry to hear that you didn't get any on your flight J!The other meal, from HK to Singapore, wasn't that great. I didn't want to eat pasta again, and since J wasn't around, I thought I could eat pork. Tasted pretty bad though. Really salty. Good thing there was other food there to help get rid of the taste.
Got back to Singapore at about 8pm local time. Was really surprised (and touched) when I got through the gate and saw my team and V, along with my parents. Wasn't expecting it, since there was JPM on that night, and I had told them to go for the prayer meeting. Still, it was nice to see them at the airport. Was torn between going with them for dinner and going home, but went home in the end because parents wanted to go home, and V had to go meet her mum and so we gave her a lift.
Final installment for the JMT was as mentioned, today, where I met J at Ang Mo Kio Hub for lunch and then wrote out the report. Going through the itinerary, remembering all that we did, and typing it out, as well as remembering all that we did, and not typing it out cos it's within the team only, was quite a nice experience. But that's about it for JMT 2008. Maybe have to do a presentation, but if not, this is officially the end of JMT 08.
Cheerio.
P.S. J, if you can guess the title of the CD I bought today, I'll, er, give you a melon candy. haha
Sunday, July 06, 2008
3rd Week
Monday of the 3rd week started off quite quietly. It was like a final run up for us, since well, it was the last week. We headed down to Waseda's Tokorozawa campus for E-crew again, and it was kinda like the last time for most of us, since the following Monday was when the team was leaving for Singapore.
Interesting thing happened there though. See, most of the E-crew people were university seniors, meaning they were gonna graduate at the end of the semester. So they, as well as SW, were hoping that perhaps a younger person could come and join in to take over. So I was sitting on the left side of the table, talking to SW and one of the E-crew people, T, who was C's friend. J was sitting just in front of me, and she wasn't really in the conversation, think she was talking to another of C's friends, but after the friend left, she started praying that there would be another new person who had the potential to continue E-crew.
Right at that moment, there was this dude who was like walking back and forth near the table who seemed as if he wanted to join in. SW noticed him, and asked him if he wanted to sit in and take part in the conversation. Turns out that the dude, WM, had sort of just returned to Japan from London, and he wanted to continue to brush up his English, and so when he heard us talking in English, he wanted to join in too. He didn't know C at all, which makes it pretty cool, since most of the people that join in are C's friends, and he brings them along, but this guy just walked past and felt like joining in, which is quite uncommon in Japan.
What's even cooler is that he's a freshman. Perhaps he's the person that would help to continue E-crew after C leaves.
The rest of Monday was spent preparing for the Hanakoganei Kids' Club (on Friday), the Singapore Night for the Ikebukuro HC (on Saturday), and just about any other thing we had to prepare for.
Tuesday was our fun day again. This time, we went to one of the nicest places in Tokyo: Odaiba.
Just one of the many iconic icons of Odaiba: The Rainbow Bridge. More later.
We started out late as usual, since we had morning devotion and all, and we were naturally slowpokes when coming to do things which we don't really need to rush for. For me, it was like going back to a place I liked, so I was mildly happy. But the rest hadn't been there before, and it like totally blew them away.
Took the New Transit Yurikamome, which is like a much better version of the LRT in Singapore, and went to Aqua City for lunch (at Otoya again), and then for some shopping. Now I think if I'm not wrong, I mentioned earlier that I was extremely disappointed that the Cinnabon in Sunshine City Ikebukuro wasn't there anymore. Well, one popped up right here:
The best cinnamon rolls in the world. The team agrees with me.
We then ran around the place taking photos and doing rather weird things, like D with his Calpis:
"Give me Calpis, or give me... er... just give me the Calpis!"
Also took the giant Ferris Wheel at Tokyo Bay. Couple of the team members were freaking out over the height cos they were apprehensive about heights, but everyone went, and it was pretty cool inside the gondola. Decent scenic shots as well.
Not too bad, considering it was taken from behind a rather grubby window
Ate dinner there then went back, a bit late, but it was a fun day. Had a short briefing from D&J before we could go to sleep.
Wednesday morning was taken up doing prep for the events again. We were doing different things lah, like D was doing up the Kawagoe powerpoints, and J and me were doing the lion and mouse masks for Kids' Club while watching Lost 3. W and M were also doing masks, but they weren't watching. And here's proof that girls can multi-task better than guys:
Score for the masks cutting while watching Lost 3:
J: 18
Me: 4
After that, the team went to Rikkyo to see if there were people who might be willing to talk to us, so that we could then invite them over to HC on Saturday. It was ok. The team did a pretty good job just striking up conversations with people, even though I goofed up on that; just couldn't psyche myself up enough to go and talk to the random students there. Was working with L, and she managed to talk to this lady for quite a while about random stuff, but yeah. Wasn't too bad. Here's a picture we took there:
Team inside the campus
After that, we went to Takadanobaba to meet M the dude from Waseda Uni. He brought Te along with him, as well as another friend K. We all went to this Thai eatery he recommended called Kao Thai near the station. The food was really good. Unfortunately, they didn't have 1) Mango Sticky Rice, 2) Duck noodles, and 3) they ran out of Chayan. But it was nice being able to meet M one more time before we left, and so we talked a bit there before leaving back for home, where J and me tried to practice the Kids' Club skit without disturbing too many people.
Thursday morning was kinda like Wednesday morning. Think if I'm not wrong, J and me had to continue to practice for our skit for the Kids' Club, before we went out for eats. L was kinda sick so we went out to eat lunch and da-bao some stuff back for her to eat. The team also got her some medicine while I was running around looking for stuff that sick people could eat without becoming sicker. Then D and me went to Mr. Donut to meet DL and Y for follow-up Bible study. Pretty interesting, since it was done in Japanese. And I ended up kinda being a semi-translator for D
The girls went over to Kiyose to meet their friend MS who as mentioned in the previous post, is averse to society in general. They had a good meal over there again, and good fellowship with both HJ and the girl. And they were sad to leave, since this was like the closure for most of the stuff they were doing.
Friday was Kids' Club. The kids started out quite rowdy as usual, but they quietened down, and then we had the songs and the games. And then we did the skit. It went pretty well, according to the rest of the team (J and me were too nervous to notice their reactions). I did managed to scare a whole bunch of small kids (and J too) when I suddenly jumped up and roared (I was acting as a lion for the skit) at J.
Crafts was ok, food was ok, and D and me were prepared to have to run ourselves into the ground with the kids again, but they were surprisingly tame this time. I ended up doing very little, except at the end when I entertained this small kid in the sand box.
The kid was trying to take my glasses.
The girls went over to Ikebukuro after that to meet this student from Rikkyo that JL had made contact with. Heard from them that it went pretty well, they managed to talk to the people, and made friends with them. The guys just kinda chilled out at home, then went to an Okonomiyaki place to eat dinner.
Saturday morning we prepared what we had left to prepare for the Singapore Night at Ikebukuro, then we left earlier to go to the Christian book shop near Shinjuku station. A bit expensive, but it was ok, since there was quite a lot of stuff there. After that, we went over to Seibu at Ikebukuro, since the team wanted to go the Loft there, which is like really quite big, covering three floors and all that. I think there's one more like that at Omiya, but we didn't go there. So the people all did some of their last minute shopping, then we headed over to the West side to the HC.
(Interesting note about Ikebukuro station is that Seibu, who's kanji is written as 西武, is actually on Ikebukuro's East exit (東口), while Tobu, another major shopping center who's kanji is (東武) is on Ikebukuro's West exit (西口). Just thought it was interesting).
The Singapore Night was a bit disappointing, in that no one we invited came. It wasn't too bad, because some of the people did reply to say they were unable to make it (for missions work in Japan, if they reply, no matter what the reply is, it's a good sign), but yes, it wasn't quite the turnout we expected.
Still we went on with our program. Most of the people took part enthusiastically, even though the entire group consisted mostly of Singaporeans and Malaysians, with only one Japanese (AA). The team then sang a couple of Singaporean songs (read: National Day songs). I was disappointed they didn't want to do "Home" by Kit Chan, but well, everyone had fun singing "Around Singapore Town" and "There was a time". Kinda strange, but well, we were quite homesick then.
AA and Al from the HC also sang a Chinese song, that AA had translated into Japanese. I heard the song before in Chinese service, it's called 这一生最美的祝福, and it's a really nice song, and AA sang the Japanese version of it. I should go and get a copy of the lyrics from M soon.
We went to an Okonomiyaki place for dinner after that, since the girls heard us espousing the wonders of eating okonomiyaki. We all had a pretty good time over there, just chilling out and eating and talking with the people, since as mentioned earlier, it was a sort of closure.
Me and my assistant leader. She's a really encouraging person.
I think I must have made her angry somewhere during the trip though. haha
Sunday was a rather relaxed day for us, since the Singapore Night was supposed to be our last major event. So we went to church at Amuzing Grace. That week was a thanksgiving weekend though, so instead of having a full service with worship, sermon, and Bible study, we had worship, then people who wanted to share things could come up and share stuff. J and W from the team shared about some of their experiences on the trip, and a couple of the church people also shared some stuff they were thankful for.
After that, D did the Kawagoe presentation to let the HC people know about the place, as most of them hadn't actually been there. Then we left for lunch at Coco's.
The new HC poster, as drawn by M.
The rest of the day was pretty slack. We all went to Propedori to do some more last minute shopping, then the team went over to D&J's house to visit, where we got to see some of their wedding photos and eat JL's cheesecake, which all the team members agree is really good. Then we went for onsen again (for M's sake), and ate major amounts of sushi for dinner, and where once again, the guys showed they could eat more than the girls, even though DL ate sparingly.
Score for sushi dinner
Girls (5): 31 plates
Guys (4): 32 plates
We then went back for the trip debrief at home, and shared some of our experiences on the trip. The sharing actually got a whole lot deeper than just the trip itself, but it was a really good time, getting to know each other even more, and just spending time together as a team. I guess it would have been a lot nicer if we could have gotten to know each other before the trip started, but I'm glad we were able to have such intimate moments as a team. The rest of the night was spent packing.
So the next morning, the team left on the 6.10 Seibu bus to Narita and then on to Singapore, while I stayed behind. For the immediate aftermath of their departure, please click here.
Will probably finish off whatever I did in the last week that I was there some other time. Biggest difference, of course, is that the whole tone of being there was much much quieter. Not just like you know, at home, but overall, everything started to tone down.
Ok. Cheerio
Interesting thing happened there though. See, most of the E-crew people were university seniors, meaning they were gonna graduate at the end of the semester. So they, as well as SW, were hoping that perhaps a younger person could come and join in to take over. So I was sitting on the left side of the table, talking to SW and one of the E-crew people, T, who was C's friend. J was sitting just in front of me, and she wasn't really in the conversation, think she was talking to another of C's friends, but after the friend left, she started praying that there would be another new person who had the potential to continue E-crew.
