Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you back in America, especially to my family and friends. I will miss the fun Thanksgiving traditions such as watching football, setting up the Christmas lights, going down to Seattle for the lighting of the Bon Star, cutting our Christmas tree, and being with the family. I hope you guys all enjoy you long weekend!

Secondly, I want to apologize for being somewhat of a ghost. Things have been very busy around here, consequently there has been no time for me to process or reflect on the past weeks. Will things start winding down as Christmas season approaches? No, just the opposite, many of you probably understand how busy things get, once Advent season begins, so wish me luck as I plan and prepare for all kinds of Christmas parties with my classes, and special services in our church.

Todays Blog I wanted to write a few things that I’m thankful for. Just to clarify, there are many more things that I could add to this list, but for the sake of time, I will limit it to only a few.

1) I’m thankful for my Family: I have been blessed with a family that is so supportive of me in many ways. Dating back to when I was a wee tike, to motivating me to do well in high school and helping me though the process of messy collage applications, to being available to help when I ran out of money towards the end of the school year, to helping me prepare for my move to Japan, all the way to now. They show so much support which makes it easier for me to be here and serve the Lord, knowing that they are happy with what I’m doing

2) I’m thankful for the Sasaki’s: They are my family here in Japan. They picked me up from the airport on July 8^th, they helped fill my fridge for the first month, they take me around different parts of Sendai, they helped me open a bank account and do all the necessary things to get settled and registered as an alien. Junko makes me dinner on my busy teaching days, and they are encourage me and push me to be creative and a fun English teacher.

3) I’m thankful for my students: I wouldn’t be here without them. When I first arrived in July, my student count was in the low 30’s, now we are at the cusp of breaking 60 students. I guess a lot of it comes from the grace of God where He is demonstrating another way he provides, but I enjoy all of my students so much…even the more rowdy ones. Each student is kind and I really appreciate their hard work and attitude through my classes, it makes it so much easier to teach. Through my first 5 months of teaching, I have so much more respect for all the teachers I have ever had, its tough work!

Like I said, this list can go on and on. I am thankful for God’s grace He has on us, I am thankful for good health…etc.

This past Tuesday (November 23) was a holiday in Japan…not really sure what the holiday was for, but a day off none-the-less. I was invited over to the Bengtson’s home (missionary family at the church) for a thanksgiving dinner. Linda always orders a Turkey from America and has a thanksgiving dinner with her family and the English teacher(s). It was a delicious meal, and I am so thankful for people that will bring me into their home and let me be apart

We ate all the traditional Thanksgiving dishes. Turkey, mashed potato’s, veggies, cor bread, stuffing, and pumpkin pie for dessert. I left that evening feeling so satisfied. So mom, you don't have to worry, I got my thanksgiving dinner this year! But, as I was scooping away at my mountain of mashed potato’s, I realized something. Thanksgiving is much much more then eating a delicious meal. Thanksgiving isn’t thanksgiving unless you are with your family. There is a certain atmosphere of love and comfort that you get when you eat that meal with your family, and I’m REALLY going to miss that. With that being said, I hope that you all enjoy your turkey dinners; I hope that you enjoy being with your family, and last but not least, enjoy the Thanksgiving football games!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

-Kris

Hiking with Yumi and Manabu

One of my students from my Wednesday adult class called me late Sunday night and asked if I wanted to go hiking with her and her husband Monday morning. Being that Mondays are my days off, I naturally wanted to take her up on this offer. Once again, I must say again that I’m so blessed to be around people that want to show me around, take me out for a meal, or to show me a good time!

Yumi has been asking me for weeks, “When can you go hiking? What days do you have off?” So, this spontaneous plan began to take shape. When talking on the phone with her, late Sunday night, she let me know that they would be picking me up around 9:30am and that we would grab a bite to eat in the little village that was right outside the trailhead.

Monday morning I woke up and rode my bike to the post office to grab some cash for lunch. Yeah, that’s right, I said post office, not bank. I don’t know why, but here in Japan you can keep money at the post office. I chose that over a bank because it’s cheaper to wire money into my American account. Anywho, by 9:30 we were on our way.

