Snow Day!

It's a snow day! It's been snowing a lot these last few days, but we're supposed to get a heat wave. So we went and played before it all melted away. I'm really hoping for a white Christmas!















Our Texas snowgal



















That chaperone was a bit scary! I honestly don't think this relationship is going to last long, she's got a bad habit of just leaving during spring and summer!














There's snow on the ground..meaning it's cold. Meaning I'm ready for Texas again!

The Nursing Home

Last Friday we went to the local nursing home with a group from the chapel. We were going to wish them happy birthday. We had a large group. We gave them their gifts and then sang happy birthday. After that we sang the chorus of "Joy to the World," in English and Japanese.
















The lady sitting is 104. Amazing..truly amazing!















In the bottom of the gift bags was some sparkling stencil. The workers at the nursing home couldn't figure it out and I heard them say "uki" among themselves. Then one of the lady's carried it over to the Christmas tree and put it on the tree. Mom and another lady started to help them. they couldn't reach the last couple of feet near the top, so I stepped in!

Just in case you were wondering, I avoided hitting my head on the door jams. There were a few close calls, but the collision was averted!

The Intercultural Exchange

Last Saturday we had a Intercultural Gift Exchange. Mr. Simon, a local American, brought about 20 Japanese children onto base to play games and have a pizza party with 20 American children. They decorated crafts, which were crosses. It was sad to watch the difference between the Japanese children and the American children. The Japanese were much better behaved. Not all of the Americans were being bad; I guess you can have 19 good kids, and then 1 bad kid reflects on the whole group.

The Chapel Middle-School Drama Team put on a play for the Japanese. Arielle is Joseph. It was fun to watch. The actors would say their lines for a bit, then the Japanese translator would translate to the Japanese.














There was also singing...I still have that tune stuck in my head!

And then there was the gift exchange. It was really neat to watch. Five Japanese children would stand, facing five American children, they would step towards each other, bow and then exchange gifts. Amazing and touching to watch.

Here it comes!

I'll try to keep the updates coming a bit faster and regularely. I've been busy, but anyways, here I am!

It is snowing outside and sticking; I hope we'll have enough snow on the ground tomorrow to do the things Americans boys and girls do in the snow: snowmen, snow forts, and snowball fights.

School is going well. I'm wrapping up the first unit, ending with the French Revolution. They were pretty messed up. I read the U.S Constitution and was totally amazed at how beautiful it was. But then I read the Declarations of the Rights of Man, and that was very creepy. It was hideous.

I'm in the process of writing an essay of comparison between Shintoism and Christianity. I've got 12 points (yeah I know, a lot). I've covered the first 2 points, and I'm already at 2 pages; this is looking like it is going to be a big piece of genius! lol

Skype!

Hey! I know its been a while, I've been busy! Here's some pictures from this last week. We took it easy for school, and just had a family Thanksgiving dinner. We've been working with Skype and I've had a few conversations with brothers and sisters stateside.

What are we doing?

Oh. Look who joined us for dinner? They all called and we were able to have a conference call. It was Thanksgiving in Japan when they called, but by the time we hung up it was Thanksgiving in Japan, Texas, and Oregon.

Guess what?

Yep, there's a birthday in the house! Guess who's it is?......




Happy Birthday Dad! You're the best! If there is one person who I could be just like, it would be you!

We're all pretty busy with school and chapel sort of stuff. I have youth group on Monday nights, which is fun.

We also have piano lessons during the afternoon

It has been raining a lot these last few days. I was looking out my window, watching the dark clouds build. I said, "if you're going to snow, then snow! If not, then warm up into the 90s!" A couple of minutes later it started to snow. It has been snowing most of today, making it a very cold run!

The ocean was a bit agitated by all of the rain and whatnot

I don't know...I just saw it and so I decided to put it on!

Science!

I've been busy with school. The other day I ran down to the farmers pond to get some pond water for experiments in the future. I let them sit over the weekend and then on Monday went to work. I had four jars, one had egg, another had soil, another hay, and the last had rice.

And then I actually did the experiment, with siblings wanting to take a look in the microscope. They all were sure they saw "something," but it was always different from what the other saw. lol

Stacia even said she saw a princess!


I was cleaning up the mess in the garage...because the jars smelled bad. I had the garage door opened. I was heading inside when I noticed a pair of feet standing on the other side of the door. I could tell by the make of the boots that it was Japanese. I bent down, the same the Japanese gentleman did. We both stared at each other from under the garage door. "Uh, konichiwa." I say, trying to make it seem like total strangers sticking their heads under my garage door was normal. He started speaking...I couldn't understand him, but nodded me head in whole-hearted agreement. He said, "domo" and then walked off. I have no idea what that was about! Mrs. Kim, any insights?