Right at that moment, there was this dude who was like walking back and forth near the table who seemed as if he wanted to join in. SW noticed him, and asked him if he wanted to sit in and take part in the conversation. Turns out that the dude, WM, had sort of just returned to Japan from London, and he wanted to continue to brush up his English, and so when he heard us talking in English, he wanted to join in too. He didn't know C at all, which makes it pretty cool, since most of the people that join in are C's friends, and he brings them along, but this guy just walked past and felt like joining in, which is quite uncommon in Japan.
What's even cooler is that he's a freshman. Perhaps he's the person that would help to continue E-crew after C leaves.
The rest of Monday was spent preparing for the Hanakoganei Kids' Club (on Friday), the Singapore Night for the Ikebukuro HC (on Saturday), and just about any other thing we had to prepare for.
Tuesday was our fun day again. This time, we went to one of the nicest places in Tokyo: Odaiba.
Just one of the many iconic icons of Odaiba: The Rainbow Bridge. More later.We started out late as usual, since we had morning devotion and all, and we were naturally slowpokes when coming to do things which we don't really need to rush for. For me, it was like going back to a place I liked, so I was mildly happy. But the rest hadn't been there before, and it like totally blew them away.
Took the New Transit Yurikamome, which is like a much better version of the LRT in Singapore, and went to Aqua City for lunch (at Otoya again), and then for some shopping. Now I think if I'm not wrong, I mentioned earlier that I was extremely disappointed that the Cinnabon in Sunshine City Ikebukuro wasn't there anymore. Well, one popped up right here:
The best cinnamon rolls in the world. The team agrees with me.We then ran around the place taking photos and doing rather weird things, like D with his Calpis:
"Give me Calpis, or give me... er... just give me the Calpis!"Also took the giant Ferris Wheel at Tokyo Bay. Couple of the team members were freaking out over the height cos they were apprehensive about heights, but everyone went, and it was pretty cool inside the gondola. Decent scenic shots as well.
Not too bad, considering it was taken from behind a rather grubby windowAte dinner there then went back, a bit late, but it was a fun day. Had a short briefing from D&J before we could go to sleep.
Wednesday morning was taken up doing prep for the events again. We were doing different things lah, like D was doing up the Kawagoe powerpoints, and J and me were doing the lion and mouse masks for Kids' Club while watching Lost 3. W and M were also doing masks, but they weren't watching. And here's proof that girls can multi-task better than guys:
Score for the masks cutting while watching Lost 3:
J: 18
Me: 4
After that, the team went to Rikkyo to see if there were people who might be willing to talk to us, so that we could then invite them over to HC on Saturday. It was ok. The team did a pretty good job just striking up conversations with people, even though I goofed up on that; just couldn't psyche myself up enough to go and talk to the random students there. Was working with L, and she managed to talk to this lady for quite a while about random stuff, but yeah. Wasn't too bad. Here's a picture we took there:
Team inside the campusAfter that, we went to Takadanobaba to meet M the dude from Waseda Uni. He brought Te along with him, as well as another friend K. We all went to this Thai eatery he recommended called Kao Thai near the station. The food was really good. Unfortunately, they didn't have 1) Mango Sticky Rice, 2) Duck noodles, and 3) they ran out of Chayan. But it was nice being able to meet M one more time before we left, and so we talked a bit there before leaving back for home, where J and me tried to practice the Kids' Club skit without disturbing too many people.
Thursday morning was kinda like Wednesday morning. Think if I'm not wrong, J and me had to continue to practice for our skit for the Kids' Club, before we went out for eats. L was kinda sick so we went out to eat lunch and da-bao some stuff back for her to eat. The team also got her some medicine while I was running around looking for stuff that sick people could eat without becoming sicker. Then D and me went to Mr. Donut to meet DL and Y for follow-up Bible study. Pretty interesting, since it was done in Japanese. And I ended up kinda being a semi-translator for D
The girls went over to Kiyose to meet their friend MS who as mentioned in the previous post, is averse to society in general. They had a good meal over there again, and good fellowship with both HJ and the girl. And they were sad to leave, since this was like the closure for most of the stuff they were doing.
Friday was Kids' Club. The kids started out quite rowdy as usual, but they quietened down, and then we had the songs and the games. And then we did the skit. It went pretty well, according to the rest of the team (J and me were too nervous to notice their reactions). I did managed to scare a whole bunch of small kids (and J too) when I suddenly jumped up and roared (I was acting as a lion for the skit) at J.
Crafts was ok, food was ok, and D and me were prepared to have to run ourselves into the ground with the kids again, but they were surprisingly tame this time. I ended up doing very little, except at the end when I entertained this small kid in the sand box.
The kid was trying to take my glasses.The girls went over to Ikebukuro after that to meet this student from Rikkyo that JL had made contact with. Heard from them that it went pretty well, they managed to talk to the people, and made friends with them. The guys just kinda chilled out at home, then went to an Okonomiyaki place to eat dinner.
Saturday morning we prepared what we had left to prepare for the Singapore Night at Ikebukuro, then we left earlier to go to the Christian book shop near Shinjuku station. A bit expensive, but it was ok, since there was quite a lot of stuff there. After that, we went over to Seibu at Ikebukuro, since the team wanted to go the Loft there, which is like really quite big, covering three floors and all that. I think there's one more like that at Omiya, but we didn't go there. So the people all did some of their last minute shopping, then we headed over to the West side to the HC.
(Interesting note about Ikebukuro station is that Seibu, who's kanji is written as 西武, is actually on Ikebukuro's East exit (東口), while Tobu, another major shopping center who's kanji is (東武) is on Ikebukuro's West exit (西口). Just thought it was interesting).
The Singapore Night was a bit disappointing, in that no one we invited came. It wasn't too bad, because some of the people did reply to say they were unable to make it (for missions work in Japan, if they reply, no matter what the reply is, it's a good sign), but yes, it wasn't quite the turnout we expected.
Still we went on with our program. Most of the people took part enthusiastically, even though the entire group consisted mostly of Singaporeans and Malaysians, with only one Japanese (AA). The team then sang a couple of Singaporean songs (read: National Day songs). I was disappointed they didn't want to do "Home" by Kit Chan, but well, everyone had fun singing "Around Singapore Town" and "There was a time". Kinda strange, but well, we were quite homesick then.
AA and Al from the HC also sang a Chinese song, that AA had translated into Japanese. I heard the song before in Chinese service, it's called 这一生最美的祝福, and it's a really nice song, and AA sang the Japanese version of it. I should go and get a copy of the lyrics from M soon.
We went to an Okonomiyaki place for dinner after that, since the girls heard us espousing the wonders of eating okonomiyaki. We all had a pretty good time over there, just chilling out and eating and talking with the people, since as mentioned earlier, it was a sort of closure.
Me and my assistant leader. She's a really encouraging person.
I think I must have made her angry somewhere during the trip though. haha Sunday was a rather relaxed day for us, since the Singapore Night was supposed to be our last major event. So we went to church at Amuzing Grace. That week was a thanksgiving weekend though, so instead of having a full service with worship, sermon, and Bible study, we had worship, then people who wanted to share things could come up and share stuff. J and W from the team shared about some of their experiences on the trip, and a couple of the church people also shared some stuff they were thankful for.
After that, D did the Kawagoe presentation to let the HC people know about the place, as most of them hadn't actually been there. Then we left for lunch at Coco's.
The new HC poster, as drawn by M.The rest of the day was pretty slack. We all went to Propedori to do some more last minute shopping, then the team went over to D&J's house to visit, where we got to see some of their wedding photos and eat JL's cheesecake, which all the team members agree is really good. Then we went for onsen again (for M's sake), and ate major amounts of sushi for dinner, and where once again, the guys showed they could eat more than the girls, even though DL ate sparingly.
Score for sushi dinner
Girls (5): 31 plates
Guys (4): 32 plates
We then went back for the trip debrief at home, and shared some of our experiences on the trip. The sharing actually got a whole lot deeper than just the trip itself, but it was a really good time, getting to know each other even more, and just spending time together as a team. I guess it would have been a lot nicer if we could have gotten to know each other before the trip started, but I'm glad we were able to have such intimate moments as a team. The rest of the night was spent packing.
So the next morning, the team left on the 6.10 Seibu bus to Narita and then on to Singapore, while I stayed behind. For the immediate aftermath of their departure, please click here.
Will probably finish off whatever I did in the last week that I was there some other time. Biggest difference, of course, is that the whole tone of being there was much much quieter. Not just like you know, at home, but overall, everything started to tone down.
Ok. Cheerio
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
2nd Week
Ok, so now that the depression's out of the way, let's continue with the recap of the trip.
But before we start, I must write of one thing that happened during the Celebration @ Ichikawa, as mentioned two posts down. It isn't very significant, except to me, maybe, since it wasn't as if there were any far-reaching consequences to other people through the thing that happened.
See what happened, was that I was kinda feeling out of sorts that day. I don't know why. I can't remember what caused it, but I know I wasn't feeling as happy as I should have felt, even though it was a celebration.
So anyway, at one point in the proceedings, I think it was SW who was leading, we were supposed to break up into small groups, or to go and pray by ourselves. As I was feeling out of sorts, I wasn't really in the mood for praying with a group, and wanted to go and pray by myself, as well as to acquire some stuff for one of the team members who wasn't feeling so good that day (physically, not you know, emotionally like me). So I told HJ that I wanted to go out for a bit, and asked her if she knew if there was a コンビニ anywhere nearby, since I thought I could get some medication there. Turns out that in Japan, 7-11s don't stock the same stuff as in Singapore, so if you ever go to Japan, and need to get medication, you can't go to a convenience store. You have to go to a store that has a big 薬 sign outside.
So anyway, I walked out of the hall, and went skedaddling about. First one way, then the other. The weather on that day was pretty good, sunny, but not hot, and the breeze was really quite nice. And I guess that's kinda why I sort of lost track of time. So there I was, walking up and then down the main road near the OMF building, praying, but at the same time looking out for a place to pick up some pills. (haha sounds like I was looking for s drug pusher or something). Eventually, a kind counter lady behind one of the combini counters told me that the nearest 薬 place was near Ichikawa station. Which wasn't really that far, so I toddled over and found the shop, bought the med, and walked back to OMF...
...where I promptly got scolded by one of my team members for making her, and just about everyone else, worried that I had gone missing. And she probably would have gone off into a mega tirade about not informing people and stuff, when I gave her the medicine. So she suddenly had nothing to say. Haha.
And though I didn't show it then, I was really touched that my team would get so worried over my absence. Not that I did it on purpose. But yes, it made me feel all warm and snuggly inside. haha.
Ok, so on to the next week. It went by really fast, because there wasn't much on the schedule for us. Especially since the missionaries all had to go for a conference, so we were left pretty much to our own devices, though D&J and HJ had set up some stuff for us to do.
