Welcome back to my blog after almost two weeks with no new posts. Sorry about the delay. The last five days have been pretty hectic to say the least, but I'm back and ready to share with you the latest happenings. So let's begin!
Starting on February 6th, we had a 9 day break from classes due to the entrance exams of potential incoming students to Nanzan University. I was very much looking forward to this break because of the severe homework dump that we had received the previous couple of days. I thought I was prepared for the potential pitfall of having extended time off and, thus, extended time to think. However, the very first day of the break I was hit full force with the feelings of loneliness and wanting to just be at home. I once again felt that the time I have remaining here was too long for me to be able to withstand. I spent some time praying and I chatted with Jamie for a little bit which seemed to help. This day felt like the longest day ever, but the great thing is that the rest of the break was much better than this! Let's move on to the next day.
February 7, 2013
Today Joey, Jay-kun, Nick and I decided to go to Sakae and Osu again to walk around and do a little shopping. Joey, Jay and I met up with Nick at the Sake subway station and then began the hunt for where we wanted to eat. One thing that I have failed to mention about Japan up to this point is that there are restaurants EVERYWHERE, and Sakae was no exception. We walked around for 15 minutes or so comparing prices and seeing if there was any particular food that caught our fancy. This was a bit arduous for me because I was perfectly content to eat at the McDonald's that was there. There is something really satisfying about being able to eat at a McDonald's and not feel terrible afterward. Anyway, we decided to eat at this pasta restaurant that was relatively inexpensive. I ordered the pasta carbonara and I can safely say that it was one of the best pasta dishes that I have ever had in my life. The sauce was rich and creamy; the seasoning simple and perfect. Unlike the American version of the carbonara that has small bacon pieces, this pasta had medium-sized pieces of cut up ham. It was so good and I think I may be becoming a little bit of a foodie. After lunch, we went in the Pokemon Center and the Shonen Jump store before we made our way to Book Off. I believe I have mentioned Book Off in a previous post but, for the sake of possible new readers, I will explain what it is again. Book Off is a chain of stores that sell used items such as video games, manga, clothes, movies, music, etc. at very cheap prices. On this day, I purchased 8 volumes of different series that I like for a grand total of about $16. If these volumes were brand new they would have probably cost about $50. Needless to say, this was an excellent investment in something that will help improve my reading skills and vocabulary. We then went to a bookstore that had new books so that Joey could pick up a book to begin studying for the JLPT N3. I decided to pick a vocabulary book for the N2 even though I have yet to find out if I passed the test or not. Either way, I will be taking the N2 at some point, whether it is this year or next. After that, we began the last leg of our journey for the day by heading to Osu. Not much happened here, as we were pretty wiped out, with the exception of Jay-kun, who was in his element at the anime goods stores. All in all, this was a fun day that helped to break the monotony and remove the sting of the previous day.
For the next two days I stayed at the dorm and spent time relaxing and resting my tired legs. The difference, however, was that these two days went by really fast, so that was a bonus! On Sunday, I went to church, and I want to share how that was with you all right now.
February 10, 2013
Today was a special day at church; it was the big Valentine's Day service. The place was packed to bursting with a lot of new faces, many of them Japanese. This made me very excited and set the tone for the entire day. We began worshiping the Lord and I could feel the presence of God among us. It was an incredible feeling, one that almost brought me to tears because of the power of it all. I am finding that I am a worshiper. After worship, the church brought up one of the church leaders, Jacob, and his wife, Terumi, to ask them some questions about relationships and marriage. This was a very good time for me, still being newly married and learning the ropes. The biggest takeaway that I had from that interview was that the value of communication cannot be overstated or stressed enough. This really spoke to me because there are times in my marriage and everyone else's marriages when communication is a struggle. What this couple was saying went hand in hand with what Jamie and I are learning together in the book Love & Respect. The message was excellent as well speaking on the topic of focusing on giving love rather than receiving love. This is something that is becoming very foreign in the world today. Many times we are focused on what we can get for ourselves out of a relationship rather than focusing on what we can put into a relationship ourselves. This is a message that the whole world needs to hear. After the service was over, Nick and I decided to join one of the LifeGroups that meets in the sanctuary after the service to discuss our thoughts about the message. This was an excellent discussion. Jacob was the leader of the group we were in and I just tried to eat up as much wisdom from him as I could, but; I did feel that I was able to contribute well to the conversation also. God helped me to make some connections with some of the things that I had learned before so I was able to share with the other guys in the group. For example, I brought up Ephesians 5:33 where husbands are commanded to love their wives and wives are commanded to respect their husbands. God may very well have commanded husbands to do this because it is not natural for men to agape love, and therefore it can be very difficult. It takes sacrifice and demands love in all circumstances, without conditions. We all agreed that it is truly the little things that we can do for our wives that will demonstrate to them that we love them as Christ loves the church. This was indeed a very powerful Sunday and Jesus has really taught me a lot already. I'm very glad that He led Nick and I to this church.
