...to everyday life

It's All About the Food

Not really, but almost. We've eaten some fun stuff here. Both Lois and I are adventurous eaters, so we always look forward to the meals. But it's not just about the food. It's about the people you're eating with. It's the conversation and fellowship. And fun. And we've never run out of stuff to talk about with Hector and Beth. More octopus please.

Tied for First

Dinner at Mount Takao is tied for first with the hotel experience and worship at Tokyo Baptist for incredible experiences since we've been here. Quite unique. You're in your own little small one-room house and have several courses over a period of about two hours. Each house has been moved here from other locations in Japan. When we first arrived we went up the mountain in a trolley car and then took a hike the rest of the way to the top. It was misting and foggy, so we couldn't see Mount Fugi from the top, but it was still beautiful.  

Freak Bros.

Some more sites: Guy with MN bag, interesting manholes (I'm starting a picture collection), Freak Bros. (some kind of store) and ladies in Kimonas with Lois and Beth. 

A Pirate's Life For Hector

Hector and Beth love sailing. Along with a bunch of sailing magazines, Steve and Deb Johnson sent some hats. Here's Hector and his friend striking a pose.

Parking

That's a parking garage. The second picture is at the bottom of that garage. It's like the thing your cloths go around at the dry cleaners. You pull the car in and then it goes up and revolves around. We need one of these for Five Oaks parking when we run out of land.

Abbey Road

Saturday night we went to Abbey Road to see the Beatles perform. You can see them in the picture. These guys were really good. Really good. They probably can't speak English, but they can sing in it and they had the voices and nuances down perfectly. Great fun.

Tokyo Baptist

Yesterday we went to Tokyo Baptist Church, the home church of the Dalton's here in Tokyo. Their congregation is very international. Services are held in English. Five services each weekend (about 1500 in attendance) and very much influenced by Saddleback Church in CA. Their target audience is younger adult with significant cross-cultural experience. They're doing great work. I was deeply moved by seeing people from all over the world worshiping together.

Strange Sites

We saw the Harajuku Girls. They get all dressed up and hang out on this bridge close to the park. Very interesting. But Hector and I topped them. We probably saw, with out own eyes, tens of thousands of people yesterday. Tens of thousands. We saw many westerners and tens of thousands of Japanese. Not one other man besides Hector and I was wearing shorts. Not one! I figure us wearing shorts through the city yesterday would be the equivalent of a Japanese man walking through Minneapolis wearing nothing but a thong bathing suit. It took a while for it to dawn on me, but I started to feel like I was walking around in my underwear. Take a look at the last picture. Look at the sea of people. None of them was wearing shorts. I'm surprised the Harajuku Girls didn't want to take pictures of us.

Yoyogi Park

Every Sunday, certain groups gather at the Yoyogi Park. There's the 50's guys. They blast 50's music, get in a circle and take turns dancing in the center. There are several groups of drummers. And we got to know some Cubans. Actually, they're Japanese, but they work for Cohiba and a couple of them had spent a lot of time in Cuba and could speak Spanish. We had some fun with them, crashing their picnic in the park.

Cool Dogs

We saw these dogs on our walk and Lois said, "You're mother would love this." So this is for my mom.