Monday we went down to Waseda's Tokorozawa campus for E-crew. Previously, I had been the only one there cos the last Monday, the team was still flying in from Singapore, but it was still a great time of fellowship there. Not just with C and T from the previous week, but also cos C introduced some more of his friends to us. C's a really great guy. Really friendly, always checking out for us, and he's become a real friend to team, in a way that I never expected to happen.
So we spent quite a bit of time at the campus to talk with the students, before we headed back up to Kawagoe to continue doing the anketo. We split ourselves into two groups, and L, D and R went back up to the Furumachi to do a bit more research while J, W and me did some Street E and anketo-ish stuff. Must say J and W did a really good job going out to talk to the people, and at the very least, made some friends and contacts. After that, we bummed around at Kawagoe for a bit before meeting AA for dinner at Otoya. The food there was really great, and the prices were very decent. I can show you what I ate for dinner:
My saba set. Dad says saba's a really difficult fish to eat cos of all the bones, but trust me, it's worth the effort.
On Tuesday, we had an off day. Plans hadn't really been finalized, but L had asked her friend W (who had been around the past couple of weeks having fun in Tokyo) to guide us around wherever we wanted to go. So he nicely brought us first to Akihabara, where R and W acquired their Nintendo DS, then he showed us to Harajuku, and we finished off the day at Shibuya. Dude, if you're reading this, I'm really grateful for you taking time out to be our guide, and for planning everything out for us.
Wednesday, we went over to Waseda's Takadanobaba campus to meet M, where he introduced us to two of his friends, Te and Ta. We went out for lunch at the Saizeriya near the school, which is really huge, then he brought us to a karaoke kan nearby, where we all got the chance to sing songs and laugh at each other being wild. M's also a really great guy. He loves Singapore more than many Singaporeans, and can speak multiple languages. And Te studies Geology. I mean like how cool is that? They have Geology as a major in Waseda. What's up with NUS? They don't have any cool majors.
Oh and I forgot, so I had to write this in later, on Wednesday night, we had some friends over for dinner/supper. Started because we asked AA if he wanted to come over and chill out with us one of the days when the missionaries were at the OMF conference, so he said most any day was fine, so we kinda settled on Wednesday. Then on Monday, when we met C, we asked if he wanted to come over as well, cos he stays near Tokorozawa anyway.
So on Wednesday, at about 6-ish, AA came over. He actually wanted to help us to cook, but we had finished doing most of it already. W had made claypot rice without the claypot, and I had done curry again, just that I had learnt from my previous experience, so I made sure the pot wasn't too hot before I threw in the curry paste (the previous time, I had foolishly thrown it onto a very hot pot, and all the spices went up in a major puff of smoke, so there was a cloud of spice in the kitchen, and the three guys were coughing their lungs out).
The dinner/supper was pretty ok. C came a bit later cos he had gone to Disney Sea, and he brought along his friend from Osaka, M. And they enjoyed the food, though the curry was hotter than what they were used to. And the day ended with them playing DS together on some network or something.
Thursday was another off day for us, cos we had moved the Kawagoe work to Monday, so we went out again, this time, we headed over to Nippori, cos friend K mentioned there was some decent shopping there for the girls. The place was quite nice, though as mentioned, most of the shopping was done by the girls. Ate takoyaki for the first time in Japan (ever) there, near the station. And then I had to buy a tiramisu from a cafe since W wanted to go use the toilet. haha. Then we walked down the street along the train line. I really enjoyed just walking along the road. I don't know why. The place just sort of reminded me of an older Singapore.
So anyway, we walked all the way from Nippori to the next station, which was Uguisudani, if I'm not wrong. Then we decided to go to Ueno to see if there was any shopping worth having. Good thing we went. There was this anime shop there where we bought some stuff. Even I bought some stuff there. Then we walked about Ameyayokocho again, for a bit, found dinner, then had to go back, cos it was late, and D&J wanted to meet us after 4 days of leaving us to ourselves.
Famous landmark
There's an interesting story about D&J's laptop. See, they went for the conference, and they saved a lot of data and pictures on their comp. Then just before they left the conference, the hard drive died. Which naturally, frustrated them a great deal, and made them upset, since they were like helping lots of people hold onto data or something like that. But God showed his mercy, when strangely enough, their laptop came back to life for a short while. Not sure how it happened, but it did. D managed to power it up, and then he quickly saved all the stuff on to his external hard drive. And just after he finished doing that, the laptop died again. I mean, that's like "woah!". I really believe it was divine intervention.
Friday was a bit of an interesting event. The team split up early in the morning, and the guys went to Kawagoe to meet up with this dude that HJ was meeting up with. He's a hikikomori, so he doesn't really like going out and interacting with people. But he was ok with going out with his pastor to meet up with some gaijin. And at HJ's place, we played some Wii. He won most of the time. We ate lunch at Saizeriya, then the pastor wanted to just chill out for a bit (HJ had left to meet the girls by then). So we walked around Crea Mall (the shopping area between Hon-Kawagoe and Kawagoe stations), and the dude was trashing a computer at Tekken 6, and then R bought a ukelele for himself, then we ended by chilling out at Starbucks.
The girls themselves had a fun time. They too got to meet a hikikomori lady, and they came back gushing about how nice she was and how they managed to make friends with her. I mean, I wasn't there, but it sounded like they had a good time of bonding and sharing even though they were new friends.
After all that, we went to the onsen. The team calls it a cultural exposure and immersion, since you get both exposed and immersed at the onsen. Same as always, not everyone was keen on going, but after sitting in the warm water for about an hour, everyone wanted to stay inside. We ate dinner at this slightly more atas place called Tonden or Donten or something like that, cos R was going to fly back to Singapore the next morning.
R was really happy with his food. Bye R!
He was supposed to take the 6.10 bus the next morning. Fortunately for him, he woke up on time, and got on the bus. Eventually, he would reach Singapore safely at about 10 in the evening.
That Saturday, we had another event near Hanakoganei. It was a sort of kids' club thing, but only a few families came, since it wasn't a full-fledged kids' club thing. We were all scampering around frantically in the morning trying to cook everything for the event. Thankfully, by the mercy of God, we managed to settle everything.
The event itself went well. The missionaries were hoping some of the fathers of the families would come, since the kids' club thing was only mums and kids. And they were pleasantly surprised to see that 3 of the dads came along for the party. Everyone had a good time playing games and eating, and SW and D&J were really happy the way things turned out.
After that, we went to the HC @ Ikebukuro. Had some sharing, then we stayed around and sang karaoke again. Quite fun lah, even though I must admit I'm not a real fan of karaoke. Went for dinner at First Kitchen. Food was decent for a fast food joint, but the portions were a little small. We then took the train back, where W discovered the scandalous shot D took of her. Here's her reaction:
Step 1: Surprise
Step 2: Erm, joy?
Step 3: Embarrassment
M came in that night. Her luggage kinda got stuck at the airport, so she wanted to take the Skyliner down from Narita to Nippori. However, just before she thought she had to leave her luggage behind and go over to Tokorozawa first, the baggage handler told her that the luggage was ready to be collected. So she ran back in, grabbed her luggage, and ran down to the train platform, where she saw that there was a last train about to leave. So she scrambled into it, and the train left the station, whereupon she realized that it was not the Skyliner. So she reached Tokorozawa later than expected. And had to pay more than necessary.
Sunday, we went to HC in the morning. SW led the BS this time round, and then we did some discussion about the BS. Went for lunch at Manshu (the gyoza place), then we went to the Rojin home.
Being at the Rojin home was a great, and slightly sad experience for us. I mean, the missionaries had the chance to go there once a month I think, to have some events for the old folks. This time, TS did a traditional Japanese dance, M from the HC did some enka, and then we did a couple of songs, W did her testimony, and we also did a skit. Once again, God provided for us, since we had not really practiced the acting, except for the night before. So the three of us who were acting (D, J and me) didn't do enough rehearsals. And J was worried that she would laugh if she saw me, L was worried that I wasn't able to act properly, and D just didn't seem to be able to extend his hands in a graceful manner as if to invite people.
All of that didn't matter at that point of time because of the gravity of the situation, and of the skit itself. No one laughed, no one goofed up, and everyone appreciated the skit. And I think it was cos God pulled us through it.
After that, we did some origami with the old folks. Some of them really know how to do origami. Not the half-baked kind that I do sometimes for fun. And we got to know some of the folks, and to talk to them a bit, despite the language barrier. And it really affected some of the girls when we left, to know that we might not get the chance to see any of them again. I'm hoping that's not true, but I'll just have to leave it up to God. They were really nice old folks, very friendly and engaging. And at the very least, I'm glad that for those few hours, we were able to make them feel happy. I won't be able to describe the emotions that went through the team. It's something I just can't put down in words. Or I can attempt to try, but it wouldn't do any justice. But well.
Will continue the last week soon.
Cheerio
P.S. I know usually the titles are single Latin words, or Japanese, but I'm really too lazy and tired to think of one right now. So there.
But before we start, I must write of one thing that happened during the Celebration @ Ichikawa, as mentioned two posts down. It isn't very significant, except to me, maybe, since it wasn't as if there were any far-reaching consequences to other people through the thing that happened.
See what happened, was that I was kinda feeling out of sorts that day. I don't know why. I can't remember what caused it, but I know I wasn't feeling as happy as I should have felt, even though it was a celebration.
So anyway, at one point in the proceedings, I think it was SW who was leading, we were supposed to break up into small groups, or to go and pray by ourselves. As I was feeling out of sorts, I wasn't really in the mood for praying with a group, and wanted to go and pray by myself, as well as to acquire some stuff for one of the team members who wasn't feeling so good that day (physically, not you know, emotionally like me). So I told HJ that I wanted to go out for a bit, and asked her if she knew if there was a コンビニ anywhere nearby, since I thought I could get some medication there. Turns out that in Japan, 7-11s don't stock the same stuff as in Singapore, so if you ever go to Japan, and need to get medication, you can't go to a convenience store. You have to go to a store that has a big 薬 sign outside.
So anyway, I walked out of the hall, and went skedaddling about. First one way, then the other. The weather on that day was pretty good, sunny, but not hot, and the breeze was really quite nice. And I guess that's kinda why I sort of lost track of time. So there I was, walking up and then down the main road near the OMF building, praying, but at the same time looking out for a place to pick up some pills. (haha sounds like I was looking for s drug pusher or something). Eventually, a kind counter lady behind one of the combini counters told me that the nearest 薬 place was near Ichikawa station. Which wasn't really that far, so I toddled over and found the shop, bought the med, and walked back to OMF...
...where I promptly got scolded by one of my team members for making her, and just about everyone else, worried that I had gone missing. And she probably would have gone off into a mega tirade about not informing people and stuff, when I gave her the medicine. So she suddenly had nothing to say. Haha.
And though I didn't show it then, I was really touched that my team would get so worried over my absence. Not that I did it on purpose. But yes, it made me feel all warm and snuggly inside. haha.