The next two days I didn't go anywhere at all. I stayed at the dorm and got some things done that would help me to stay ahead when classes resumed on Friday. Unlike last Wednesday, however; these two days went by pretty quickly and before I knew it, it was Wednesday. On Tuesday, Nick and I decided that we wanted to go somewhere on Wednesday just to get out and about at least one more time before we had to go back to class. Next, I will tell you what we decided to do.
February 13, 2013
Nick and I met up at 1:30 in front of the main gate at Nanzan. We decided the previous day that we would meet up and go to Aeon for lunch, followed by a trip to the Port of Nagoya to visit the aquarium. Like all normal Americans who are deciding what they want to eat for lunch in a foreign country, we had McDonald's. After that, we walked around Aeon for a little bit, stopping to look at the volumes of manga and other books. From Aeon we took the subway all the way to the port, which happened to be the last stop possible for the subway line that we took. We left the station and headed in the direction of our destination and the view that I saw was breathtaking. I had never seen the ocean at any point in my life until today. I looked out over the restless waves and saw a number of ships as well as a bridge that connected two different areas of the port. Being that we were right next to the ocean, it was quite cold and windy, which I was not a very big fan of. From there we made our way to the aquarium ticket window and paid our admission. We were also given a schedule of events, which told us that there was going to be a dolphin show in 5 minutes. I absolutely had to see that because I had always figured that one could only see dolphins perform in warmer places like Hawaii and Florida. Only in Japan would you have a dolphin show in the middle of winter. Anyway, we went to the show and I was overcome with awe for the creativity and infinite wisdom of God in creating these magnificent creatures. They were beautiful animals that were very athletic and playful. The tricks they performed were nothing short of amazing, especially because they were things that people could never do. That was a very fun time indeed. After this we began our actual tour of the aquarium. They had a diverse array of wildlife from different climates and regions of the world. I always get very excited at the opportunity to visit animals because I have been interested in animals since I was a little kid. There were sea turtles, seals, belugas, tropical fish, penguins and eels, to name some examples of what I saw. One of the coolest things that I saw at this aquarium was hologram displays. There were different displays scattered across the building that used holograms to graphically illustrate the information they were desiring to convey. This technology is not widely used in the US yet, although the Creation Museum has an excellent hologram display of the ape Lucy. There was one huge drawback to this wonderful experience, which I anticipated and expected. This place was absolutely dripping with evolutionary doctrine and bad science. Like I said, I expected this but it still saddened me to see that so many people are being indoctrinated by the lie of evolutionary "religion." I began thinking about how much I have always loved science and the desire to get back into biology came upon me so that I could join in spreading the truth that science upholds the Word of God. I do not know if this could be a sign of things to come or not but we will see. Regardless of the evolutionary propaganda, I had a really great time at the aquarium.
The very next day was Valentine's Day here in Japan and because of that, my dorm planned a group outing to this all you can eat place called Sweet's Paradise. This place was phenomenal and, of course, I will now tell you why.
