Speech Contest

Today was the 8th district speech contest in Tokyo. We only came away with one prize this year, Emi Shirakawa, got 3rd prize in the free speech contest. Even though she went blank twice during the speech, she did really well and she was rewarded for it. Had she notforgot she would have definately taken first prize.


On the way home I stopped by the drum store to pick up another pair of sticks on the way back I happened acroos a local, Tengu festival. They were carrying two hiradaiko and escorting the seven lucky gods and at the end came a Tengu who was throwwng out beans to the crowd. The beans are to scary away the evil demons. This is setubun season so for the next couple of days there will be people out throwing beans.




Japan is still a country with many interesting and centuries old customs and events that pop up every now and then. For the most part even though the festivals are rooted in a religous background, for the most part that is lost on the modern Japanese, and is seen as tradition or opportunities to make community.

As Christians in Japan I wonder what we are doing to build a spirit of community with those we live with and encounter on a daily basis. How can the church better plug into the mind set and bring the spirit of the festival into our events and outreach to the community.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

Woke up this morning to snow! Isn't it interesting at how the sight of snow can bring out the kid in you. A strange excitement wells up inside at the sight of that first snow. In Tokyo we rarely get snow and if we do it usually doesn't stay around too long. It's now 9:00 and it is still coming down, usually if we get snow it is gone by this time in the morning. Even though it is only a couple of inches and the roads aren't that bad at all just slushy, it is so funny to hear the clackety clack of tire chains. I have been wondering when and if we would get hit with snow seeing as we have had a very cold winter so far, and some parts of Japan have been hit with as much as 4 meters of snow. Enough snow to cover houses in some areas. Well I'm sure it won't be that bad here but it is a nice change of pace it does give enchanting look to the otherwise mundane landscape around my house.

Buffed

I'd like to say that all the drumming that I have been doing has given me this really buff body... the reality, sadly to say, is quite different. This picture was taken at my drum groups Christmas/Year End party. Nii chan always has a bag of fun stuff to add to the excitement of the party. The shirts were a gift to our leader Miura san and they made for a couple of interesting photo ops. We also had bunny ears antlers and a variety of other outfits. This is such a unique group and I am glad that I get to share in their lives.

Floating Market

On the last day in Thailand we decided to take a tour to a floating market. Julie decided that she we stay in Bangkok and do some computer shopping, so Jenny & I set off at 7:00 with our driver and guide towards the canals. We picked up two other couples on the way, and we got a very nice overview of the city and a short history lesson along the way. I don't always like to be tied to a tour schedule, but I have found that it helps to get a better feel for some places if you at least try one tour. Of course there were a couple of stops along the way, one at a sugar processing tourist trap. When we arrrived in the area we got loaded into a boat with all the other tour groups and took about a holf hour boat ride trough the canals, nothing too exciting too see, but amazing that people still live along these canals.

We were dropped off in an area mainly geared for tourists, selling all kinds of souvenirs, but our guide promised said he was now taking us to the real market area.

Ok it was a real market, and there were people in boats selling food, or cooking food, and if my stomach had been up to it I would have loved to try a few things. As we walked by the boat with the guy selling rice my appetite was awaked, but I still wanted to be on the safe side, and I had to settle on a coke to tide me over.


We had about 45 minutes to explore the market area and it was more than enough. Even though this was touted as the real floating market, if it wasn't for the tourists it wouldn't be open.

It was fun to walk around and get a feel for what life must have been like when this was actually how most of the people lived.







It was only a half day tour, but it was quite nice. On the way back we stopped at a teak carving tourist trap, although they had really nice stuff. This was a nice jaunt, but next time I would like to take an additional side trip to the bridege over the river Quay. I'm sure when I return with Hitoshi that will be one a big stop on our tour.

China Town / Deserts

Actually before I got sick Monday evening we had a really nice day. We started the day out with the hotel bufet breakfast, which was pretty good but could have done a little better on the western fare. Then we headed for a walking tour of china town. We took a tuk-tuk there, you have to barter the fare and it is an interesting ride but the top is so low that about all I could see along the way was the street, car wheels, people from the knee down, and the occasional stray dog.

We tried to do the walking tour laid out in LP Bangkok. It was a little hard to stay on the course they laid out but we came pretty close. Found the Chinese dress beer bottle covers that my friend Kaji had so I picked up a few for gifts, and since the people of the store spoke Mandarin it was no problem communicating.

The final destination of the tour was a shopping center that had a food section that was mainly desert oriented. It all looked really good and I tried what seemed to look like mini taco's, pictured above. They were actually pretty good and the main ingredient was some form of coconut concotion.



This picture is one that Jenny took, just shows you some of the other sweets that were availiable that day. I probably should have tried some other things, but the Dairy Queen kept calling out to me and I got a peanut buster parfait. How can something so simple be so good.