Ok, so on to the next week. It went by really fast, because there wasn't much on the schedule for us. Especially since the missionaries all had to go for a conference, so we were left pretty much to our own devices, though D&J and HJ had set up some stuff for us to do.
Monday we went down to Waseda's Tokorozawa campus for E-crew. Previously, I had been the only one there cos the last Monday, the team was still flying in from Singapore, but it was still a great time of fellowship there. Not just with C and T from the previous week, but also cos C introduced some more of his friends to us. C's a really great guy. Really friendly, always checking out for us, and he's become a real friend to team, in a way that I never expected to happen.
So we spent quite a bit of time at the campus to talk with the students, before we headed back up to Kawagoe to continue doing the anketo. We split ourselves into two groups, and L, D and R went back up to the Furumachi to do a bit more research while J, W and me did some Street E and anketo-ish stuff. Must say J and W did a really good job going out to talk to the people, and at the very least, made some friends and contacts. After that, we bummed around at Kawagoe for a bit before meeting AA for dinner at Otoya. The food there was really great, and the prices were very decent. I can show you what I ate for dinner:
My saba set. Dad says saba's a really difficult fish to eat cos of all the bones, but trust me, it's worth the effort.On Tuesday, we had an off day. Plans hadn't really been finalized, but L had asked her friend W (who had been around the past couple of weeks having fun in Tokyo) to guide us around wherever we wanted to go. So he nicely brought us first to Akihabara, where R and W acquired their Nintendo DS, then he showed us to Harajuku, and we finished off the day at Shibuya. Dude, if you're reading this, I'm really grateful for you taking time out to be our guide, and for planning everything out for us.
Wednesday, we went over to Waseda's Takadanobaba campus to meet M, where he introduced us to two of his friends, Te and Ta. We went out for lunch at the Saizeriya near the school, which is really huge, then he brought us to a karaoke kan nearby, where we all got the chance to sing songs and laugh at each other being wild. M's also a really great guy. He loves Singapore more than many Singaporeans, and can speak multiple languages. And Te studies Geology. I mean like how cool is that? They have Geology as a major in Waseda. What's up with NUS? They don't have any cool majors.
Oh and I forgot, so I had to write this in later, on Wednesday night, we had some friends over for dinner/supper. Started because we asked AA if he wanted to come over and chill out with us one of the days when the missionaries were at the OMF conference, so he said most any day was fine, so we kinda settled on Wednesday. Then on Monday, when we met C, we asked if he wanted to come over as well, cos he stays near Tokorozawa anyway.
So on Wednesday, at about 6-ish, AA came over. He actually wanted to help us to cook, but we had finished doing most of it already. W had made claypot rice without the claypot, and I had done curry again, just that I had learnt from my previous experience, so I made sure the pot wasn't too hot before I threw in the curry paste (the previous time, I had foolishly thrown it onto a very hot pot, and all the spices went up in a major puff of smoke, so there was a cloud of spice in the kitchen, and the three guys were coughing their lungs out).
The dinner/supper was pretty ok. C came a bit later cos he had gone to Disney Sea, and he brought along his friend from Osaka, M. And they enjoyed the food, though the curry was hotter than what they were used to. And the day ended with them playing DS together on some network or something.
Thursday was another off day for us, cos we had moved the Kawagoe work to Monday, so we went out again, this time, we headed over to Nippori, cos friend K mentioned there was some decent shopping there for the girls. The place was quite nice, though as mentioned, most of the shopping was done by the girls. Ate takoyaki for the first time in Japan (ever) there, near the station. And then I had to buy a tiramisu from a cafe since W wanted to go use the toilet. haha. Then we walked down the street along the train line. I really enjoyed just walking along the road. I don't know why. The place just sort of reminded me of an older Singapore.
So anyway, we walked all the way from Nippori to the next station, which was Uguisudani, if I'm not wrong. Then we decided to go to Ueno to see if there was any shopping worth having. Good thing we went. There was this anime shop there where we bought some stuff. Even I bought some stuff there. Then we walked about Ameyayokocho again, for a bit, found dinner, then had to go back, cos it was late, and D&J wanted to meet us after 4 days of leaving us to ourselves.
Famous landmarkThere's an interesting story about D&J's laptop. See, they went for the conference, and they saved a lot of data and pictures on their comp. Then just before they left the conference, the hard drive died. Which naturally, frustrated them a great deal, and made them upset, since they were like helping lots of people hold onto data or something like that. But God showed his mercy, when strangely enough, their laptop came back to life for a short while. Not sure how it happened, but it did. D managed to power it up, and then he quickly saved all the stuff on to his external hard drive. And just after he finished doing that, the laptop died again. I mean, that's like "woah!". I really believe it was divine intervention.
Friday was a bit of an interesting event. The team split up early in the morning, and the guys went to Kawagoe to meet up with this dude that HJ was meeting up with. He's a hikikomori, so he doesn't really like going out and interacting with people. But he was ok with going out with his pastor to meet up with some gaijin. And at HJ's place, we played some Wii. He won most of the time. We ate lunch at Saizeriya, then the pastor wanted to just chill out for a bit (HJ had left to meet the girls by then). So we walked around Crea Mall (the shopping area between Hon-Kawagoe and Kawagoe stations), and the dude was trashing a computer at Tekken 6, and then R bought a ukelele for himself, then we ended by chilling out at Starbucks.
The girls themselves had a fun time. They too got to meet a hikikomori lady, and they came back gushing about how nice she was and how they managed to make friends with her. I mean, I wasn't there, but it sounded like they had a good time of bonding and sharing even though they were new friends.
After all that, we went to the onsen. The team calls it a cultural exposure and immersion, since you get both exposed and immersed at the onsen. Same as always, not everyone was keen on going, but after sitting in the warm water for about an hour, everyone wanted to stay inside. We ate dinner at this slightly more atas place called Tonden or Donten or something like that, cos R was going to fly back to Singapore the next morning.
R was really happy with his food. Bye R!He was supposed to take the 6.10 bus the next morning. Fortunately for him, he woke up on time, and got on the bus. Eventually, he would reach Singapore safely at about 10 in the evening.
That Saturday, we had another event near Hanakoganei. It was a sort of kids' club thing, but only a few families came, since it wasn't a full-fledged kids' club thing. We were all scampering around frantically in the morning trying to cook everything for the event. Thankfully, by the mercy of God, we managed to settle everything.
The event itself went well. The missionaries were hoping some of the fathers of the families would come, since the kids' club thing was only mums and kids. And they were pleasantly surprised to see that 3 of the dads came along for the party. Everyone had a good time playing games and eating, and SW and D&J were really happy the way things turned out.
After that, we went to the HC @ Ikebukuro. Had some sharing, then we stayed around and sang karaoke again. Quite fun lah, even though I must admit I'm not a real fan of karaoke. Went for dinner at First Kitchen. Food was decent for a fast food joint, but the portions were a little small. We then took the train back, where W discovered the scandalous shot D took of her. Here's her reaction:
Step 1: Surprise
Step 2: Erm, joy?
Step 3: EmbarrassmentM came in that night. Her luggage kinda got stuck at the airport, so she wanted to take the Skyliner down from Narita to Nippori. However, just before she thought she had to leave her luggage behind and go over to Tokorozawa first, the baggage handler told her that the luggage was ready to be collected. So she ran back in, grabbed her luggage, and ran down to the train platform, where she saw that there was a last train about to leave. So she scrambled into it, and the train left the station, whereupon she realized that it was not the Skyliner. So she reached Tokorozawa later than expected. And had to pay more than necessary.
Sunday, we went to HC in the morning. SW led the BS this time round, and then we did some discussion about the BS. Went for lunch at Manshu (the gyoza place), then we went to the Rojin home.
Being at the Rojin home was a great, and slightly sad experience for us. I mean, the missionaries had the chance to go there once a month I think, to have some events for the old folks. This time, TS did a traditional Japanese dance, M from the HC did some enka, and then we did a couple of songs, W did her testimony, and we also did a skit. Once again, God provided for us, since we had not really practiced the acting, except for the night before. So the three of us who were acting (D, J and me) didn't do enough rehearsals. And J was worried that she would laugh if she saw me, L was worried that I wasn't able to act properly, and D just didn't seem to be able to extend his hands in a graceful manner as if to invite people.
All of that didn't matter at that point of time because of the gravity of the situation, and of the skit itself. No one laughed, no one goofed up, and everyone appreciated the skit. And I think it was cos God pulled us through it.
After that, we did some origami with the old folks. Some of them really know how to do origami. Not the half-baked kind that I do sometimes for fun. And we got to know some of the folks, and to talk to them a bit, despite the language barrier. And it really affected some of the girls when we left, to know that we might not get the chance to see any of them again. I'm hoping that's not true, but I'll just have to leave it up to God. They were really nice old folks, very friendly and engaging. And at the very least, I'm glad that for those few hours, we were able to make them feel happy. I won't be able to describe the emotions that went through the team. It's something I just can't put down in words. Or I can attempt to try, but it wouldn't do any justice. But well.
Will continue the last week soon.
Cheerio
P.S. I know usually the titles are single Latin words, or Japanese, but I'm really too lazy and tired to think of one right now. So there.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Solitarius
Ok, the original plan for the mission trip was to write every few days about what happened about the past few days. That kinda failed, because of the busyness. So, I thought, as long as I could keep a chronological log of all that we've done, that should be fine too.
Well, that's about to fail, because the departure of the team has left me so incredibly depressed that I need to blog about it.
Yes, I know usually I don't show my feelings, and come off as a cold-blooded, emotionless person, but I do have feelings, and yes, I feel sad and lonely now. I almost felt like crying just now. Except that I had slept at about 4.15 and woken up at 5.00 and so I was feeling kinda numb, so I didn't feel sad enough to cry. But I shall explain a bit more lah.
When R left a week ago, I could feel the tug already. I mean, he's a decent guy, and he was living with us for 2 weeks, after being part of the team for 6 months. So on the Saturday morning when he left, and D and me had gone to send him off, I felt a bit sorry to see him go. It was out of necessity, of course. He had exams the following week, and I am really grateful that he was willing to come out on a mission trip just before his papers. But yes, there was a tinge of sadness as the Seibu bus pulled out of the station area.
Still, it wasn't too bad, mainly because the rest of the team was still around, and M was flying in that night. I mean, you know, when you've got something else to look forward to, to know that there are still some people around to be with you, it doesn't feel so bad.
(On an aside note, what was really strange was that I felt that the time between R leaving and the rest leaving was really long, but thought that the time between me traveling to Narita to meet the team and the team leaving was really short.)
The team about to leave
This time, it was slightly different. The day before wasn't very hectic. They stayed up through the night to pack their stuff, of course, but it was still very relaxed. We all snoozed for a bit, then rushed out, because I thought they might be late, and really made them run, but we got to the bus stop on time. So we said a short prayer for the team, then the luggage was loaded up and they got onto the bus. And then the bus pulled out of the station.