February 14, 2013
Sweet's Paradise is an all you can eat restaurant, but, it is not just any all you can eat restaurant. This place is famous for its all you can eat sweets! They had cake, cookies, cheesecake, pie, jello, ice cream and much more. Since it was Valentine's Day there were even more delicious sweets that were themed for the day. However, sweets are not the only thing that they had on offer. The other food that they are known for here is pasta. When you get your plate and go down the line you come across an area with 6-8 containers of different kinds of pasta, and this was good pasta. They also had little sandwiches, curry, rice, soup and other foods. I was in hog heaven, so to speak. I started with one plate of pasta and then went for the dessert, which I also had a full plate of. I only had one plate of dessert, though because I reach my sugar limit very quickly. Altogether, I had 6 or 7 plates, with all but 1 of them being pasta. I just couldn't get enough of that pasta. When everyone was done eating we went over to each other and compared our belly size, which we dubbed "food baby." It was a bundle of laughs and I definitely didn't eat another meal the rest of the day. I didn't actually feel hungry again at all until about 8:30am the next morning. Now that's what I call more bang for your buck, or for your yen in this case. I hope to visit this place at least one more time before this trip is over.
This delicious day marked the end of my 9 day break and the next day addresses the difficult return part of this blog post's title. We're almost to the end, so let's continue!
February 15, 2013
I woke up today more tired than I think I had been since the first few days of being here. My head hurt and all I wanted to do was just stay in bed all day. To add insult to tiredness, I had to give a short speech in one of my classes that morning, which we had begun preparing for before the break. I felt that I was pretty ready for it and I had it well memorized. Of course when I stood up in front of the class my brain stalled a little bit and I had a few short pauses while I tried to dig the words out of the crevices in my memory. I finished and felt a little disappointed in myself for allowing the nervousness to get to me. I was hoping that my grade wouldn't be too bad. If you know me, you know that I think this way as my own biggest critic. I am very happy to say that I received a 29/30 as my grade for the speech. After my morning class I had a little bit of a layover until my tutoring session which was at 1:30. I had lunch and chatted with some friends before I went over to see who I would be tutoring that day. I got to the room and received a very humbling and terrifying shock. There was another friend of mine who was there and I thought I would be working with her. Then another lady walks into the room wearing a yellow lanyard with a name tag on it. This is significant because people who wear yellow lanyards here are staff of the Center for International Education. Through this I came to realize that I was not asked to be there to tutor, I was asked to be there to be tutored. This was like a slap in the face to me and kind of made me upset. I have never needed a tutor for Japanese and I don't need one now either. I only got Cs on the first tests for each of my language courses because I went through the test too fast, causing me to make silly mistakes and because I wasn't prepared for the tough grading system that they have. Now I know exactly how I have to prepare for exams here because I have had a class that was exactly like this at Oakland. I felt like I had been deceived because when my Sensee asked me if I would be interested in being a TA, I thought that was exactly what I would be doing. She told me that my kanji and vocabulary were good so I had no reason to think that I misunderstood her. My pride was hurt and my confidence was a little shaken. I just decided to grin and bear it through the rest of the session. I have decided that I will not be going back because I honestly do not feel that I need it. I'm not at all intending to sound boastful so I hope that it doesn't come across that way. Like I said, I have seen this story before and I know how it will end if I do what I need to do and take care of business as before. I ultimately let it go and have determined to work as hard as I can to get where I need to be. However, this was a really rough way to come back to school. Who knows, maybe there is something God is trying to teach me something through this as well.
Well I have now reached the end of my short novel and I hope it has been interesting for you to read. I just want to say thank you to all of you once again for sharing with me in this tremendous journey. Until next time, God bless!
Monday, February 18, 2013
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Farewells, Birthdays, Christ and More Culture!
Welcome back to another semi-exciting edition of my blog! There has been a lot of action going on the last 5 days or so and I would love to share it with all of you. I shall not keep you waiting any longer. Here we go!
