Waterfall

I took this picture a couple of years ago on one of our school outings in Gunma prefecture. It wasn't really a great waterfall but at least it was worth the trek even if was to just get this picture.

Funny English

So is this for people with dirty gods? Saw this outside a message shop on the way to the station today and had to take a picture. I guess it is for a foot bath massager. Don't know where they thought up the name though.

Zenkoji Temple

Zenkoji Temple in Nagano city, probably fimiliar because this was the location for many broadcasts of the Nagano Olyimpics.

I thought that I would start something new, Japan as seen by me. I will ge boing through some of my pictures and hopefully snapping some cool new ones and posting them. To give you a view of Japan.

Japanese

At school today one of the Japanese English teachers asked me if I wanted to take a Japanese test. It was something online I don't now for sure who it was by but I scored a 52. Later I asked her what she got and she said 68. Gee I guess I didn'tdo so bad. So I sent it to the other tennis coach and then just about when I was ready to leave he said, "I scored 52, I depressed, I think I'm going home." So I guess My Japanese isn't so bad after all.

Prayer for Myanmar

Just received an e-mail from a pastor in Myanmar asking for urgent prayer. This is the news bulletin that I read from one of the links I was sent.

A new report about persecution of Christians in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) is slated to be released at an All Party Parliamentary Group on Burma to be held in London’s House of Commons on Tuesday, Jan. 23. The shocking report, called “Carrying the Cross: The Military Regime’s Campaign of Restriction, Discrimination and Persecution against Christians in Burma,” cites Burmese documents with the headline “Program to Destroy the Christian Religion in Burma.” The government document begins with the quote, “There shall be no home where the Christian religion is practiced.” The comprehensive report looks at the military regime’s policies toward Christians as well as various ethnicities and religious followers such as Muslims and Buddhist monks who do not conform to the regime’s version of nationalistic beliefs. The report’s author, Christian Solidarity Worldwide’s advocacy officer for South Asia Benedict Rogers, says, “Burma’s people, of all religions and ethnicities, have suffered in silence for too long.” (Assist News Service)

Here is the other link that I was sent. Myanmar news

I have fond memories of Myanmar from my trip last year. Things seemed to be going really well when I was there. I pray that this will not become a reality, but even if it does I'm sure that the government will be surprised how The Church will flurish. "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed." 2 Corinthians 4:8-9

Live simply

A story is told about a vendor who sold bagels for 50 cents each at a street corner food stand. A jogger ran past and threw a couple of quarters into the bucket but didn’t take a bagel. He did the same thing every day for months. One day, as the jogger was passing by, the vendor stopped him. The jogger asked, “You probably want to know why I always put money in but never take a bagel, don’t you?” “No,” said the vendor. “I just wanted to tell you that the bagels have gone up to 60 cents.”

Too often, as believers, we treat God with that same kind of attitude. Not only are we ungrateful for what He’s given us—but we want more. Somehow we feel that God owes us good health, a comfortable life, material blessings. Of course, God doesn’t owe us anything, yet He gives us everything. excerpt from Our Daily Bread

Interesting story and it makes me think of the popularity of such books as "The Prayer of Jabez". Why do we feel that God will roll out the red carpet for us. That we will have earthly riches overflowing. God gave us his Son and through Him we are saved, what more do we need to ask for? Shouldn't we be more like Paul when he said, "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength." Phillipians 4:12-13

The Coal Basket Story

The Coal Basket

The story is told of an old man who lived on a farm in the mountains of
Kentucky with his young grandson. Each morning, Grandpa was up early
sitting at the kitchen table reading from his old worn-out Bible. His
grandson who wanted to be just like him tried to imitate him in any way he
could.

One day the grandson asked, "Papa, I try to read the Bible just like you
but I don't understand it, and what I do understand I forget as soon as I
close the book. What good does reading the Bible do?"

The Grandfather quietly turned from putting coal in the stove and said,
"Take this coal basket down to the river and bring back a basket of water."

The boy did as he was told, even though all the water leaked out before he
could get back to the house. The grandfather laughed and said, "You will
have to move a little faster next time," and sent him back to the river with
the basket to try again.

This time the boy ran faster, but again the basket was empty before he
returned home. Out of breath, he told his grandfather that it was
"impossible to carry water in a basket," and he went to get a bucket
instead.

The old man said, "I don't want a bucket of water; I want a basket of
water. You can do this. You're just not trying hard enough," and he went
out the door to watch the boy try again.

