Recent Happenings

Sorry that my blogs have gotten to once a month! Oops! This blog is dedicated to Judy Herron, who is a very special family friend and apparently an avid (and disappointed) blog follower of ours. Sorry for the slacking, Judy!

The bad thing about not blogging too often is I sort of forget what has been going on, and then I remember and create a novel of a blog post. Oh, well! You have time, right? I sure do!

At the beginning of May, I went with a friend to a traditional Japanese tea house for lunch and a geisha performance. I wasn't sure what to expect, but they basically serve you lunch and do a song and dance. It was interesting to learn about this custom. I'm not exactly sure about the past history of the geisha, but these days they mainly put completely family friendly performances while you have tea or a meal. Geisha have to work very hard to master all sorts of skills like dancing, singing, tea serving, conversation, etc. It takes a long time to become a geisha. One very interesting fact was the "male geisha" called taikomochi, which is like a jester. There are only 4 practicing taikomochi left in Japan, and we got to see one. I have no clue what he talked about, but the Japanese women seemed to think he was funny. The other cool thing about the place we went was there is a woman from Australia that has trained to become a geisha for 2 years. Here is her picture (her eyes are closed):

And now a Japanese Geisha:

The next big event was one of our small group members, Chieko, getting baptized. Tokyo Baptist Church asks the person's family and small group to join them on stage at the end of the service. Chieko was overwhelmed by the number of people that came to join her. It just shows how she shines with the joy of Christ. We are so excited for her! Here's a picture of her special day. John is up front and center, and I'm playing "Where's Waldo" somewhere in there:

Another big highlight of May was John's cousins, Justin and Joey, coming for a visit. We were busy as soon as they landed checking out Tokyo and the surrounding area. Their 5 full days in Tokyo consisted of eating shabu-shabu (sort of like thinly sliced meat fondue), seeing a wedding at the Shinto shrine, checking out Yoyogi park (where the three boys joined a Japanese group in large jump rope), watching sumo, singing lots of karaoke, day trips to Nikko and Mount Takao for hiking, Tsukiji Fish Auction, seeing a baseball game, etc. Here are some pictures to document:

A few trip highlight stories...their first night of karaoke (that's right, we didn't just go once!) was a huge group, and we got this big room with a stage. Many songs were sung and many moves were busted. Unfortunately, Justin has some incriminating video coverage of this event. The next day we took the 7:00 am train to Nikko, which is a very cute town 2 hours from Tokyo with lots of shrines and temples and even some nature. They had the large waterfall that all the boys drank from in the photos. I would say the coolest thing we did was go to the Tsukiji fish auction. Our friend Chieko (same one that was recently baptized above) found a great connection that allowed us to have a private tour of the auction and market. When most tourists go to the auction, they only get to see the frozen tuna, but we got to see the fresh tuna auction and the wholesale market. You have to be very careful in this place because it's a bustling business place where instead of briefcases and business shoes there are lots of dead fish and rain boots. There are these motorized carts that could take you out if you aren't watching where you are going. In the past month, they have closed off the auction only letting the first 140 people in to view it because of how disturbing a lot of people can be. To wait in line, you really need to be there by 3:30 am to secure your entry. Because we had the private tour, we were meeting our person at 4:15 am, so we got to sleep in a little longer. Actually, we slept until 4:15 am. Turns out, the alarm that John had set wasn't so set. I woke up randomly thinking, "Man, it's light outside." Thank goodness we live very close to where we had to go and I had the lady's cell phone number. We were only 30 minutes late, which was still very rude but at least we showed. Because of this, I looked extraordinarily rough that morning! After the auction at 5:30 am, we went for a sushi breakfast. Sounds a little gross, but it was wonderful! It was about 6:30 or 7:00 am by the time we had it, so it was a good 4 hours after we had woken up. It was so fresh!

We also went to Mount Takao for a little paved road/cable car hiking. I rather enjoy hiking this way! On the way down, we took a more scenic, less paved route, which was very nice. I think the guys had a great time during their visit. I know we had a great time with them and getting to see new things in Tokyo! So there is more incentive for those of you that may want to visit. Good times are to be had!!!