The last picture here is a close up of the same treats, it was just my attempt at a Susan picture. I'm just sure her picture would have turned out much nicer.

One Night in Bangkok

Well, it was really 5 nights but who is counting. I really wasn't too excited about going to Thailand simple because my original plan was to go with my friend Hitoshi as a one year celebration of his being free from cancer. But even though his health is very good and there has been no problems his Dr. told him no on the trip. We still have a promise to go in the future and hopefully we will be able to go next year.

D-Day

The first few days Jenny and I were still doing the Bangkok fox trot if you know what I mean. I thought that I was over it on Monday untill after seeing the Movie "Narnia" it hit me again and hit hard. At first being polite I told Jenny and Julie I need to find a toilet. Then they said oh look at the pretty lights will you take our picture, inside I was screaming if I don't find a toilet soon it going to be an embarrasing jont back to the hotel. I snapped the picture and said I have to find a toilet and now, Julie was like didn't you just go...that's when I told them I thought I might loose it in my pants. Barely made it to the restroom and then all the stalls were full, oh how minutes seemed like an eternity. But oh how glad when I finally got a stall. Needless to say I went immediately back to the hotel and the battle wage on the remainder of the night, followed by wretching up the sandwich that I ate at the hotel when I got back. So as I faced Tuesday completely cleaned out I knew that I wouldn't be seeing any sites in Bangkok that day. I slept pretty much the whole day went out and got some anti bacterial, anti diarreah medicine, and it fixed me up. Actually I think that I got a little bit of the Stomach cold that Jenny had before she left.

New Years Eve

After saying our good-byes we were off to Thailand for the remaining part of our trip. We arrived about 3:30 on the 31st, and went straight to our hotel, The Ambassador, a recomendation from Susan. It was really nice and we got a fairly good deal @ only $31 a night. Although to get that room rate we had to buy ticket to the hotels New Years Eve bash. It was $63, but with the promise of 4 hours of entertainment and an international buffet.

Julie Barr a friend of Jenny's met up with us in Bangkok and got to enjoy the shindig with us... well at least I hope she enjoyed it. The music was just loud enough to help drown out any hope at having meaningful conversation, so needless to say it was hard enough to talk amongst ourselves let alone anyone else at the table.

The buffet opened at 8:00 and that was about the time we got to our table, the spread was good but I have eaten better, and it came with one complimentary drink, I was hoping for champagne but that wasn't a freebee, oh well.

Then there was the entertainment zzz, a fairly lame magician, and then there were different bands and singers and oh yes let's not forget the Cabaret show. I'm not sure if they were all cross-dressers but the weirdest one who lypsynced to some scarry Thai music, of which I think we were glad we didn't understand the words, definately was. By the time midnight rolled around probably half of the crowd was gone. Even if you didn't see the empty seats you would have known because towards the end of the evening as they were drawing for prizes they kept having to draw over and over. I think the final prize they called out about 8 numbers before someone actually won.

But anyway we got to keep the cool party hats and noise makers so maybe the evening wasn't all that bad...

More "Jars"

On our first evening in Myanmar Jenny and I stopped at the coffee shop for some desert Sodiha, pictured here, was a waiter. Jenny wanting to try figure out some phrases from my Burmese phrase book started up a conversation with this young man, now we had a new friend at the hotel and someone to try our simple phrases with. Well about the only phrase that we actually got down was, "See you later" twe-meh naw. Even though he didn't speak that much English he went out of his way to help us out. On our last day he ended up giving us both a little good-bye present.



Here I am with Zoa, one of the trainees. He spent half a day on Friday walking around the city with us. His English was pretty good and we had fun just walking around and finding more about his life. Jenny made an unofficial contest out of which one of us had to fix our Longyi's the most. She says I lost, but I didn't see her trying to wear one.

We walked to Kandawgyi lake with him and this picture was taken infront of the Karaweik restaurant.

Dorothy and Shelly were our personal tour guides for our whole trip. Dorothy orchestrated all our activities and made sure there was always someone to availiable to take care of us. Shelly did most of the leg work, and she was especially invaluable when it came to bargaining in the market. And there seemed to be a steady flow of gifts from both of them. On Thursday night they took us to an elegant Thai restaurant just down from the hotel the food was fantastic, although I'm sure that I ate way too much. The next day they fixed us traditional Burmese breakfast of Mohinga, a rice noodle soup. Then on the same day they prepared for us a great Burmese dinner. It was great, especially the little Burmese coconut desert. It all was delicious, and again I probably ate too much, sorry to say that it was also probably the meal that made both of us not want to stray to far from the toilet the next day.

"Jars of Clay"

The other more important treasure that I had heard about are the people of Myanmar. Many thanks go out to Dorothy, and Shelly for picking us up, showing us around, translating, bargaining for us, cooking for us, and just spending time with us telling about their ministry in Myanmar.