January 31, 2013
Today was a nice short day for me academically. I had my two Japanese classes and then my three day weekend began. Earlier in the week it had been circulated in NKK (this is the name of the dorm that I'm living in, if any of you had forgotten) that we were going to have a potluck farewell party for the 8 Japanese students that will be graduating from Nanzan in March. This would be our opportunity to love on them and possibly get to know them better, for those of us who didn't know most of them very well because we were new to the university. All of the dorm students wrote out messages to all of the graduating students on little note cards that were compiled together and given as gifts at the party. This was kind of hard for me to do because I did not know most of them very well, so I mostly wrote the same thing on everyone's card except for those I knew a little better. I was somewhat relieved to discover that I was not the only one who had had this problem. My roommates and I decided to make a vegetable dish for the potluck, since it was easy to make and we had another dinner party the previous night. When we entered the community room for the party there was so many different kinds of food. The selection included grilled cheese sandwiches, spaghetti, crepes, fruit filled jello and much more. This was indeed a spread worth indulging in. However, there was one dish that was the most memorable of the evening. Kosuke and his roommates made this teriyaki pasta dish that was in 3 different bowls. What he failed to tell most people was that he had put some of his famous Sudden Death Sauce into one of the 3 bowls. As I was looking around the room, there were people with tears streaming down their faces, sweating profusely, inflamed lips, and one person even had some of the sauce get into her sinuses. It was kind of funny and sad all at the same time because this sauce really can make someone suffer. After all the food theatrics were over, we all gathered around the projector screen for a movie that the non-graduating students had made for the graduating students. It was a collection of pictures and video clips from their time at Nanzan and NKK. It was very heart-warming and hilarious to look upon all of these wonderful memories, even though I wasn't a part of most of them. After the movie, all of the graduating students gave a short speech about their time at Nanzan and what their future plans are, followed by receiving their gifts from all of the NKK students. It was a very touching party and one that I will remember for a long time. After the party, almost all of the dorm went to this bar called Torinosuke to celebrate, to which I politely declined. I have to say that this farewell party brought me to the reality that when I come home from Japan I will be an Oakland University alumni and I will be saying farewell to many people I care about as well. It was a very sobering, humbling thought that I must prepare to face head on as time ticks closer to my return to Michigan.
Now it's time to move on to another party that I partook in the very next day. This one was full of many laughs and great memories. Onward!
February 1, 2013
Today was J-kun's 21st birthday and he wanted to celebrate it by getting a group together, going to eat one of Nagoya's famous dishes called Miso Katsudon, going bowling, and then finally go to karaoke. This day was set up to be one of epic proportions and, in some ways it was and in other ways, it wasn't. Let me explain. We all met up at the front gate to Nanzan University and then proceeded to walk to an area of Nagoya called Kanayama to find one of the many famous Miso Katsudon restaurants. We were walking around for a while and then realized that we didn't know where we were going as well as we thought we did, so we ended up asking a random passerby for directions. Much to our chagrin, we were informed that the restaurant that we were looking for was closed for some reason. So, we decided to go to another restaurant instead, which turned out to be quite delicious. I had Katsudon again, which I would say was arguably even better than the one that I had the first time at a different restaurant. After lunch we decided that we would go bowling first since the bowling alley was right across the street. So we cross the street, enter the building, head to the top floor where the actual bowling alley is located, and eventually find out that it too was closed for construction purposes. Talk about unfortunate circumstances, right? At this point, our only remaining option that didn't require us to travel to a more distant location to bowl, was to just scratch bowling and go straight to karaoke. When we got to the front desk at the karaoke place we almost met with another unfortunate incident. We were told that it would be AT LEAST an hour before we could get a room to sing in. At this sad turn of events we deliberated and had decided that we would leave and go find something else to do. Right as were were about to walk out the door, the front desk called us back over and said that a room would be available for us in 10 minutes. Finally, something went according to plan! When we got in the room we had an absolute blast singing. Initially, I wasn't planning on singing because I am very self-conscious about my voice and didn't want to embarrass myself. However, you will be happy to know that I sang two songs, each with another person. I sang "September" by Earth, Wind & Fire with J-kun and "Taking Over Me" by Evanescence with Britney. I was going to sing "End of the Road" by Boyz II Men, but we ran out of time so I was unable to. I was okay with that because now I will have time to practice it so it actually sounds good when I sing it next time. After karaoke we went to Mr. Donut and ate, you guessed it, donuts. Upon completion of our delectable donuts we went back to our respective residences. Later that evening, we had another little surprise dorm birthday party for J-kun. I could tell that he had a great day and I was happy that I was able to be a part of it with him. This is how you truly have fun at a party without going crazy.
Okay, enough with the parties because now it's time to turn our attention towards more spiritual matters. As I mentioned before, I had tried out a church and found that I didn't really like it all the much so I wanted to search for another one. That search continued and ended this past Sunday. Let us explore in more detail.