Now, it was bad enough as it was already over here, since my mind was becoming more coherent, so I was starting to remember all the fun times we had (starting with Costco, I don't know why, and then Odaiba). Then as we (D&J and me) started to walk off, D&J were discussing where to go for breakfast, and they decided on Macs, and I said I didn't want to, then D turned to me, and said, "Well, ok then, I'll see you tomorrow at 3 at Mister Donut. Meeting M for Bible Study", and that was when it hit me.
You see, up till that point in time, almost everyday (except for the week of the OMF conference), the team had been meeting either D or J, if not both of them together, for ministry work, or at the very least, for briefing/debriefing. When D told that to me, it really struck me that this was it. The mission trip was over. It was like an end of an era (ok ok, give me a break. I know era is pushing it, but I'm depressed), and yeah. It was finished. And that made me incredibly sad. So sad that I almost started blubbing on the street between Tokorozawa Station's East Exit and Kusunoki Hall.
That is why I am now typing out this post on my laptop, even though I haven't talked about what we had done for the past two weeks.
Me typing sadly on my laptop. Ya, ok I know, I don't look sad. That's just me being cold-blooded and emotionless
So to my team, even though you all left Tokorozawa only an hour and a half ago, I miss you guys already. Even though we had some tension moments, and some issues that we didn't quite agree with, you can't stay 3 weeks with friends without feeling the pain of them leaving. Especially when you're left at home in a big house.
And so now, as I look back on the past three weeks, I remember all the little quirks of the six other members, and all the random things we did together in the house. I already miss singing Veggie Tales songs with R, but there are so many other things that we all did, that makes me remember them. Like peer over W's shoulder as she types out a blog post, or hearing the sounds of Queen and Coldplay from the iMac because D was watching Youtube. To see L counting the day's expenditure and moaning the fact that she had too many coins, or see M either devouring the comic collection here or writing her own. And of course, I'll really miss J, I guess because she was my assistant leader, and I'll miss watching Lost 3 with her, or hearing her attempt to plink out As The Deer on the keyboard.
And I'll remember when we went to Costco, which marked the start of the trip, and remember all the great things we did together, whether ministry or frivolous. There are so many memories, and I'm happy to note that there were more happy memories than sad ones on the trip.
It's almost 8 in the morning now. At any point in the past three weeks, I would be have been up for about 15 minutes already, D, would probably be pottering around in the kitchen, and maybe J would have just woken up and gone to shower.
Oh bother it all, I'm almost making myself cry.
And in this depression, I don't know, I'm just reminded of what J did during the first kids' club. She was sick, and so in order not to pose a risk to the children, I told her she had to sit out. Now, for those of you who know her, you know she really loves working with kids. Furthermore, she was the one who had done most of the planning and preparation for the kids' club events. So asking her to sit out was quite a blow to her, since she had really been looking forward to this.
Yet, instead of choosing to mope about and cry, or kick up a fuss, she chose to use that time wisely, to use it to spend time with God in solitude, to find out His plan for her, both for the trip and for her life, and to pray that we would be able to have a good time with the kids at the event.
This solitude was not self-imposed. It was forced on her because of circumstance. I however, have chosen to be in this situation, and I had forgotten this lesson that my assistant leader taught all of us. And almost as if in confirmation, A also told me I should have a mini-retreat of sorts. I have this opportunity to spend time with God, and that's what I should be doing. So if you'll excuse me, I'll need to go and spend some quality time with the one person who has never let me down or abandoned me.
And as for my depression and the team, I'll just pray that we'll all get back to Singapore safely, and then we can meet again.
Cheerio
The team
Well, that's about to fail, because the departure of the team has left me so incredibly depressed that I need to blog about it.
Yes, I know usually I don't show my feelings, and come off as a cold-blooded, emotionless person, but I do have feelings, and yes, I feel sad and lonely now. I almost felt like crying just now. Except that I had slept at about 4.15 and woken up at 5.00 and so I was feeling kinda numb, so I didn't feel sad enough to cry. But I shall explain a bit more lah.
When R left a week ago, I could feel the tug already. I mean, he's a decent guy, and he was living with us for 2 weeks, after being part of the team for 6 months. So on the Saturday morning when he left, and D and me had gone to send him off, I felt a bit sorry to see him go. It was out of necessity, of course. He had exams the following week, and I am really grateful that he was willing to come out on a mission trip just before his papers. But yes, there was a tinge of sadness as the Seibu bus pulled out of the station area.
Still, it wasn't too bad, mainly because the rest of the team was still around, and M was flying in that night. I mean, you know, when you've got something else to look forward to, to know that there are still some people around to be with you, it doesn't feel so bad.
(On an aside note, what was really strange was that I felt that the time between R leaving and the rest leaving was really long, but thought that the time between me traveling to Narita to meet the team and the team leaving was really short.)
The team about to leaveThis time, it was slightly different. The day before wasn't very hectic. They stayed up through the night to pack their stuff, of course, but it was still very relaxed. We all snoozed for a bit, then rushed out, because I thought they might be late, and really made them run, but we got to the bus stop on time. So we said a short prayer for the team, then the luggage was loaded up and they got onto the bus. And then the bus pulled out of the station.
Now, it was bad enough as it was already over here, since my mind was becoming more coherent, so I was starting to remember all the fun times we had (starting with Costco, I don't know why, and then Odaiba). Then as we (D&J and me) started to walk off, D&J were discussing where to go for breakfast, and they decided on Macs, and I said I didn't want to, then D turned to me, and said, "Well, ok then, I'll see you tomorrow at 3 at Mister Donut. Meeting M for Bible Study", and that was when it hit me.
You see, up till that point in time, almost everyday (except for the week of the OMF conference), the team had been meeting either D or J, if not both of them together, for ministry work, or at the very least, for briefing/debriefing. When D told that to me, it really struck me that this was it. The mission trip was over. It was like an end of an era (ok ok, give me a break. I know era is pushing it, but I'm depressed), and yeah. It was finished. And that made me incredibly sad. So sad that I almost started blubbing on the street between Tokorozawa Station's East Exit and Kusunoki Hall.
That is why I am now typing out this post on my laptop, even though I haven't talked about what we had done for the past two weeks.
Me typing sadly on my laptop. Ya, ok I know, I don't look sad. That's just me being cold-blooded and emotionlessSo to my team, even though you all left Tokorozawa only an hour and a half ago, I miss you guys already. Even though we had some tension moments, and some issues that we didn't quite agree with, you can't stay 3 weeks with friends without feeling the pain of them leaving. Especially when you're left at home in a big house.
And so now, as I look back on the past three weeks, I remember all the little quirks of the six other members, and all the random things we did together in the house. I already miss singing Veggie Tales songs with R, but there are so many other things that we all did, that makes me remember them. Like peer over W's shoulder as she types out a blog post, or hearing the sounds of Queen and Coldplay from the iMac because D was watching Youtube. To see L counting the day's expenditure and moaning the fact that she had too many coins, or see M either devouring the comic collection here or writing her own. And of course, I'll really miss J, I guess because she was my assistant leader, and I'll miss watching Lost 3 with her, or hearing her attempt to plink out As The Deer on the keyboard.
And I'll remember when we went to Costco, which marked the start of the trip, and remember all the great things we did together, whether ministry or frivolous. There are so many memories, and I'm happy to note that there were more happy memories than sad ones on the trip.
It's almost 8 in the morning now. At any point in the past three weeks, I would be have been up for about 15 minutes already, D, would probably be pottering around in the kitchen, and maybe J would have just woken up and gone to shower.
Oh bother it all, I'm almost making myself cry.
And in this depression, I don't know, I'm just reminded of what J did during the first kids' club. She was sick, and so in order not to pose a risk to the children, I told her she had to sit out. Now, for those of you who know her, you know she really loves working with kids. Furthermore, she was the one who had done most of the planning and preparation for the kids' club events. So asking her to sit out was quite a blow to her, since she had really been looking forward to this.
Yet, instead of choosing to mope about and cry, or kick up a fuss, she chose to use that time wisely, to use it to spend time with God in solitude, to find out His plan for her, both for the trip and for her life, and to pray that we would be able to have a good time with the kids at the event.
This solitude was not self-imposed. It was forced on her because of circumstance. I however, have chosen to be in this situation, and I had forgotten this lesson that my assistant leader taught all of us. And almost as if in confirmation, A also told me I should have a mini-retreat of sorts. I have this opportunity to spend time with God, and that's what I should be doing. So if you'll excuse me, I'll need to go and spend some quality time with the one person who has never let me down or abandoned me.
And as for my depression and the team, I'll just pray that we'll all get back to Singapore safely, and then we can meet again.
Cheerio
The teamThursday, June 26, 2008
Tenebrarum
A gentle rain fell upon the streets of paving stones. Under the overcast sky, the light seemed grayish, almost as if it was dead, and a cold wind swept through the narrow alleyways under the low hanging clouds. At the same time, the air was strangely silent, despite the sound of the happenings in the street, and one could hear the soft tinkle of the bells in the shrines as clearly as the voice of the merchant promoting his wares.
Appearing from out of the misty opaqueness stepped a young man. He peered ahead through the rain and through the hair that the wind blew across his face, at the torii and beyond, into the ground of the shrine. As like with most other shrines, he felt that it was a place of peace, and yet, there was something about shrines that was vaguely unsettling to him. He turned to the one who was leading them, and cocked an eyebrow at her, as if to ask, "Here?"
She nodded in reply, and then beckoned to the other two members to move forward. She had been to the place before, and she knew her way around, yet she too felt uneasy about the place she was leading them to. It wasn't as if she could place a finger on what exactly was bothering her. It was something in the place that made her hesitant to just stroll in, and which made her pause for a moment outside as the other two caught up with her.
The other two girls looked on with some apprehension. At 19, they were both younger than the other two, and whatever had given the other two reason to pause was now starting to affect them as well. And though the interior of the shrine was as quiet as before, there was a certain heaviness that hung about the place. And for the taller girl, it was even worse, as she was Sensitive, a Cleric, so she had the ability to feel supernatural forces and shifts in power. And the corner of her eyes were beginning to tingle, a sure implication that there was something unholy residing in the area. She silently whispered a prayer for protection, to her God, that He would protect them all from the malevolence of the place.
The tall Guide snapped her helmet on securely, raised her spear, and turned to the other three. "You all ready?"
The youngest, an Archer gave her a tremulous nod, and notched an arrow to her bowstring. It was not her first time, but she did not enjoy having to go right into a stronghold of the enemy, and the tension of her closest friend in the band wasn't helping assuage her nervousness. The Cleric barely noticed, but the intense look of concentration and her continuous prayers answered the Guide's query.
The Guide turned back to the man, and motioned for him to continue. The Elemental raised his shield, and a small ball of fire popped into existence in his right hand. Satisfied that all was prepared, the Guide stepped forward, guided by the light of the fireball, and covered in the prayers of the Cleric.