I'll update tomorrow!!!!

Running

Alright...hmmm I did school this week. I'm doing "fantastic," if you ask me! lol

Life can start to feel normal again...we're not traveling anywhere, we have Internet at the house, we have a church, and a house. I think I can finally say the Summer of '09 is over! It was long and hard...I think I learned a lot and am a better person now.

The farmers continue to harvest their crops. They go through and take the best stuff and then leave the rest to decompose and fertilize. That's great for their fields, but when the wind picks up it smells awful! I was out running and nearly threw up, it smelled so bad!

On the topic of running, I finally found a running route that the chances of dying aren't 50-50. I was used to in Texas just being able to run in whichever direction I liked and would have thousands of trails ect. to follow. It's not the case here. You have to run about 1 mile west to get to Oriosi and a safe route. And a 1/4 mile East till you reach the Shinto Shrine. You can either follow the route up passed the Shrine, but it is very scary and dangerous. If ever any of y'all visit, I'll show it to you. There are no shoulders on the farm roads, so you have to run on the road until you can find a side-walk. It's exciting to me, it's an adventure!

I'm Back!

Alright...we're in the house, we have Internet, we are busy, and life is starting to have a bit of routine. The farmers have been real busy harvesting their second harvest of rice. They haven't had much luck with drying it though, it keeps raining.

Rice set out to dry

Arielle, Nolan, and I started piano lessons this week. I'm excited to try and learn it, and yes it is very manly! lol

Last week we started our Japanese lessons. We have a Japanese tutor, all is going well. She showed us the Hiragana alphabet (is it an alphabet, Mrs. Kim?). She showed us how to write our names in Katagana.

On Saturday night Arielle, Nolan, and I went to base to help out with an out reach. We set up booths with games, candy, hot apple cider, and hot-dogs, for the American and Japanese tricker-treaters. I didn't know the Japanese celebrated Halloween, but they probably just do it because they like to try American food. It was a lot of fun. I had a little bit of trouble communicating to the Japanese that we were handing out hot dogs. So I tried, "Dozo hot-dogo!" Eventually they figured it out!

Mom and I went to Homac (a Japanese Lowes). Outside was some Christmas stuff. The Japanese don't do Christmas, but are marketing towards Americans. I looked around, but all I saw was snowmen and Santa Clause, no Baby Jesus. I'll keep looking. I find it sad that those in America have marketed Christmas to the point that the main point is no longer the main point.

Oh, it also snowed yesterday. All of it melted, but it was exciting!

Airshow

We went to the Airshow on base. It was a zoo trying to get on! Traffic was backed up from the base gate all of the to the DyDo vending machine...that is pretty far!

The Japanese-American ratio was like 200-1. It made this patriotic heart of mine proud to see "our boys," up in the air. I've been at lots of airshows. Sometimes I did important things like keep people from getting into an active prop, and sometimes less important things like getting heat stroke. But this was one of the better ones!

It was strange being able to see the flight line and have a great view, even from way in the back!

The plane went up, and did the artillery

Dude....

The Japanese were grilling this on one side of the road, while the Americans grilled hot dogs on the other!

Hakkoda Mt

I went with the youth group on a hiking trip to Hakkoda Mountain, a volcano. At first it looks a lot like Alaska....





....But then after we were crammed into a ski-lift thingy I remembered we are in Japan! When the doors were open I had people running all over and pushing and shoving, I was sort of surprised really. The Japanese are so polite, next thing I knew I was having my head banged against those little black things hanging from the roof. At several points, during the mad rush to get off, I got separated. But seeing as it would be impossible to lose me in the crowd I wasn't to worried!

The view was absolutely amazing!

Sea of Japan

Aomori(sp?)

It was actually a volcano. Our guide, Mr. Simon took us to two craters. One of half of a crater, the other one was a perfectly round crater. Mr. Simon started to sing, "How great thou Art," when we reached the top, so we all joined in.

The Crater

There was a hot spring that we stopped to look at


The weather was really cold for someone leaving the warmer climates of TX, but it was a lot of fun. We split up at the first crater, only a few went on to the second crater, I went along to the second one. When we had all reached the bottom the second group told the first about the snow monkeys that attacked....oh yeah, no joke! lol

Adam-sahn

Did I mention the typhoon? I'm sure it has some other name, but I called it "Adam-sahn." I heard it was the very one that hit the Philippines. Nobody was hurt, we only got the edges. But man that was a lot of rain and wind!

Snapshot!