February 3, 2013
Today Nick and I decided to visit another church to see if we would like it better than the one we had attended the previous week. The name of the church is GraceCity Church and it is located within the Chihaya Community Center in the Shinsakae district of Nagoya. When I walked in the door I felt very welcome and felt the presence of God. It had a very strong international flavor to it as people from many different countries attend this church. The service itself was contemporary just like I am accustomed to back at home. The best part of the service, in my opinion, was the worship. All the songs that we sang I knew and we alternated singing verses of the song in English and Japanese. I cannot truly explain it but there is something so amazing about worshiping God in more than one language. I think it may be that I was able to connect with Jesus in a different way than what I am accustomed to. Even as we were praying I found that I was switching back and forth between English and Japanese without even really trying. It was amazing and awesome in so many ways. One other unique thing about this church's service is that it is conducted in both English and Japanese. The pastor would preach small chunks of his sermon and then a Japanese lady was spontaneously interpreting his sermon into Japanese. I listened intently to the message in both languages. The sermon's message centered around the concept of God's grace, using the story of the prodigal son as the centerpiece. It was nothing that I hadn't heard before but it brought forth a great reminder that I had been wrestling with recently. This reminder was the fact that God is never mad at me even when I do stupid things because the wrath He had because of my sin was poured out on Jesus when He died on the cross. It was a reminder to me to just accept God's love and grace regardless of the fact that I don't deserve it. It sounds simple but this is a powerful truth that has changed the lives of thousands of people. This was a message that I needed to hear on that particular day. Like I said, the church was very good and it will definitely be the church that I will be attending for the duration of my time here. I can only give glory to God for answering my prayer to provide a church body that I could be a part of while I'm away from my home church.
The last thing I would like to touch on is a couple really interesting aspects of Japanese culture that I learned just yesterday. Here in Japan, water conservation is something that is very important. To help in those efforts there are two different systems in place. On many modern Japanese toilets there is an apparatus that looks like the faucet of a sink on the top of the toilet tank. When you flush the toilet the excess water that would normally be wasted comes out of this faucet on top of the toilet tank. Apparently, you can use this water like that of a sink to wash your hands. When I heard that my mind was absolutely blown. I thought, "What a creative way to try and eliminate the wasting of resources." The toilets in my dorm room have these faucets, but I can tell for sure that I will keep my hand washing to the real sinks. This conservation of water also manifests in another way. When you take a bath, not a shower, in Japan that water can be reused later for doing your laundry. Is your mind blown yet? The reason that this is possible is because taking a bath in Japan is different that taking a bath in other countries. Before you actually enter the bath you wash and rinse yourself very thoroughly in a separate area. By doing this you don't have to be concerned that you would be washing your clothes with dirty water. Again, a very creative/innovative way to conserve water. The other really interesting thing that I learned about was this button that is in many women's restrooms. When you press the button it makes a sound that is like that of running water. The purpose of this button is to prevent embarrassing experiences for women in the restroom by drowning out the other less desirable sounds. I think this could be something that has practical use in America as well.
There is one last thing that I would like to point out about the city of Nagoya itself, since I haven't really talked about it much. Nagoya is often compared to Seattle for one main reason, and having been to Seattle I understand why. For those of you that don't know, modern-day Seattle was built on top of the old Seattle that had burned to the ground. Rather than tearing down old Seattle and building anew they decided to just build over top of it and, as a result, they have very angled streets. Nagoya has exactly the same kind of angled streets that Seattle has, although I have yet to discover why that is. With that said, walking around over here can be very tiring, but the plus side is that I will have calves of steel when I get back home. I just wanted to give you all a little more idea of what the city is like.
Well this is all that I have for you for this post. There will be more coming soon though, as I will be starting the first of two 9 day breaks from class tomorrow. There are many day trips that will probably happen and with them, many great stories to tell. Until then, stay tuned!