At this point, the boy knew it was impossible, but he wanted to show his
grandfather that even if he ran as fast as he could, the water would leak
out before he got far at all. The boy scooped the water and ran hard, but
when he reached his grandfather the basket was again empty. Out of breath,
he said, "See Papa, it's useless!"

"So you think it is useless?" the old man said. "Look at the basket."

The boy looked at the basket and for the first time he realized that the
basket looked different. Instead of a dirty old coal basket, it was
clean.

"Son, that's what happens when you read the Bible. You might not
understand or remember everything, but when you read it, it will change you
from the inside out." That is the work of God in our lives. To change us
from the inside out and to slowly transform us into the image of His son.

Take time to read a portion of God's word each day, and remind a friend by
sharing this story.

"Live Simply, Love Generously, Care Deeply, Speak Kindly, Leave the Rest to
God."

Mike & Jimmy

Last week I had dinner at the Tsuchizaka's, Yoko is in my drum group and here husband is an opthamologist. While we were getting ready he said something like I will become Mike and left the room. a Few minutes latter he came back looking like this. So now his new name is Jimmy and we're trying to pass him off as my older brother.

Bicycle Sumo

I post this mainly for Connie, I have had this picture for the longest time and I have no idea where it came from, I just thought it was really funny. And it just goes to show that you never know what you run into so you better have your camera ready at all times.

Wittenburg Door

My Wittenburg Door Newsletter came today. I think the best pieces are those from the God Stuff segments. They always make me laugh. Check them out.

Hanshin Earthquake

Today marks the 12 anniversary of The Great Hanshin Earthquake. I remember hearing about it wondering if the Bartons and my other friends were ok. The principal at my forther school told me about it and had the TV on, he asked me if I wanted to call anyone and I got ahold of Bartons. At that point they had no idea of the distruction that had occured, becakuse they had no news. They only knew that bookcases and cupboards had all spilled out their contents on to the floor and were busy cleaning up.

Images like this one were all over the news. My friend Mr. Ohara whose office was in one of the hardest hit areas told me later that it was just a change in the wind that saved his building, from the fires that were raging through parts of the city.

I got to go to Kobe about a month after the earthquake and still most of the city was in ruins and I saw many buildings like this one below.

I even remember one building just laying over in the middle of the street. Now if you go to Kobe unless you know the Kobe before the earthquake you would never know that anything happened. I was a long slow and confused clean up effort with so many people left living in temporary housing years after it was over.

What is a little scarry is that they say that in the next 30 years Tokyo will be hit by a major eatrhquake. There are reports of how terrible it will be, gload to know that are school is supposed to hold up under a major earth quake, but who really knows till it happens. Hopefully the gov't will be ready to handle the crisis that will occur if we have a quake of a similar magnitude her.

Curtains

How boring is my life, finally I decided to get new curtains. After 5 years in this apt. and curtains that didn't really match I got around to replacing my old ones. I was more motivated about the possibilities of shutting out as much light as possible. After being in Taipei and staying in a hotel with curtains that literally made the room pitch black I knew that I needed to make a switch. the hardest thing is that my living room and bedroom have the oddest colored walls, I wiould have really liked to have forest green, but that color was now where to be found. So I got a patterend two-tone set for the living room and then a light tan for the bedroom. When I got home I thought maybe the brown would have been better for the bedroom, but the tan match the other set better so I will stick with them.

The coolest thing about these is that the curtain hooks were already attached and it took all of about 5 minutes to get them up. And all together I didn't have to fork over too much. It was ¥13,470 for altogether.

More Sumo

I took this picture with Cheryl's camera and I knew it was a good shot. The one that Bernie took on my camera wasn't very good and I don't need a picture of me anyway. This was taken on the way out of the sumo tournament, and it certainly is a good place to get some goofy shots. I think Betty Jo is probably telling Alina that if she keeps her face that way too long it will freeze that way. Or at least that is what I picture her saying.

Cheryl also got this shot below, I could barely get any pictures from the distance we were sitting. And Jenny if you are reading this yes you can see Kotoosho on the far left. He was the last one to enter in this group, ie... indicating that he is the highest ranked wrestler in this group.

iPhone

I want this!
So sad that it will have to wait till 2008 before it arrives in Asia.

Read about it here at MacWorld

New Years Sumo

Monday the last day of out New Years Holiday took us to the January Sumo tournament. I'm not a big fan, but I have to admit that it is much more interesting live then on TV. Of course when I go to Sumo I think of course of Jenny. Of course we all rooted for her favorite wrestler Kotoosho, but to no avail he lost.