It was a cold and blustery fall day, but my gloves and hat helped keep me warm. By this time of year, most of the leaves had fallen off the trees and created a colorful path to walk on. The

destination of this hike was a waterfall. The estimated tim

e of the hikewas about 3 hours. But as we hiked, we could see that our hike was becoming shorter and shorter due to trails being closed. We were tempted to ignore the signs, but alas, we didn’t want to get in trouble. Walking along the higher part of the gully, we could look down and see the trail that ran along a stream. We were a bit disappointed we could not be down there, but as we kept trekking along, we figured out why those trails were closed. Big boulders from the cliffs had fallen down and crushed some of the bridges, and if people walked down there, they might be in harms way of another boulder crashing down on them.

Well, we made it to a waterfall, I don’t know if it was the waterfall. But it was still beautiful. We made our way back to the car and arrived back just 1 hour after we had left it. So the time of our hike was severally cut short. But, now it was time for lunch…

...NOT, cause the one little restaurant in that village was closed, dab-burnit! We were hungry! I don’t know the name of the village, but its like 20 off the main on a dirt road up in the hills. There are only three of four houses, a restaurant and oddly enough, the train stops there. Unfortunately I did not get any pictures to show you but if you have seen the movie the village, it’s a lot like that…only smaller.

We drove back to Yumi’s house where she made some good ol’ steak. So now we were eating our late lunch when her friend, Nobuko aka another student of mine, called Yumi and invited us over for dinner. We agreed, so a half hour later we went over to her house and had some delicious soup.

Once 8:30pm rolled around, the party started to wind down and I thought that it might be time to plan my lesson for the next morning. With our final goodbyes, and “see you on Wednesday,” Yumi dropped me back off at my apartment. It was a great day, and boy was I full.

November Colors

I am learning that fall in the Tohoku area of Japan is much nicer of a season then fall in the Northwest. Living in the Northwest my entire life, every fall I’ve experienced has been dark, cold and wet. Of course there are the few odd nice days here and there, and there are trees that change color, but you can only enjoy it for a short time before the cheery autumn colors become damp and soggy from the rain.

Living in the northeastern side of Japan, I am experiencing a beautiful world of red, orange, yellow, brown and every shade in between. As you may see in some of my recent photos, the land and mountains are blanketed with beautiful colors. This is something that you do not see very often in Seattle. Living in the “Evergreen State,” we get the beautiful lush green hills and mountainsides year round, but we can rarely look at a mountain and see a wonderful color pallet. I think that both can be beautiful, but the one thing that I am really enjoying about fall here is that it is dry! The leaves are sharing their last bit of colorful beauty before they become too brittle as they cling onto their branch before they are swooped away with a cool crisp gust of wind. I’m sure that in the next few weeks, colors will begin to fade, and as the days get cooler the last bits of life will be frozen away as nature anticipates the winter season.

This past Friday I had the privilege being taken to a Saikachi-numa by the Sasaki’s. It's a beautiful lake that happens to only be a 15 min bike ride from my apartment. Unfortunately I forgot my camera that day. The colors were so beautiful and I knew that this was a place I needed to revisit with my camera. On Sunday afternoon, Josh and I (you remember Josh right? One of the MK’s at this church, my Sakunami walk buddy) well anyway, we embarked on another adventure once Church and lunch had finished. We rode our bikes and were met by God’s beautiful creation, yet again. We took our time and snapped some photos around the lake, then made our way back home.

Unfortunately…or fortunately, depending on what kind of person you are, we did not run into any exciding wildlife. I’m determined to find a gang of monkeys or a wandering bear, but so far I’ve had no luck.

An Afternoon with the Endo's

The first member of the Endo family I met was Hinako. She is a very bright, energetic and friendly 7-year-old girl who stepped into my English class with lots of confidence. I met the rest of the family on a Sunday morning at church. Hinako has a 4 year old brother named Ryuichiro and the parents are Shigeyoshi and Humie. Shigeyoshi joined one of my adult classes in early September. Through weekly English classes with Hinako and her Father along with spending time together at church, their family and I have established the makings for a solid friendship.

For the past few weeks, the Endo san approached me and invited me over for either lunch or dinner. A week or two went by and we finally found a day that worked, Monday afternoon. They told me they would pick me up at 3:30 and we would just go from there. After they picked me up, we went back to their house. When I walk in the door, I was greeted by the smell of apple pie being cooked in the oven. While we waited for the pie to finish baking, I played memory with the Hinako and Ryu.

