Susan - My first blog

This is a little late, but better late than never...

Friday August - 1st

After the orientation at the send center in Tokorozawa, Richard took us on a prayer walk at the Toyko train station where over 3 million people go thru everyday, of which 99.9% don't know God. As I walked thru the train staion praying, I observed the people and saw hopelessness and sadness in their faces and my heart just went out for them. Afterwards we went to the top floor of the Government building where we saw a 360 degree view of Tokyo city.

The two teams separated and the Nokendai team met Shirley and her two daughters at the train station in Tokyo and we travel by train to Yokosuka (2 hours). The Nokendai team (all 9 of us)stayed in Kohichi's parent's condo up on the 9th floor, and the Tamara's are on the 6th floor. Shirley made a nice curry dinner for the team followed by an orientation. It's been a long day of traveling and sightseeing and we're all exhausted. The condo has two bedroom, and one bath, but we managed to sleep all 9 of us in this one little place. We slept on futons layed out on the floor, 2 in the living room, 3 in the main bedroom, 2 in the spare bedroom, and two in the storage room where the bikes were kept.

Saturday August 2nd -

For some reason we all got up between 5:30 and 6am even though we didn't need to. I thought it would be chaos with the bathroom situation, but it turned out okay, no fighting over the bathroom or complaining about hogging it. Since we woke up early we took our time getting ready and eating breakfast, then we review VBS songs and lessons plans.

We spent the day in Yokohama with the Tamara's and visited the Landmark Tower which is known for its fastest elevator in the world. It takes approximately one minute for the elevator to go from 1st to the 69th floor. Once on the 69th floor, you are greeted with various tropical fishes and you get a 360 degree view of Yokohama city. On the ground level, there are 5 floors of shops and restaurant to try out. After lunch we all split up to do our indiviual shopping and exploring of the mall. I was in awe of all the shops they had, I can spend all day here. It was hard trying to find the shops I wanted to visit because everything is written in Japanese and the mall is so huge, but I was determined to find this Botanical herbal tea shop. After spending about 1 hour searching for the tea shop without any success I decided to head to the Snoopy shop and there I bumped into Matt. I don't know what it is but everytime Matt is near me something weird always happens to me. We went searching for this tea shop and as we were walking I was concentrating on reading the directory I picked up and almost ran this guy down, I looked up and the only thing I remembered seeing was his chest and arms and out of the blue he flexed his arm at me. I said "sorry" and moved on, but I wasn't sure if he had actually flexed his biceps at me so I turned to Matt and asked "did he just flexed his arm at me?", and Matt just busted out laughing. This is just one of many weird incidences that has happen whenever Matt is near me.