The funniest thing that happened was that when we were 2 stations away, Rach realized that she had forgotten her ticket. But luckily for us they looked up the information and she was able to get in. Then as we were waiting for everything to be worked out I felt someone tap me on the butt. Alina saw the whole thing and I guess some little boy had not been paying attention thought I was his father and tapped me on the butt with out realizing I was this strange foreigner. He turned and ran.

Drumming

My vacation ended rather busy. My drum group is getting ready for an upcoming preformace in Feb. we did the marathon drum practice on Thursday and Sunday. By marathon we practiced for about 3 hours both times. I'm glad that it wasn't any longer.It was good because we actually got to practice on the big drum. So Tsuki and I had the chance to work up the arm muscles that we don't usually use during our regular practice. This is one of the pictures that we took as part of the promotion for the preformace. And of the 3 pictures that were taken this one just seems to embody the groups personality. They are all really fun people.

Taipei Day 3

Day 3 took us to Dansui, a place that I had heard of but had no idea what was there. Now connected to Taipei by the MRT it is an easy 30min. ride to this nice little port city. I didn't realize that the Portugese had a fort there, they being the first country to colonize the country. This fort, Fort San Domingo, later became the location and residence of the British consulate in Taiwan. The above building was the residence. One of the nicest preserved pieces of architecture that I have seen in Taiwan. Maybe because it was still in British hands until 1972. We were lucky that it was opened, I guess because it was New Years Day the kept it open on its usually closed Monday.

By the time we decided to head back to the city it seemed like all of Taipei had converged on to the city as masses of people walked along the river and the old shopping street. We thought that we would stop at the Grand Hotel but when we got to the train stop we realized that it was probably going to be at least a half mile walk so instead we headed back to the hotel and in search of a quick lunch.

After a short rest we headed out to Shida Night Market for dinner and then since we still had time on our hands we caught a bus towards the Wanwha district home of the famous Snake Alley, and the Longshan Temple. We went into the temple only because I knew there was probably a toilet inside I was a bout ready to explode. They have changed the area quite a bit. The area in across the street from the temple has been turned into a park that leads to the subway exit, and there is an underground shopping area, which I am assuming is where you can buy all the paraphernalia that you need for your temple visit. This temple like all temples in Taiwan are very active with people offering food sacrifices and praying for good fortune by throwing moon sticks. Compared to temples in Japan which seem just to be a nice part of the historical culture of Japan the temples in Taiwan are active places of worship and I am always reminded of descriptions of pagan temples in the bible and am amazed at the similarities. Given that I post this picture just to give you an idea of the eeriness of the place.



Our trip ended with another body massage and a quick nap before we were wisked off to the aiirport at 1:30am to catch our 4:35 charter flight back to Tokyo. The airport was open just for us and we were the first flight into Narita on the 2nd. although the flight to Moscow beat us to customs because we had to wait for a Malsian airline flight to leave. But probably it was only ten minutes from we left the plane that we were out of the airport buying my train ticket back to Yokohama.

It was a great trip and if you want to see all the pics go to my other site, Taipei.

Taipei Day 2

On the second day we went to the town of Yingge. It is a small pottery village outside of Taipei. We took a train from Taipei station it is only about 30min. away and well worth the excursion. The train was only 32 New Taiwan dollars, so it was much cheaper than taking a tour, which I think was 6,000. We walked to the pottery district and I was surprised at how nice it really was. I think I had been there a number of years ago when the Tri-S trip came to Taiwan and we had purchased a tea set. But we never made it into the city we just went to this one guys house studio and bought directly from him at I'm sure a considerable discount. Most of the pottery was tea pots and cups. It just shows how much a part drinking tea is in the culture of Taiwan. I would have loved to buy a blue and white tea set again, but I settled on just a small cup with peaches on it. I would have bought the tea pot too, but the colors weren't as vivid on it for some reason.

We found a nice little restaurant there and Shige had noodles again and I had a beef and rice dish. I didn't think this was going to be that great of an excursion but I was way wrong and would recommend it to anyone. It was another day of lots of walking and so we headed back and crashed at the hotel for a couple of hours.

The day before on our way home from 101 I had spotted what I thought was the Mongolian BBQ place that we used to go to when guests came to Taiwan. So I made a mental note and we heade out to the "Genghis Khan Mongolian BBQ" around five o'clock.