January 31, 2013
Today was a nice short day for me academically. I had my two Japanese classes and then my three day weekend began. Earlier in the week it had been circulated in NKK (this is the name of the dorm that I'm living in, if any of you had forgotten) that we were going to have a potluck farewell party for the 8 Japanese students that will be graduating from Nanzan in March. This would be our opportunity to love on them and possibly get to know them better, for those of us who didn't know most of them very well because we were new to the university. All of the dorm students wrote out messages to all of the graduating students on little note cards that were compiled together and given as gifts at the party. This was kind of hard for me to do because I did not know most of them very well, so I mostly wrote the same thing on everyone's card except for those I knew a little better. I was somewhat relieved to discover that I was not the only one who had had this problem. My roommates and I decided to make a vegetable dish for the potluck, since it was easy to make and we had another dinner party the previous night. When we entered the community room for the party there was so many different kinds of food. The selection included grilled cheese sandwiches, spaghetti, crepes, fruit filled jello and much more. This was indeed a spread worth indulging in. However, there was one dish that was the most memorable of the evening. Kosuke and his roommates made this teriyaki pasta dish that was in 3 different bowls. What he failed to tell most people was that he had put some of his famous Sudden Death Sauce into one of the 3 bowls. As I was looking around the room, there were people with tears streaming down their faces, sweating profusely, inflamed lips, and one person even had some of the sauce get into her sinuses. It was kind of funny and sad all at the same time because this sauce really can make someone suffer. After all the food theatrics were over, we all gathered around the projector screen for a movie that the non-graduating students had made for the graduating students. It was a collection of pictures and video clips from their time at Nanzan and NKK. It was very heart-warming and hilarious to look upon all of these wonderful memories, even though I wasn't a part of most of them. After the movie, all of the graduating students gave a short speech about their time at Nanzan and what their future plans are, followed by receiving their gifts from all of the NKK students. It was a very touching party and one that I will remember for a long time. After the party, almost all of the dorm went to this bar called Torinosuke to celebrate, to which I politely declined. I have to say that this farewell party brought me to the reality that when I come home from Japan I will be an Oakland University alumni and I will be saying farewell to many people I care about as well. It was a very sobering, humbling thought that I must prepare to face head on as time ticks closer to my return to Michigan.
Now it's time to move on to another party that I partook in the very next day. This one was full of many laughs and great memories. Onward!
February 1, 2013
Today was J-kun's 21st birthday and he wanted to celebrate it by getting a group together, going to eat one of Nagoya's famous dishes called Miso Katsudon, going bowling, and then finally go to karaoke. This day was set up to be one of epic proportions and, in some ways it was and in other ways, it wasn't. Let me explain. We all met up at the front gate to Nanzan University and then proceeded to walk to an area of Nagoya called Kanayama to find one of the many famous Miso Katsudon restaurants. We were walking around for a while and then realized that we didn't know where we were going as well as we thought we did, so we ended up asking a random passerby for directions. Much to our chagrin, we were informed that the restaurant that we were looking for was closed for some reason. So, we decided to go to another restaurant instead, which turned out to be quite delicious. I had Katsudon again, which I would say was arguably even better than the one that I had the first time at a different restaurant. After lunch we decided that we would go bowling first since the bowling alley was right across the street. So we cross the street, enter the building, head to the top floor where the actual bowling alley is located, and eventually find out that it too was closed for construction purposes. Talk about unfortunate circumstances, right? At this point, our only remaining option that didn't require us to travel to a more distant location to bowl, was to just scratch bowling and go straight to karaoke. When we got to the front desk at the karaoke place we almost met with another unfortunate incident. We were told that it would be AT LEAST an hour before we could get a room to sing in. At this sad turn of events we deliberated and had decided that we would leave and go find something else to do. Right as were were about to walk out the door, the front desk called us back over and said that a room would be available for us in 10 minutes. Finally, something went according to plan! When we got in the room we had an absolute blast singing. Initially, I wasn't planning on singing because I am very self-conscious about my voice and didn't want to embarrass myself. However, you will be happy to know that I sang two songs, each with another person. I sang "September" by Earth, Wind & Fire with J-kun and "Taking Over Me" by Evanescence with Britney. I was going to sing "End of the Road" by Boyz II Men, but we ran out of time so I was unable to. I was okay with that because now I will have time to practice it so it actually sounds good when I sing it next time. After karaoke we went to Mr. Donut and ate, you guessed it, donuts. Upon completion of our delectable donuts we went back to our respective residences. Later that evening, we had another little surprise dorm birthday party for J-kun. I could tell that he had a great day and I was happy that I was able to be a part of it with him. This is how you truly have fun at a party without going crazy.