High above the fluted columns and sweeping roofs, the clouds gathered, the darkness gathered, forming a mass that dwarfed the four warriors.
* * *
Ok, so my foray into fantasy writing isn't very good, but essentially, that was what we did in Kawagoe on the 12th. We went on a prayer walk through the area, and we split up into two groups at the start, and so I went with JL, and J and WT. We started with the relatively frivolous stuff first lah, so we went to this place called Candy Street, which was called Candy Street mainly because all the candy makers gathered there after a great fire 115 years ago, and the street received its name after all the candy makers had settled there.
Didn't buy much, but ate a Taiyaki, which is essentially, a fish shaped Jollibean pancake. Except mine had custard in it. Pretty good.
The next part was a bit different. We had been doing prayer walk, of course, even though we were looking at all the candy and stuff, but after clearing candy street, the tone really started to change. It started when we walked past this museum, which had several masks and miniature mikoshi. Which were somewhat disturbing. After that, we went to several shrines, and the first one we went to, WT told us later, really made her feel uncomfortable. She has the unique ability to sense supernatural forces to a certain degree, and this particular shrine, out of the three we visited, had her senses tingling.
Much later on, we found out that that particular shrine was one of the oldest in Kawagoe, and was pretty deeply entrenched. And when WT shared all this with us, it totally freaked out most of us, and we spent the night praying, which I must admit, was a really good and refreshing experience, despite the rather dark reasons for it's beginning. Coincidentally, that was at the same time the church was having JPM, and it was comforting knowing that the church was also praying for us.
So we went to another shrine and a temple, before heading back. We tried making dinner that night, and I decided to try making curry, since if anything, at least we would know how bad the stuff would taste. Fortunately, it came out ok, and no one got any stomachaches.
Friday we went to Hanakoganei, where we helped to run a kids' club with D&J and SW. The team helped with the program, and then played with some of the kids after that, which I can assure you, is more tiring that it sounds. Especially when you have to continuously run around with a kid on your back for an hour and a half. But it was fun. Only thing was that Jo couldn't join in the fun because she was still on medication, and the agreement I had with her was that she could only join in when she was fully recovered. Still, I must say she showed a great deal of maturity by not kicking up a fuss, even though she was the one who did all the planning for the kids' program. And I admired her even more when she spent the entire two and a half hours praying for the rest of us.
After that, we came back home, where we had the talk (mentioned above, same time as JPM), and slept a bit late.
Saturday we went back up to Kawagoe to do some Street E. After all the praying we did the night before, we didn't feel quite so down as like the last time we went up there. Also, we weren't quite working in the same area. I'm not terribly fond of Street E, and I still felt uncomfortable, but AA was really helpful and all, so we managed to do some stuff. Toddled over to HJ's place after that for debrief, then went back to go and prep food for the combined housechurch celebration.
Sunday we went to Ichikawa, where the OMF building was. Met some old friends, most notably S, whom I met on previous trips, and who is the person I was closest to from Japan last time. Yeah. He led worship, then we witnessed a baptism of a Chinese exchange student, and heard from a guy who sings Gospel music to do outreach.
So that was the first week. I'm like so hopelessly behind that I'll probably only finish typing out the trip way after I get back to Singapore, but oh well.
And for sister, yeah I miss the whole family. Sometimes. Haha..
Cheerio
Monday, June 16, 2008
始めて
The team reached Narita safely at about 8 pm Monday night, and we all met up with DL who nicely agreed to drive us back from the airport to Tokorozawa. It seemed to be a good idea for me to go and help to link up the team with DL, since we didn't really know him then. And JL thought it would be good if I could help navigate back to Tokorozawa.
Well, I sort of managed to accomplish half my objectives. I did manage to help link up the team with DL, but I sort of help to make ourselves lost on the way back. 'Twas a little bit difficult to navigate, since the roads were different, and it was night. And my navigational skills while walking are ok, since it's easy to stop and check where I am, but when you're barreling along at 120 km/h, it's a bit hard to make decisions. So we ended up reaching Tokorozawa at about the same time that we would have reached if we had taken the train (read same time I reached Tokorozawa a few days ago), just that we got to know DL a bit better through the long ride, and it was slightly cheaper than 6 people on the train.
So everyone was settled in nicely. The girls got the tatami room, D and R got Je's room, and I ended up in Ju's room. Slept a little late, but yeah. That would turn out to be normal in the following days.
The 6th was when we had our orientation to Japan by D&J. We woke up a little late, then we ate like Tempura at the nearby shop. Everyone really liked it, then we went back for the orientation. They went through some information on the culture and history of Japan, then we tried to think of our expectations. Personally, I've never really liked having all these sort of visioning exercises. But it did help to put some things into perspective for the whole trip, to remind us of our main purpose of coming to Japan.
We went to Costco with them after that. Costco is like this major warehouse-style shopping center with lots of American stuff. Heard from D&J that when the American missionaries heard that there was a Costco going up, they all quickly went to look for it to go and get stuff. We bought some necessities there. Of course, there was lots of cool stuff around too, like there were pizzas like 25 inches across or something, and like you could get big cartons of tiramisu, and muffins and cookies and bread and all sorts of cool stuff. There was also a nearby retail outlet shopping center selling lots of branded goods.
The warehouse-like, American-style Supermarket
We ended Tuesday by going to a sushi bar, where the guys beat the girls by about 10 plates I think. The all time favorite was probably the pork sushi (!? yeah I know), except for J, since she doesn't like pork.
On Wednesday, we met this dude at the Waseda University's Takadanobaba campus. He was called M, and he was really into Singapore stuff. He had gone to Singapore a few times before for fun and stuff, and he speaks Chinese, along with his native Japanese and English. It was really nice talking to him and another guy just about mundane stuff. The other guy was Korean, so he had also done NS, and so the guys were all happily complaining to each other about army life in general.
After Waseda, we went to Ikebukuro, and walked over from the station to Rikkyo University. Rikkyo is also known as St. Paul's University, but like many other missions schools, it does not have a Christian emphasis. We did prayer walking around the campus (it's rather a small school).
Rikkyo Daigaku. Looks Ivy-League
The great thing about the place was that at first it seemed kinda 'dark', if you get my drift. Because D&J were telling us about how difficult it had been for people to get inroads there (Waseda, by comparison, was rather easy, because they had contacts with some students), and that the students there were even more closed in general as compared to Waseda students. However, we got some encouragement at the end, when we were wandering around in our groups, at different times, we heard the organ in the chapel playing, and we all found our way there, where a lady invited us in to just sit and pray. The organist was playing a hymn whose name I can't remember, but what I do remember at that time was this feeling that God was telling us, "Even though the ground may be difficult I am still with you." It's hard to put down in words, but it was the sort of feeling that there was still hope that God would provide a way in, if not for us, then for the missionaries.
Chapel at Rikkyo University
We ate at this really great ramen place for dinner. The soup was really great, and as we all know, the soup makes the ramen. The noodles were ok too. Everyone really enjoyed it of course. Everyone, that is, except J, since the soup was pork-based.
Thursday was the first time we went to Kawagoe. Took the Seibu-Shinjuku line to Hon-Kawagoe, met HJ, and we were supposed to go eat lunch at a famous udon place, until we realized that like the ramen from the night before, it was cooked in pork broth. So we went to Manshu for other food. We then went on to the Old Town to do some basic research.
More on that in the following post.
Cheerio.
P.S. Sorry for the late uploads and stuff. Been kinda busy, and the 'net went down a couple days ago.
Well, I sort of managed to accomplish half my objectives. I did manage to help link up the team with DL, but I sort of help to make ourselves lost on the way back. 'Twas a little bit difficult to navigate, since the roads were different, and it was night. And my navigational skills while walking are ok, since it's easy to stop and check where I am, but when you're barreling along at 120 km/h, it's a bit hard to make decisions. So we ended up reaching Tokorozawa at about the same time that we would have reached if we had taken the train (read same time I reached Tokorozawa a few days ago), just that we got to know DL a bit better through the long ride, and it was slightly cheaper than 6 people on the train.
So everyone was settled in nicely. The girls got the tatami room, D and R got Je's room, and I ended up in Ju's room. Slept a little late, but yeah. That would turn out to be normal in the following days.
The 6th was when we had our orientation to Japan by D&J. We woke up a little late, then we ate like Tempura at the nearby shop. Everyone really liked it, then we went back for the orientation. They went through some information on the culture and history of Japan, then we tried to think of our expectations. Personally, I've never really liked having all these sort of visioning exercises. But it did help to put some things into perspective for the whole trip, to remind us of our main purpose of coming to Japan.
We went to Costco with them after that. Costco is like this major warehouse-style shopping center with lots of American stuff. Heard from D&J that when the American missionaries heard that there was a Costco going up, they all quickly went to look for it to go and get stuff. We bought some necessities there. Of course, there was lots of cool stuff around too, like there were pizzas like 25 inches across or something, and like you could get big cartons of tiramisu, and muffins and cookies and bread and all sorts of cool stuff. There was also a nearby retail outlet shopping center selling lots of branded goods.
The warehouse-like, American-style SupermarketWe ended Tuesday by going to a sushi bar, where the guys beat the girls by about 10 plates I think. The all time favorite was probably the pork sushi (!? yeah I know), except for J, since she doesn't like pork.
On Wednesday, we met this dude at the Waseda University's Takadanobaba campus. He was called M, and he was really into Singapore stuff. He had gone to Singapore a few times before for fun and stuff, and he speaks Chinese, along with his native Japanese and English. It was really nice talking to him and another guy just about mundane stuff. The other guy was Korean, so he had also done NS, and so the guys were all happily complaining to each other about army life in general.
After Waseda, we went to Ikebukuro, and walked over from the station to Rikkyo University. Rikkyo is also known as St. Paul's University, but like many other missions schools, it does not have a Christian emphasis. We did prayer walking around the campus (it's rather a small school).
Rikkyo Daigaku. Looks Ivy-League The great thing about the place was that at first it seemed kinda 'dark', if you get my drift. Because D&J were telling us about how difficult it had been for people to get inroads there (Waseda, by comparison, was rather easy, because they had contacts with some students), and that the students there were even more closed in general as compared to Waseda students. However, we got some encouragement at the end, when we were wandering around in our groups, at different times, we heard the organ in the chapel playing, and we all found our way there, where a lady invited us in to just sit and pray. The organist was playing a hymn whose name I can't remember, but what I do remember at that time was this feeling that God was telling us, "Even though the ground may be difficult I am still with you." It's hard to put down in words, but it was the sort of feeling that there was still hope that God would provide a way in, if not for us, then for the missionaries.
Chapel at Rikkyo UniversityWe ate at this really great ramen place for dinner. The soup was really great, and as we all know, the soup makes the ramen. The noodles were ok too. Everyone really enjoyed it of course. Everyone, that is, except J, since the soup was pork-based.