We also got to spend some quality time with the young people in their training program. Dorothy arranged for us to take them all out for pizza on Wed. evening. Of course none of them had ever had pizza. There was only one of them that wasn't really fond of it, he didn't even really want to try, how funny is that given after all my years in Asia that it is usually me in that situation. He was a tropper though and when there was just a little too much pizza left over he pitched in, not without some encouragement from me, to finish it off.

Here are all the trainees in their new winter attire made possibile by a donation from Jenny. We shared with them during their devotional time on Friday evening and they all came in one at a time saying how cold it was. Luckily for them it actually was a little cool that evening, maybe in the sixties. The coats are for a trip they are planning up north to a mountain village where it actually does get cold.

Treasures

"It has been said there is more gold on the Shwedagon Pagoda than in the vaults of the Bank of England."Insight guides, Burma.

Shwedagon Pagoda right in the heart of Yangon/Rangon (you decide). In this relatively poor nation, UNICEF quotes a $220 Gross National Income, sits this treasure filled Pagoda. To give you an idea of what I mean the topmost vane, with it's flag is gold and silver plated and studded with 1100diamonds totalling 278 carats, and lets not forget the 1383 other gem stones. At the very top of the vane is a diamond orb, a hollow golden orb studded with 4351 diamonds, weighing 1800 carats in total. And at the very top of the orb a single 76 carat diamond. stats. from Lonely Planet


Now granted the picture to the right here is not great a picture but it is the only one that you can see a bright white light from the very top. We ran into a guy there that night that pointed this out to us and he said it was the light shining of that 76 carat diamond. I think I believe him.

He also pointed out another place where a single jewel glowed and changed colors as you moved around. Red, green, yellow, blue, orange... and these are just the colors I saw. For our Burmese friends it was the first time for them to see these 2 phenomena.

On my next post I hope to share with you about the treasures we found in "Jars of Clay"

Longyi: "Men in Skirts"

When my friend Maya Inaba got Married a few years ago I received a gift of 2 longyi. I thought it was quite a hoot and wondered when and if I would ever have the opportunity to wear them. Now you thought carrying a man purse was a big step, how about steping into one of these "man skirts" is a real test. I did take one of my gifts along on the trip but really didn't know how to wear it. Dorothy said that some of the guys would show me how, but it wasn't till Thursday of the trip that we ventured off to Scott market for shopping, and this young gentleman helped me make my first longyi purchase. He really wanted me to buy one and I asked him if he thought I should buy one why wasn't he wearing one? Well he said that yes he does wear one one but he also likes his jeans. So anyway I asked him which one he thought I should buy, the one that he has on is the one he choose for me, which I wasn't really thrilled about so I got a nice one in gold. I said I would just wear it out so I jumped in lost my pants and went the rest of the day in my new "skirt" It was interestng how many comments I got on it. People in the market, the people at the hotel, and once I had it on there was all kinds of advice on how to keep it up. One guy at the hotel even offered me his belt. Of couse I headed any and all advice especially given what is worn or should I say not worn underneath. I'll let you speculate on what was under mine.

To Myanmar & Back

For more than 20 years ever since Susan and Summer came back with stories of stepping back in time after their trip to Myanmar, none better to some of you as Burma, I have always wanted to go and explore this fascinating country for myself. Last year I tried to make arrangements to go and everything fell through. This year after a planned trip to Thailand with my friend Hitoshi fell through, I talked Jenny Dunbar into making the journey with me. Jenny's initial response was, "Isn't it dangerous!", and Lonely Planet asks on the cover of it's book, "Should you go?", but I would encourage anyone to explore this country if they have a chance.

Probably the first thing I heard from people were complaints about gov't regulations and restrictions in the country. The first one was a mandatory $200 money exchange. I thought so what our hotel is going to be at least half of that so what does it matter. I had read that you could possibly get around doing this if you were a couple and the 2 of you could get by with the mandatory exchange. The reality, things have changed recently, and I think the gov't even though this is the official stance looks a blind eye to the rule. When we arrived at the airport, I saw no one exchange money at the only exchange window at the airport. Pretty interesting. US dollars were accepted almost anywhere. We paid the hotel in US dollars, all the tourist places entrance fees were payable in US dollars, and even in Scott Market we could pay in dollars if we wanted. The second thing I had heard was that customs was very strict and that you would have to register cameras and if you wanted to take your cell phone it would be held at the airport. It seems that now all these regulations are non existent.

I'm sure there are still many political problems and civil rights abuses that go on in the country, but I have no comment on any of that, I went in to get a glimpse of a country that has a remarkable history, beautiful landscapes and architecure, and a warm friendly people. Eight people groups and 132 ethnic subgroups. To see more of my trip take a look at my HP. http://homepage.mac.com/mikewdesu/PhotoAlbum27.html