Okay, enough with the parties because now it's time to turn our attention towards more spiritual matters. As I mentioned before, I had tried out a church and found that I didn't really like it all the much so I wanted to search for another one. That search continued and ended this past Sunday. Let us explore in more detail.
February 3, 2013
Today Nick and I decided to visit another church to see if we would like it better than the one we had attended the previous week. The name of the church is GraceCity Church and it is located within the Chihaya Community Center in the Shinsakae district of Nagoya. When I walked in the door I felt very welcome and felt the presence of God. It had a very strong international flavor to it as people from many different countries attend this church. The service itself was contemporary just like I am accustomed to back at home. The best part of the service, in my opinion, was the worship. All the songs that we sang I knew and we alternated singing verses of the song in English and Japanese. I cannot truly explain it but there is something so amazing about worshiping God in more than one language. I think it may be that I was able to connect with Jesus in a different way than what I am accustomed to. Even as we were praying I found that I was switching back and forth between English and Japanese without even really trying. It was amazing and awesome in so many ways. One other unique thing about this church's service is that it is conducted in both English and Japanese. The pastor would preach small chunks of his sermon and then a Japanese lady was spontaneously interpreting his sermon into Japanese. I listened intently to the message in both languages. The sermon's message centered around the concept of God's grace, using the story of the prodigal son as the centerpiece. It was nothing that I hadn't heard before but it brought forth a great reminder that I had been wrestling with recently. This reminder was the fact that God is never mad at me even when I do stupid things because the wrath He had because of my sin was poured out on Jesus when He died on the cross. It was a reminder to me to just accept God's love and grace regardless of the fact that I don't deserve it. It sounds simple but this is a powerful truth that has changed the lives of thousands of people. This was a message that I needed to hear on that particular day. Like I said, the church was very good and it will definitely be the church that I will be attending for the duration of my time here. I can only give glory to God for answering my prayer to provide a church body that I could be a part of while I'm away from my home church.
The last thing I would like to touch on is a couple really interesting aspects of Japanese culture that I learned just yesterday. Here in Japan, water conservation is something that is very important. To help in those efforts there are two different systems in place. On many modern Japanese toilets there is an apparatus that looks like the faucet of a sink on the top of the toilet tank. When you flush the toilet the excess water that would normally be wasted comes out of this faucet on top of the toilet tank. Apparently, you can use this water like that of a sink to wash your hands. When I heard that my mind was absolutely blown. I thought, "What a creative way to try and eliminate the wasting of resources." The toilets in my dorm room have these faucets, but I can tell for sure that I will keep my hand washing to the real sinks. This conservation of water also manifests in another way. When you take a bath, not a shower, in Japan that water can be reused later for doing your laundry. Is your mind blown yet? The reason that this is possible is because taking a bath in Japan is different that taking a bath in other countries. Before you actually enter the bath you wash and rinse yourself very thoroughly in a separate area. By doing this you don't have to be concerned that you would be washing your clothes with dirty water. Again, a very creative/innovative way to conserve water. The other really interesting thing that I learned about was this button that is in many women's restrooms. When you press the button it makes a sound that is like that of running water. The purpose of this button is to prevent embarrassing experiences for women in the restroom by drowning out the other less desirable sounds. I think this could be something that has practical use in America as well.
There is one last thing that I would like to point out about the city of Nagoya itself, since I haven't really talked about it much. Nagoya is often compared to Seattle for one main reason, and having been to Seattle I understand why. For those of you that don't know, modern-day Seattle was built on top of the old Seattle that had burned to the ground. Rather than tearing down old Seattle and building anew they decided to just build over top of it and, as a result, they have very angled streets. Nagoya has exactly the same kind of angled streets that Seattle has, although I have yet to discover why that is. With that said, walking around over here can be very tiring, but the plus side is that I will have calves of steel when I get back home. I just wanted to give you all a little more idea of what the city is like.
Well this is all that I have for you for this post. There will be more coming soon though, as I will be starting the first of two 9 day breaks from class tomorrow. There are many day trips that will probably happen and with them, many great stories to tell. Until then, stay tuned!
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