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!