It's the first chance I've had to write in 2 days. Yesterday was Easter, and I met Karl to go with him to a church outside of Himeji where he was to preach. We ate breakfast at a hotel in Himeji then took the train to the town (I've forgotten the name). The church was a real church building, but, tragically, only had 5 members. The old pastor seems to have driven the congregation away. Karl game me an English copy of the sermon and I faked the rest of the service (hymns, prayer).
After church, the women had a Bible reading and a luncheon. It was really fun. We then took the train to Kobe. On the journey we followed the coast of the Inland Sea and the Pacific Ocean. In Kobe we went to a department store and bought me some Japanese/English dictionaries and a Kanji (Japanese/Chinese system) book, so I feel like I can function a little more on my own at this point.
We got back to Himeji around 5, and proceeded to Toki for dinner (a French/Japanese restaurant- my favorite in Himeji, so far). After dinner we watched Superman II at K's. What a fun day!
Today (April 4) was the pits...seven hours tied up in three tendai meetings- all in Japanese. M. translated most of it all, but it didn't really seem to pertain to me at this point (all about the European trip this summer, and failed students, etc.).
I did have to talk about myself in 2 of the 3 meetings. In the 2nd meeting I was introduced as new faculty and had to speak Japanese in front of 50 people. Luckily Linda Lee was sitting next to me and whispered what I had to say sentence by sentence. In the 3rd meeting I could speak English, but they didn't give me any preparation time, so I'm sure I sounded like an idiot. (Actually I faked it pretty well).
They served lunch between the 2nd & 3rd meeting- nasty stuff like seaweed soup, fish eggs in carrots and vinegar, raw fish, dried fish heads, fish paste, tempura, a rice mixture, strange vegetables, cold eggs, etc. but it was very pretty! There were strawberries for dessert, so I enjoyed that part.
After the final meeting I went home discouraged and upset, that I had just wasted most of my day, but my first mail to my apartment address (not school address) was waiting for me...two from Stephaine, 2 from Robin, and the standard "Will you come to dinner?/Do you have a girlfriend?/How do you feel about me?" letter from Sachiko.
Karl called as I was starting a letter to Steph and invited me to Royal Host for dinner. I had a chicken sandwich (thrilling I know, but someday this may be important!).
I returned home, wrote letters, and am now going to go to bed. I shudder to think of how tired I'll be when I have to get up for things every day! Ugh!
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