And sure enough it was the place that I remembered. Altogether for the 2 of us the bill came to $990 Taiwan dollars. About $25 US a piece for an all you can eat smorgasborg. Pictured above are the guys cooking up our meal. You get a bowl and fill it with Pork, Chicken, Lamb, or Beef. Or all of the above or any combination that you can think of, then add cabbage, onions, bean sprouts, carrots, and other vegetables, then you add what ever sauces you think are approriate or just add them all top it off with a big helping of garlic then you hand you bowl over to one of the 3 men and they fry it up for you on this big grill. Even if it is just for the experience of watching these guys cook up the food this place is well worth the visit. And for anyone in Taipei it can be found at. Nanjing E. Rd. Sec. 3 no. 176. Check it out.

We ended the evening with coffee at McCafe, and then off for a foot and body massage at a small place near the hotel. After all our walking it was a welcome relief. And actually the foot massage I think helped my lower back more then the boddy massage.

Taipei Nights

Well actually before I get to day two let me tell you that we ended our first day with a preformace of Taipei Eye. We saw a puppet show and part of a Chinese Opera. The acrobatics were amazing. Probably the most interesting part of the evening was the interaction with the preformers. Before the show started the cast was in the lobby putting on their make up and getting ready. A member of the orchestra was preforming in the lobby also. And they encouraged people to have their pictures taken with them.

It was a very interesting evening and I would highly recommend it to anyone. It was a very simple preformance but the whole production was very interesting.

It was a story about the eight immortals. It was interesting that one of the eight immortals just happend to be lame. I had seen the character before but didn't realize his significance. How interesting and different from modern Chinese society that a cripple would have have such an important place in society.

We hadn't had supper yet and the show got over at 9:30 so we hurried off to Shilin night market for a bite to eat, and to push through the crowds. It is probably the most famous night markets in Taipei, and it is also always wall to wall people. Shige got to eat Choudofu (smelly tofu) I think it smells like a hundred wet dogs looked up in a room. It is a totally disgusting smell but they say it tastes really nice. I will never try it no matter how good they say it tastes. I prefer my foods to both look good and smell good.


After pushing through the crowds we found the same guys selling there fillet fried chicken that I had tried 6 years ago. Of course there was a line and of course I bought 2 for Shige and I. It was fantastic.

You can see all sorts of things at these markets and the picture below is proof of that. I have no idea what this was for but it seemed to be pretty popular and I couldn't resist getting a picture.


We got back to the hotel exhausted from a long and interesting day. I think we walked at least five miles on our first day.

Taipei

It has been almost 20 years since I lived in Taipei, boy how time flies. Well it was good to go back for just a short visit. I didn't think I was going to be able to go anywhere over the holidays Shige and I had planned to go somewhere but were not having any luck finding anything availiable on the dates we were free. Then after giving up hope, I ran across a new add from HIS advertising a trip to Taipei. When I called there were only 4 seats left so we jumped on it. We left on the 29th at 9:30pm which meant that we arrived at 12:30 in Taipei and it was about 2:00am when we got to the hotel. We were booked at the Leofoo Hotel on Changchun Road. Not a bad hotel, but actually the rooms were not much different from the rooms at the YMCA in downtown Taipei. The only thing that the hotel really offered that was beter than the Y was they included breakfast. But even that was not a better deal especially given how good the cheap breakfasts out on the streets are.

Probably the first big change that I noticed is that Taipei is slowly doing its best to clean up its image. The biggest change on the landscape is Taipei 101, the worlds tallest building (pictured above). The building is really a work of art and it is just as beautiful on the inside.


This is not the best picture but maybe you can get a feel for what the building looks like. At the base of the building there are 5 floors of upscale shopping, not the Taiwan that I knew. The first day we walked from our hotel to the Jade and flower markets. It felt so good just walking through the flower market, it was something that I always enjoyed when I was in Taipei. We enjoyed looking for bargains in the Jade market. I love picking up pieces of Jade, this year I got another strap for my cell phone, a pig to replace the horse that I bought 6 years ago on my trip to Taipei.　

After our little shopping spree at the Jade Market we were felling rather hungry so we stopped at a nearby noodle shop. I can still get by in Chinese but ordering in a restaurant is always a challenge because the names for the dishes are usually very colorful and you have no idea really of what you are ordering. We did fairly well, Shige ended up with Wonton noodles, and I had noodles with squid balls. The word that was used in the menu had flower in it, and after the dish arrived I understood that the squid ball sort of looked like a blooming flower, and it was actually very good. Below is a picture of the shop.

Three Days in Taipei

If you are interested in seeing my pictures of Taipei just click.