We've been working really hard getting moved into the house....it is starting to settle down. For a while I thought I was suffering from PTSD, but we're all good! It is so good to be in a house after so many months of being on the run.

I've got a schedule down and am keeping to it faithfully, Jamin would be so proud. My schedule is pretty tight, but I've been getting it done at an hour unheard of while in TX. I can still remember staying till 10-midnight working on stuff....good times.

I sat on the back porch this morning eating a hot bowl of oatmeal and enjoyed watching Japan come alive. I've been trying to find a running route that won't get me killed...a little bit hard. I don't know what it is, but I hate running during the day. I prefer to go at night. But there is no shoulder on these farm roads and so you have to actually run in the road.....which is very tense during the day. I went for a run last night through a neighboring sub division...I'm not sure what scares me more: a dark empty subdivision or a farmers road where you need to be able to jump into the irrigation ditch at the drop of a hat.

Swan Park

We went and found the Swan Park. There was a really tall tower that we climbed. From the top we could see the ocean and much of the sou rounding area. It is moments like this that I realize just how big and awesome God really is.

I saw pictures of this tower when we first heard we were moving here, it was neat to actually see it myself.

Chaw's theme-song please...note the stir in the watter to the swan's right....that is a HUGE fish...carp?

Trying to harness the blur

Alright, we're just about moved into our house; won't have internet for a while though. Here is some pics of the packers coming. Their truck was automatic and the whole side just opened up. Pretty cool.






We've had tons of adventures since we've been in our house. We've had a typhoon, an earthquake, I climbed to the top of a volcano and rode a ski lift way up in the mountains....I've done somersaults at the Japanese shopping stores....Mom and I parked in the middle of a road on accident, we just had a huge airshow, we've gone to Swan park...farming markets...so much and little time!

We have been really busy moving in. I have learned to put bookshelves and whatnot together without instructions as most of them are in Japanese....I still have no idea how to set my alarm clock...hmmm.

While at Sanwado (the Japanese Wal-mart) I was having a lot of fun running up and down the isles with a very fast and sporty shopping cart. It was all good until the cart got a little bit to much on one end and flipped forward, taking me out at the knees. I was right in the main entrance when I did my fancy little trick so everyone in that part of the store saw the American go head-over-heels. Not cool. A kindly Japanese gentleman rushed to pull me out of the desks and bookshelves, he told me something in Japanese. I thanked him and loaded the cart up and headed out again. In retrospect I think he was saying, "don't put that stuff back on the cart, it will flip again." But I don't speak Japanese and so I did it again in the parking lot. I think my ego was hurt way worse than my legs, but I did tear up from the pain the second time!

Can you hear me now?

Hey y'all! I'm sitting in the car, with a coat over my head so I can see the computer screen and trying to look natural as I use someones unsecured network.

We are moved into our house...we still do not have internet, and it is looking like it could be a few more weeks before we do have internet at the house. grrr. We've had a lot of exciting things happening...a typhoon, earthquake, getting settled, I hiked to the top of a volcano, and so much more! I'll fully update in a few hours, if I can make it to the base, if not then just know we're not dead or anything unnatural!

Quick Update

Alright, we are in the house. No pics yet. I'm writing this really fast, so excuse poor grammar!

We don't have Internet out there, so I'll update as I'm able. I probably won't have much time to read anybodies blog for however long we don't have Internet. We could have Internet at the end of a week, or 4, it's up in the air.

We love the house; our hold baggage arrived this morning. The point of the hold baggage was so it would be here while we didn't have the rest of our stuff. But seeing as the rest of our stuff doesn't arrive till tomorrow...it didn't really matter! Oh well! It's really great to be out of the TLF!

Guess what...

....is just a mile or so down the road from where we'll be living????

The big blue!

This is a re-cap of the last 3 days! We've gone to the ocean every day, so it's a hit! The house is finished and so it is just a matter of time; hopefully by Wed or Thursday, we should be moving in. I can't wait to get out of the TLF's! I can't help but laugh at the people who complain about being in them for a week and a half. I'm like, "lady, I've been here 7 to 8 weeks. I'm really not the person to be complaining around!"

There's these shipwrecks up on the beach. If look down the coast you can see Hachinohe.

Apparently people comb the beaches in search of glass floaty things. I don't know why. I found this, it didn't make the cut though!

umm....I guess we went to the house sometime during the weekend

You can't swim on this part of the coast, because you'll probably die. And most people try to avoid that.

We all love the coast for different reasons...I have a special reason to like it because it has a basketball hoop. These are the first ones I've seen off base so far. I want to play the Japanese some time, but first I need to learn how to ask, "Can I play basketball with you?" lol