These first two pics are specifically for my brother Justin. He loves legos. This me and Hannah saw at the Chicago airport on our way to get food. It is a somewhere-around-eight-feet-tall statue of liberty made completely out of legos. Yeah it was cool. Thought my brother might want to see that one.
This is our shower. That's all it is. We have to first turn on the gas, then the flame, then the heat, and finally the shower. Quite complicated at first. But they definitely have hot water here. Don't have to worry about a cold shower unless you forget how to turn on everything right.
This is me and Hannah's bedroom.
This is our kitchen.
This is a good explanation of what Japan's like. This is a bike-parking lot. There are barely any car-parking lots, but tons of these. Everyone rides bikes everywhere. A nice quote one of us missionaries said that we've kinda picked up on is "Everything in Japan is small, except apartment buildings and bike parking lots.
This is "Life." Our grocery store. Other than this place, we will also be shopping at the 100-yen store (dollar store) and a nice veggie/fruit stand nearby.
These are pictures of what me and Hannah call "Life Square", where the grocery store is. On weekends, many teens and college students hang around this area, so much of our outreach time will be spent here.
This was our first meal in Japan...no I'm kidding :) The first time eating there was last night, and would you believe that they taste better than American Mcdonalds? They also have KFC, Dennys, Dominoes, and Wendy's here; haven't tried them yet.
This is my first meal in a Japanese restaurant. A cooked (not raw, like Becky had) egg, fried pork, noodles, rice, meso soup, cabbage, and fried sweet potato.
This is Hannah's first meal at a Japanese restaurant. This is raw tuna. Let's just say she was a little more adventurous than me. But I have a feeling I'll work my way up to it by the end of the year.
Pretty flowers :) They have amazingly beautiful plants over here, from flowers to trees.
This is the start of me and Hannah's card collection. By the end of the trip we hope to have the walls full of cards and letters, so please write us. Our address here is in the previous blog.
Note: We are also collecting pictures of everyone for our walls. I had a picture of all the pictures on our wall so far, but couldn't get it to rotate correctly, so just know that you should send us pictures as well :)
Here is a picture of the other 4 missionaries with me. Starting on the left is Hannah, my room-mate; she is the keyboard player for the worship team. Next to her is Brad, our "sensai" who is helping us learn Japanese, even though he's just learning himself. He's picking it up quicker than we can. Next is Becky, who is staying for a couple weeks with me and Hannah until Debbie gets here, then they move in together; she will be playing bass guitar on the worship team. Finally, all the way on the right, is Joe. He is the drummer for our worship team, and he's also excellent at the trumpet.
Note: Matt and Debbie are coming later in the trip; also, a couple other missionaries may be joining us.
Here is a couple of pictures from the 6th floor of an apartment building. This is a great place to see the Noborito area.
This is a picture of the side of an apartment building. You can see all the clothes hanging out to dry. If you were to go to use an actual dryer to dry your clothes, it costs 300 yen (about $3) for 15 minutes.
This is a picture of a highrise apartment building. Many of the tallest buildings in the city are apartment buildings since so most people in Japan live in apartments.
This is a picture of Becky with the bass guitar we purchased. It was totally God how we got the guitar, strap, new strings, case, and 1-year warranty, all for 45000 yen which is about $450.