Thursday was the first time we went to Kawagoe. Took the Seibu-Shinjuku line to Hon-Kawagoe, met HJ, and we were supposed to go eat lunch at a famous udon place, until we realized that like the ramen from the night before, it was cooked in pork broth. So we went to Manshu for other food. We then went on to the Old Town to do some basic research.
More on that in the following post.
Cheerio.
P.S. Sorry for the late uploads and stuff. Been kinda busy, and the 'net went down a couple days ago.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Praevium
So as mentioned, I reached Tokyo a little earlier than the team. Primary purpose was to kinda take over the place from Uncle L, since he was leaving the day the team arrived, but I also got to slack around a bit and do a bit of fun stuff as well.
So anyway, as I mentioned two posts ago, I reached Tokorozawa around 1145 at night. It was a spot late, but I toddled over from the station to Uncle L's place. Now thing is, Uncle L, and Auntie C had left for Osaka for a conference of sorts, so in the house were Auntie D, U, and the two kids. Brother sort of remembered the code for the main door of the apartment, but he mixed it up a bit, so when I tried to press it, the thing didn't open up. Resigned to my sorry state (I mean, I was carrying a knapsack, an overstuffed laptop case, and piece of luggage full of souvenirs and cocnut milk, I had traveled from Singapore to HK to Tokyo, and then traveled across Tokyo, and I had spilt water on myself on the plane), I called the home, and they unlocked the door for me, so I got to get in, and not sleep on the outside (like a certain situation I remember myself in a while ago...).
Next morning, I woke late, then met K near Waseda. She had come over for exchange almost a year before, but we kinda stayed in contact, so we arranged to meet up. We decided to go to Ueno in the end, and so we wondered around Ueno Park, since we both had not gone there before. It was really quite a nice experience, since Ueno Park is rather beautiful. The pond is supposed to be a major attraction, and supposed to be really romantic if you go and sit on the boats together and what not, but some part of the pond was super overgrown with lily pads, and the water was a rather bright green. (Looked like toxic gloop, and K agreed with me).
The lily pads
K even told me that for couples going to the pond, it was advisable to take the rowboats, since according to superstition, those that take the swan boats always end up breaking up. However, the few rowboats I saw on the pond didn't look very romantic. I mean, it's hard to look romantic at 3 in the afternoon, and the lady is rowing the boat with the man inside!!
But over all, the trip to Ueno was pretty nice... even though it wasn't Sakura season, which is what Ueno Park was really famous for. After all, K is a nice friend to be with, and she does know a quite a bit more about the area, since she had been staying there for quite a while. Here's a picture of the central fountain in Ueno Park:
When I was there, I thought it kinda looked like MacRitchie Reservoir since there was a fountain and some boardwalks, but when uploading the picture, I couldn't help but think of Versailles. I don't know why.
Another part of Ueno Park
This was near a small cafe place. It really is an ice cream cone, and it's supposed to represent a chocolate-matcha ice cream, but from this angle, it looks like something else. I was sure brother would appreciate this sort of photo, and he did when I showed it to him via MSN
Then we went back to this street near the station which was a shopping sort of area that K had heard about from her friends. The prices were decent, but we both didn't get anything, since she was just doing a recon sweep, and most of the stuff there was for girls. The greatest part though, was that they were selling this:
Durian! Brother would probably have flipped if he had seen this. And ¥3000 is rather steep for it, considering the prices we can get in Singapore, not to say Malaysia.
I guess it's kind of a really exotic fruit there, and I guess some people actually do eat durian in Japan. Maybe it's all the Singaporeans who go and are really homesick (K and I were obviously not homesick enough to blow that much on durian. For the record, we weren't even homesick). Or maybe some Japanese have developed a taste for durian.
So anyway, we ended the day by heading to Ikebukuro's Sunshine City, where I discovered two things:
The next day was a sort of easy day too. I did meet up with DL and his wife J who are doing longer-short-term work here, their blog is linked over there <----. So after a short briefing, we went to Ikebukuro HC at the karaoke place, where we met the housechurch members. DL is quite an easygoing guy, really nice to work with. He's a sort of balance between Uncle L's super lasseiz-faire working style and PJ's highly structured work ethic (people who had previously been to Japan would know what I'm talking about). And I couldn't help it but he also does remind me a bit of J from church, who's like one of the resident Thai language experts. And JL is quite a friendly lady too, very chatty. Anyway, both D&J have been in Japan for about a year, learning Japanese while doing missions work, and we'll be working mainly with them.
Sunday, I went to the Tokorozawa HC at Amuzing Grace. Met some of the people that we always read about in the Missions World newsletter. After that, D&J and me went to SW's house for his international tea time, where he invites his neighbors over for tea. I think I mentioned SW before in previous posts, but I'm not sure. Anyway, he recognized me despite my change in hairstyle, and the tea time was quite fun. SW has these huge crates of Lego at his home for this sort of thing for the kids of the neighbors to play with, and he plays with the kids as well. And D&J are pretty popular with them as well. Two of the three kids there were pretty amused by the fact that DL and me had the same name, and started giggling about who was the read D.
Uncle L and Auntie C came back from Osaka that night. They were still pretty much the same, and it was nice to meet them again. Auntie C spent most of her time chasing the two kids to get their room packed up and telling me lots of housekeeping details, while Uncle L was like uploading all his pictures and showing them to me, and also telling me lots of stuff about how to use the printer, and how to use the TV set and attached pieces of equipment.
So on Monday, I said bye to everyone, since they were all leaving for Singapore, then I went off to Kotesashi to meet SW as we were going to Waseda's Tokorozawa campus for E-Crew, which is sort of like an English Speaking Corner. It was pretty nice to meet up with some of the people there, and since they want to speak English, it helps to facilitate conversation. Came home to do some stuff, but ended up snoozing till about 4, when I went to Narita (which takes very long, in case you didn't know) and met the team coming in.
So that's all the stuff that happened before 5 other team members came in on flight CX 500. Will update more of the things that happened on the first week of missions soon.
Cheerio
So anyway, as I mentioned two posts ago, I reached Tokorozawa around 1145 at night. It was a spot late, but I toddled over from the station to Uncle L's place. Now thing is, Uncle L, and Auntie C had left for Osaka for a conference of sorts, so in the house were Auntie D, U, and the two kids. Brother sort of remembered the code for the main door of the apartment, but he mixed it up a bit, so when I tried to press it, the thing didn't open up. Resigned to my sorry state (I mean, I was carrying a knapsack, an overstuffed laptop case, and piece of luggage full of souvenirs and cocnut milk, I had traveled from Singapore to HK to Tokyo, and then traveled across Tokyo, and I had spilt water on myself on the plane), I called the home, and they unlocked the door for me, so I got to get in, and not sleep on the outside (like a certain situation I remember myself in a while ago...).
Next morning, I woke late, then met K near Waseda. She had come over for exchange almost a year before, but we kinda stayed in contact, so we arranged to meet up. We decided to go to Ueno in the end, and so we wondered around Ueno Park, since we both had not gone there before. It was really quite a nice experience, since Ueno Park is rather beautiful. The pond is supposed to be a major attraction, and supposed to be really romantic if you go and sit on the boats together and what not, but some part of the pond was super overgrown with lily pads, and the water was a rather bright green. (Looked like toxic gloop, and K agreed with me).
The lily padsK even told me that for couples going to the pond, it was advisable to take the rowboats, since according to superstition, those that take the swan boats always end up breaking up. However, the few rowboats I saw on the pond didn't look very romantic. I mean, it's hard to look romantic at 3 in the afternoon, and the lady is rowing the boat with the man inside!!
But over all, the trip to Ueno was pretty nice... even though it wasn't Sakura season, which is what Ueno Park was really famous for. After all, K is a nice friend to be with, and she does know a quite a bit more about the area, since she had been staying there for quite a while. Here's a picture of the central fountain in Ueno Park:
When I was there, I thought it kinda looked like MacRitchie Reservoir since there was a fountain and some boardwalks, but when uploading the picture, I couldn't help but think of Versailles. I don't know why.
Another part of Ueno Park
This was near a small cafe place. It really is an ice cream cone, and it's supposed to represent a chocolate-matcha ice cream, but from this angle, it looks like something else. I was sure brother would appreciate this sort of photo, and he did when I showed it to him via MSNThen we went back to this street near the station which was a shopping sort of area that K had heard about from her friends. The prices were decent, but we both didn't get anything, since she was just doing a recon sweep, and most of the stuff there was for girls. The greatest part though, was that they were selling this:
Durian! Brother would probably have flipped if he had seen this. And ¥3000 is rather steep for it, considering the prices we can get in Singapore, not to say Malaysia.I guess it's kind of a really exotic fruit there, and I guess some people actually do eat durian in Japan. Maybe it's all the Singaporeans who go and are really homesick (K and I were obviously not homesick enough to blow that much on durian. For the record, we weren't even homesick). Or maybe some Japanese have developed a taste for durian.
So anyway, we ended the day by heading to Ikebukuro's Sunshine City, where I discovered two things:
- The cool thing is that there is now a Studio Ghibli shop in Sunshine City, right next to the Disney Store. They have all sorts of stuff from the anime, like the Totoros, and the little black sootballs (I can't remember what they're called). They even have the jewel from Castle in the Sky.
- The un-cool thing is that THE CINNABON SHOP HAS CLOSED DOWN!!!! Like how sad is that? I felt miserable for a while, like about 3 seconds. I did find out that there was now an outlet at Odaiba when I got back though. One more reason to go there.
The next day was a sort of easy day too. I did meet up with DL and his wife J who are doing longer-short-term work here, their blog is linked over there <----. So after a short briefing, we went to Ikebukuro HC at the karaoke place, where we met the housechurch members. DL is quite an easygoing guy, really nice to work with. He's a sort of balance between Uncle L's super lasseiz-faire working style and PJ's highly structured work ethic (people who had previously been to Japan would know what I'm talking about). And I couldn't help it but he also does remind me a bit of J from church, who's like one of the resident Thai language experts. And JL is quite a friendly lady too, very chatty. Anyway, both D&J have been in Japan for about a year, learning Japanese while doing missions work, and we'll be working mainly with them.
Sunday, I went to the Tokorozawa HC at Amuzing Grace. Met some of the people that we always read about in the Missions World newsletter. After that, D&J and me went to SW's house for his international tea time, where he invites his neighbors over for tea. I think I mentioned SW before in previous posts, but I'm not sure. Anyway, he recognized me despite my change in hairstyle, and the tea time was quite fun. SW has these huge crates of Lego at his home for this sort of thing for the kids of the neighbors to play with, and he plays with the kids as well. And D&J are pretty popular with them as well. Two of the three kids there were pretty amused by the fact that DL and me had the same name, and started giggling about who was the read D.