Some time went by, and when our stomachs started rumblin, we all piled in the car and made our way to a　とんかつ (ton katsu, deep fried pork) shop for dinner. It was very delicious, which made sense because they told me it was rated the second best ton katsu shop in Sendai. When we had our fill of dinner they took me downtown to a familiar ice cream shop. They said it was a cool shop because they sing. Can you guess what ice cream shop? If you are thinking of Cold Stone, you are correct! I forget what I ordered…I think it was something like sweet cream cookie delight????? Well, whatever it was, it was delicious!

We walked around a few shops and came to the conclusion that the clothes were much too expensive. They suggested that I shop at outlet stores, which then kind of segued into them saying that next time we hang out, they will take me to some good outlet stores…and then a famous temple. I’ll for sure share that story with you once that day comes. Until then, have a good weekend, and so sorry for not taking to many pictures on this day…I’ll try to do better next time ;)

PEACE!

11 Mile Walk

After my ladies class on Friday, Josh and I took a train west-bound to Sakunami. Josh heard that the trees were starting to change color and wanted to get some pictures of them. There are also some great waterfalls out that way.

When we got off the train, we started walking west were we got a beautiful close up view of “Gorilla Mountain.” If you look at it from a certain angle, the shape of the mountain looks like the head and face of a gorilla. We wondered east towards Ayashi where we planned on catching another train to take us back, once we were don't taking pictures.

The whole idea of this trip was to take some pictures of waterfalls, and the thing that motivates us, besides the beautiful weather, was the changing of leafs colors. We did not experience the full colors of fall, we got there about a week early, so we could only see the changes starting to happen, but it was still a beautiful day, so there was no reason to complain. Here are a few pictures taken from that day.

The long walk came into play because we spent too long enjoying the beautiful scenery and were stuck with the decision of walking back to Sakunami Station, then maybe miss that train, or we could walk all the way back to Ayashi. If I didn’t have a class to teach at 5:00, then we would have just walked back to Sakunami and if we missed that train we could have waited an hr for the next one. But, being that I needed to be back ready to teach in 2 and half hours, it would have been a pretty big risk. So, we decided to start our long trek back.

The funny part of the trip was as we were walking along north side of the highway we walked past a train station. We both knew that one was there, but Josh didn’t think the train would stop there. But, as we were approaching the crosswalk that would lead us to the station the train pulled in and stopped. Obviously we wanted to cross the road and try and get on that train, but we couldn’t. Both ways there was heavy traffic, so J-walking was no option. We hit the crosswalk button, but by the time we were able to cross the train started to pull out of the station. Well, now it was
back to walking the rest of the way home.

It was now 4:40, and if I were to keep the walking pace, I was going to be late. So, I dumped my jacket and sweater onto Josh and began running. By 4:50 and 1 mile later I ran into the church and found two of my students there (as they are always a half hr early) waiting. I told them that I would be back in a min. My lesson was planned, but I had not set out my materials or packed anything I needed for the class. Once again I was running, this time a much shorter distance to my apartment. I grabbed my stuff, swiped on some fresh deodorant, threw on a clean shirt and headed back to the church. Once 5:00 hit, we were all sitting in class and I was just finishing my last few huge gulps of water before I started class.

Feel free to check out my 'Explorations' album for more photos!

Hunt for a New Computer

I don’t know when my computer will fizzle out, but all I know that it could be as soon as tomorrow, or maybe it can last 6 more months. There is disconcerting clicking sound coming from the hard drive. Between every 30 and 60 min, my computer freezes up for about 15 seconds and I hear my hard drive stuck clicking. Well, since this has been going on for a couple of months, I think it’s a good time to start thinking about a new computer.

On Monday, Hiromitsu and his wife Ayumi took me around down to various electric shops and we checked out prices. Hiromitsu knows a lot about computers, so I’m pretty lucky to have someone that can show me what’s good, and what’s not good. Well, I didn’t buy a computer, and I did not decide on a computer, but one thing that I do know is that again the great people that surround me remind me.

I don’t really like shopping, I get so tired. I don’t know what it is, but I feel like I could play a few games of basketball and still have more energy then walking around a few stores. What I do like is going shopping with great people that are a lot of fun. The laugher, the conversations, the various food and drink stops make the whole day much more fun and less like a chore. I am so lucky that there are people around that will spend their entire day with me driving around and creating fun memories as we shopped for my computer.