Tokyo: Week 2

We had another eventful week and weekend in Tokyo. John promises he will try to blog one night this week. He wants to update everyone on how work is going.

My week was pretty great! On Tuesday, I met another PriceWaterhouseCoopers wife to join her at a Catholic church to make rice cakes for the homeless (I know I told a lot of people they were for orphans...I was wrong, but still a great cause). I met a lot of great ladies, mostly American or Australian. They are mainly expat wives, so we all started with that in common. The church has a different group make rice cakes every day, so I went ahead and signed up for the Tuesday group since I met so many great women. We then went to coffee afterwards to talk and catch up, so that was great. I had something to do (by myself and outside the apartment) for 4 hours for the first time here!

On Thursday night, one of John's co-workers invited me and one of her friends (an expat wife, too) to dinner. We had great conversation and great food. They both live pretty near our apartment building, so the expat wife told me she would show me some great lunch spots around us. I'm looking forward to meeting up with her again. I'm so thankful that John is working with some really wonderful people. I also found out about a lot of other opportunities to volunteer for in the area. I realized that I actually could be very busy here, which was comforting. I'm still figuring out what else I will volunteer for, so I'll keep you updated!

On Friday, I met up for lunch with a sweet girl that I met at rice cakes earlier in the week. We went to Omote-sando, which is a great area for shopping (or window shopping) and little lunch places. We had lunch and walked around and, again, had great conversation. We met up with her and her husband at their apartment for drinks on Saturday night then went to dinner and walked around Roppongi. We had a really fun time with them and talked about doing karaoke sometime soon...I'll try not to hog the microphone!

Sunday we went to church at Tokyo Baptist Church and the senior pastor was back from the states and gave a great sermon. We are planning to go to the membership class at the end of September and signing up for a small group. I'm excited to get involved there!

The funniest thing of the weekend: So, the apartment building that we are in has about 30 bikes that you are free to use. We decided to give them a try to go down to the hardware type store. John didn't really want one with a basket but decided he probably would need one since we were going to the store; however, the bike wasn't girly at all...it was a manly basket! :) I haven't ridden a bike in who knows how long, so I was a little shaky at first but got back into it after a little while. I didn't run into anyone, which was my biggest concern! Anyway, we stopped for lunch then went to the store. We didn't really get that much, but we knew we really wanted a rice cooker and we found a good brand on sale. (Tai-san, we got the IH one as you recommended and it works great!) Although he denies it, I told John in the store that the baskets weren't that big, and I wasn't sure it would fit. So, we get all of our stuff and get back down to our bikes. Sure enough, the box doesn't fit. John decides to put the box in his lap as he rides the bike. I was behind him on the way home, and I was laughing so hard the whole way. He was weaving back and forth trying to balance the box. He came pretty close to running over some people because he couldn't stop that easily. After several blocks he situated the box on top of the basket and was just holding it with one hand, which worked out better. This reminded us of the BBQ pit story mentioned in a previous blog. John's always taking on such difficult tasks, but he mastered both!

We are looking forward to another good week here in Tokyo. It looks like it will rain most of the week as it's coming down pretty hard here now. I keep thinking that the rain is good for my plants and grass then realize that I no longer have plants and grass, which is a good thing since I wasn't so good at that any way. I do want to get a little plant for the apartment, so I'll look into that. I probably won't blog about it in case I kill it right away!

Lots of love to all of you!!