Uncle L and Auntie C came back from Osaka that night. They were still pretty much the same, and it was nice to meet them again. Auntie C spent most of her time chasing the two kids to get their room packed up and telling me lots of housekeeping details, while Uncle L was like uploading all his pictures and showing them to me, and also telling me lots of stuff about how to use the printer, and how to use the TV set and attached pieces of equipment.
So on Monday, I said bye to everyone, since they were all leaving for Singapore, then I went off to Kotesashi to meet SW as we were going to Waseda's Tokorozawa campus for E-Crew, which is sort of like an English Speaking Corner. It was pretty nice to meet up with some of the people there, and since they want to speak English, it helps to facilitate conversation. Came home to do some stuff, but ended up snoozing till about 4, when I went to Narita (which takes very long, in case you didn't know) and met the team coming in.
So that's all the stuff that happened before 5 other team members came in on flight CX 500. Will update more of the things that happened on the first week of missions soon.
Cheerio
成田から所沢までの行き方
Well now, this post is mainly for M, who's coming later on, and is thinking of taking the train from the airport over to Tokorozawa. So this is the way to go via train.
First, when you get off the plane, you should be in Narita airport's Terminal 2. As soon as you clear immigrations (which may take a while since you are a gaijin) and customs, you will come out into the arrival hall. So what you do is look for this counter:
Yes, I know it says Skyliner, but the counter sells both the Skyliner tickets and the Limited Express ones.
Here, buy the ¥1000 ticket, and then you can proceed on to look for the train station. Remember to get the ¥1000 one ok. After that, the train station is in the basement of the airport. I think the arrival hall is level 1. To find the station, please follow these signs:
These are all over the place in the airport
As you can see, there's the Keisei line and JR line, but the station is where all the trains go to anyway, so just follow the signs. Oh, and in case I forget, the ticket looks something like this:
Ok, so this one is not really your Keisei Line Limited Express one. In fact, it's the one you'll get when you're at Ikebukuro (池袋) and heading down to Tokorozawa, but yeah, they look pretty much the same
So you'll need to go through the turnstiles. Feed the ticket into the slot, and remember to collect the ticket when you pass through. It's like the old magnetic tickets that we used to use in Singapore. Get to the platform, making sure you go to the correct side of the platform. There are words in English, so find the ones that are bound for Ueno and Nippori (kanji for the two, in case you need, are 上野 and 日暮里 respectively). And make sure you don't get on the wrong train. The train should look like this:
It's got a flat face sort of thing. The Skyliner looks more like a bullet train
Yeah. After you get on this, you'll have a nice hour plus ride down to Nippori, so you should try to find a seat and get a small nap or something. If you miss your stop, it's ok, since Ueno (the last stop) is the one after Nippori, so you can just take it back from the other side. And timing doesn't really matter, just that if you take too long, the trains may stop running. haha.
So anyway, after you're nice nap, and you arrive at Nippori, look around for the escalators that tell say "Transfer to JR Line". Take it up, and there'll be some turnstiles again, as well as ticketing machines, but go to this counter to change your ticket to the JR one. You should only have to pay ¥160 to change the ticket, since it costs a little bit more:
Tell them you're going to Ikebukuro, and they'll know. In case you need to know what to say, just say, "Ikebukuro e ittai kara...." should be enough.
So after you go through the turnstiles, look for the Yamanote line. It should be track number 11, which says Yamanote bound for Tabata, Ikebukuro, and Shinjuku. If you get on the wrong Yamanote line, you'll end up going through Tokyo, Akihabara, Shimbashi, Shinagawa, Shibuya and many other stations before getting to Ikebukuro, so take from the correct side. This is what it looks like:
So this is what the track thing looks like. Please note it's the one that goes to Ikebukuro, Shinjuku and Shibuya.
So you take the Yamanote to Ikebukuro, then you get off and go through the turnstiles. Now Ikebukuro will probably be the most chaotic place in your train journey over from the airport, so here you must be really careful. Try not to get lost. I'll try to guide you from the Yamanote Line to the Seibu-Ikebukuro Line.
Anyway, the first thing you do when you come out of the turnstiles is to look for the signs that tell you where the Seibu-Ikebukuro Line is. The signs look like this:
You can see it right?
So anyway, just look for these signs and follow them to the Seibu Line station. It is about 500 meters away from the Yamanote Line station, so don't happily run to the nearest ticketing machine and purchase a ticket. It should be at the South Entrance, so maybe you could take a look in that direction. Eventually, you can see a map on the wall that looks like this, and you'll know that you've reached the correct place:
This is the Seibu Line(s) map. You can see the Ikebukuro station (marked in Yellow), and the Tokorozawa station (the 330 mark where the blue and red lines meet)
This is the ticketing machine. There should be an option available to buy a ¥330 ticket. If there isn't, you're probably at the wrong part of the station.
After you buy the ticket, you can head on through the turnstiles and proceed up to the platform to take the train. Here again, you must make sure you get on to the correct platform in order to take the correct train. You can check which platform to go up to through these LED signs that are hanging all over the place. They look like this:
You can see the details on the sign. Basically, what the sign is telling you of the next two trains at platform 5, and they are saying that the Express trains (red words) bound for Hanno are leaving at 2250 hrs and 2312 hrs respectively. Each has 10 carriages, and will be boarded from platform 5.
They even have English signs, in case you really need!
So when you go through, you take the escalator/stairs up to the platform and wait for the train. Oh, in case I forget, the trains that run are really on time, according to the station clocks. So if the train is going to leave at 2250, it will really leave at 2250. Oh and Japan is one hour ahead of Singapore/HK, so remember to set your watch ahead.
Ok, moving on, if you did take the correct train, you should reach Tokorozawa relatively quickly, about 20 minutes, I think. When you get to the station, look for the East Exit for the station. The signs guiding you should look like this:
'Tis the sign.
So when you get to the place, you can see a bank of phones on the wall, and then you can use those to call us, if your phone isn't 3G and can't be used in Japan. So that's how you take train to Tokorozawa.
And considering how much trouble it is to find your way around, and lug your bags and stuff, I would suggest you take the bus from the airport. But that's up to you.
Cheerio
First, when you get off the plane, you should be in Narita airport's Terminal 2. As soon as you clear immigrations (which may take a while since you are a gaijin) and customs, you will come out into the arrival hall. So what you do is look for this counter:
Yes, I know it says Skyliner, but the counter sells both the Skyliner tickets and the Limited Express ones.Here, buy the ¥1000 ticket, and then you can proceed on to look for the train station. Remember to get the ¥1000 one ok. After that, the train station is in the basement of the airport. I think the arrival hall is level 1. To find the station, please follow these signs:
These are all over the place in the airportAs you can see, there's the Keisei line and JR line, but the station is where all the trains go to anyway, so just follow the signs. Oh, and in case I forget, the ticket looks something like this:
Ok, so this one is not really your Keisei Line Limited Express one. In fact, it's the one you'll get when you're at Ikebukuro (池袋) and heading down to Tokorozawa, but yeah, they look pretty much the sameSo you'll need to go through the turnstiles. Feed the ticket into the slot, and remember to collect the ticket when you pass through. It's like the old magnetic tickets that we used to use in Singapore. Get to the platform, making sure you go to the correct side of the platform. There are words in English, so find the ones that are bound for Ueno and Nippori (kanji for the two, in case you need, are 上野 and 日暮里 respectively). And make sure you don't get on the wrong train. The train should look like this:
It's got a flat face sort of thing. The Skyliner looks more like a bullet trainYeah. After you get on this, you'll have a nice hour plus ride down to Nippori, so you should try to find a seat and get a small nap or something. If you miss your stop, it's ok, since Ueno (the last stop) is the one after Nippori, so you can just take it back from the other side. And timing doesn't really matter, just that if you take too long, the trains may stop running. haha.
So anyway, after you're nice nap, and you arrive at Nippori, look around for the escalators that tell say "Transfer to JR Line". Take it up, and there'll be some turnstiles again, as well as ticketing machines, but go to this counter to change your ticket to the JR one. You should only have to pay ¥160 to change the ticket, since it costs a little bit more:
Tell them you're going to Ikebukuro, and they'll know. In case you need to know what to say, just say, "Ikebukuro e ittai kara...." should be enough. So after you go through the turnstiles, look for the Yamanote line. It should be track number 11, which says Yamanote bound for Tabata, Ikebukuro, and Shinjuku. If you get on the wrong Yamanote line, you'll end up going through Tokyo, Akihabara, Shimbashi, Shinagawa, Shibuya and many other stations before getting to Ikebukuro, so take from the correct side. This is what it looks like:
So this is what the track thing looks like. Please note it's the one that goes to Ikebukuro, Shinjuku and Shibuya. So you take the Yamanote to Ikebukuro, then you get off and go through the turnstiles. Now Ikebukuro will probably be the most chaotic place in your train journey over from the airport, so here you must be really careful. Try not to get lost. I'll try to guide you from the Yamanote Line to the Seibu-Ikebukuro Line.
Anyway, the first thing you do when you come out of the turnstiles is to look for the signs that tell you where the Seibu-Ikebukuro Line is. The signs look like this:
You can see it right?So anyway, just look for these signs and follow them to the Seibu Line station. It is about 500 meters away from the Yamanote Line station, so don't happily run to the nearest ticketing machine and purchase a ticket. It should be at the South Entrance, so maybe you could take a look in that direction. Eventually, you can see a map on the wall that looks like this, and you'll know that you've reached the correct place:
This is the Seibu Line(s) map. You can see the Ikebukuro station (marked in Yellow), and the Tokorozawa station (the 330 mark where the blue and red lines meet)
This is the ticketing machine. There should be an option available to buy a ¥330 ticket. If there isn't, you're probably at the wrong part of the station.After you buy the ticket, you can head on through the turnstiles and proceed up to the platform to take the train. Here again, you must make sure you get on to the correct platform in order to take the correct train. You can check which platform to go up to through these LED signs that are hanging all over the place. They look like this:
You can see the details on the sign. Basically, what the sign is telling you of the next two trains at platform 5, and they are saying that the Express trains (red words) bound for Hanno are leaving at 2250 hrs and 2312 hrs respectively. Each has 10 carriages, and will be boarded from platform 5.
They even have English signs, in case you really need!So when you go through, you take the escalator/stairs up to the platform and wait for the train. Oh, in case I forget, the trains that run are really on time, according to the station clocks. So if the train is going to leave at 2250, it will really leave at 2250. Oh and Japan is one hour ahead of Singapore/HK, so remember to set your watch ahead.
Ok, moving on, if you did take the correct train, you should reach Tokorozawa relatively quickly, about 20 minutes, I think. When you get to the station, look for the East Exit for the station. The signs guiding you should look like this:
'Tis the sign.So when you get to the place, you can see a bank of phones on the wall, and then you can use those to call us, if your phone isn't 3G and can't be used in Japan. So that's how you take train to Tokorozawa.
And considering how much trouble it is to find your way around, and lug your bags and stuff, I would suggest you take the bus from the airport. But that's up to you.
Cheerio
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