It's been a really long time since I've written, but every day is so much like the next during summer break, that it's really not worth the paper to write about them. So, I'll write now, I guess, when something happens.
On Saturday the 23rd caravan went shopping with Mr. M. and I (plus Ree, Misuzu, and some high school girls), then caravan came over here for a chili dinner. We watched a couple of movies, ate, & talked, looked through my photos, and Yukari came over too. It was fun.
Monday and Tuesday, the 25th & 26th, caravan, Mr. F., Barrett and I went to Hiroshima by bullet train. Hiroshima is so sad- I'd forgotten how sad, and gross the museum was. What a testament to anti-nuclear war!
We also went shopping. I bought some hot stretch pants for aerobics. Maruzen there was great, and I found some more Ukiyo-e postcards. We ate at Shakey's Pizza, and stayed at the Garden Palace, a great hotel. The keys to the doors were computer cards. "Top Gun" was on, so I finally got to see it.
Tuesday we left Hiroshima and went to Okayama. We were met by Gary B. and went to his house/church.
Corn in front of Gary's house/church!!!!
After a briefing on the church situation there, we went to see Seto Ohashi Bridge and walked along the shore at the inland sea...beautiful. One of Denise's college friends met us at Hiroshima Station and was with us until we left Okayama. She's here alone on a similar caravan program- Sarah.
Mr. F!!!!
I had my first experience with a Japanese doctor. The gland behind my right ear is giving me problems again. Brenda and Sarah had to go to the doctor with Mrs. K. for their ears, so I went too. It was nice to have a translator. The doctor said it was nothing though. (I think I waited too long to go).
They gave me pills for 3 days, put me under a heat lamp for 5 minutes (and put these strange wire mesh glasses on me) and that was that. This way I found out that I have health insurance though. I went back to the office at tendai to ask & they said they put the card in my box in May, but nobody bothered to tell me, so I came home, dug through my papers, found it, and took it back to school to give to Mrs. K. to give to the doctor.
Yesterday (and the day before) I spent with Brenda and Michiyo. On Friday Brenda came over while Michiyo went to driving school. We met Michiyo at McDonalds after watching "A Chorus Line" here, then went to Pizzaria Miyuki for a late lunch, shopping, then came back here & watched English news.
Jokingly Brenda asked me to go with them on Saturday to Amanohashidate, a resort area near Kyoto, and later Michiyo called to ask if I really wanted to go- so I did. We left here at about 8, and picked up Chinatsu (we surprised her then that I was going) and proceeded to the place.
Along the way we stopped at the truck stop with the waterfall that we stopped at 4 years ago on a high school retreat. It was strange to pull in and recognize the place! We stopped at a grocery store and "lunched in the car" then went to this place.
We rode up the side of a mountain in one seater chair lifts- it was great- to a lookout place where we could see the bay swimming area with a line of trees dividing it. (You were supposed to get on this bench and look upside down through your legs to make it appear that the sea was the sky & the line of trees a bridge in the sky- pretty weird!). We could also see the open Pacific through a gap in a few islands- cool.
After climbing & looking around there we went to a beach & swam for a few hours. Everybody who stopped to talk to the "gaijin" was fooled by Chinatsu into thinking Michiyo was from America & couldn't speak any Japanese.
After the beach we went to a temple where you were to clap at the altar to get a girlfriend or boyfriend. I said "no thanks, I already have one". Brenda declined the invitation anyway.
We shopped a little at various places throughout the day, then came back to Himeji where I was invited to F's for yakiniku, karaoke, and, when I said I wanted to see patterns to have a yukata made- a present of a yukata from Michiyo's father (he owns a kimono shop). F's paid for everything & even bought me a present at a tourist stand.
No comments:
Post a Comment