So, I've got some serious catching up to do! I'm deeply sorry I haven't been very consistent in my posts lately. With a team here from California, it's all I can do at night to get 8 hours of sleep!
I realized the other night that I never posted about how my adventure day went this past Monday. It's a good story, one too good not to post. See, here's the thing. I got horribly lost that day. Like 3 times. All in one day. And yet it was one of the best days I've had in Tokyo. Here's how it goes:
I left the house that morning at about 11:30 am to meet up with the IHOPU team who were going sightseeing around Tokyo. I had yet to explore much of Tokyo but I was feeling gutsy enough to try and find them and tag along as they traveled around. This plan was fatally flawed for one primary reason: I had yet to travel the trains by myself to an unknown location, much less traverse one of the biggest and most confusing stations and then locate an unknown building outside said station on foot. It was not supposed to go this way. But, after getting lost in Shinjuku for about 45 minutes (it was raining by the way) and asking for directions in Japanese several times (most of which I did not understand), looking at you-are-here maps of the area (more of which I did not understand), I finally managed to locate the building where I was to meet the team.
They weren't there.
They had moved on to another location while I was blundering around Shinjuku. Good times. Well, I called them (on my handy dandy Japanese cell phone) and they sent one person out to find me. Now, I'm a tall, white, curly-haired American wearing a neon yellow t-shirt in the middle of Shinjuku. You'd think I'd be easy to spot. The guy they sent couldn't find me! He was on a level of the street that was 3 stories down from where I was standing. We were literally on top of each other, but couldn't see each other. Finally, we figured it out and I found him on the lower level, went to meet the team, and walked around Shinjuku for another hour before I was scheduled to meet Amanda Fosburg, Liz Dunagan, and Tony Nicaud at Seikei University for Japanese class.
Now my challenge was to traverse Shinjuku station (in which I had already gotten lost before), make it to another station I had not yet been to, get on a bus outside that station, and walk to Seikei to meet the group in under 45 minutes. Foolproof plan it was not.
I got lost another 2 times before making it to Seikei. The first time was due to me getting on the wrong train (the right line, just going the opposite direction) and the second was due to me not knowing the correct bus to get on outside the station (but after talking with a policeman and two information desk ladies I found the right one). But, since I was 10 minutes late for class by the time I arrived and did not know the location of said class, I waited outside the building I hoped contained my friends for an hour until class was over and ate my lunch (that I had picked up at a conbini, which is Japanese shorthand for convenience store).
Eventually, class let out, I found the group, and we traversed the long hike back to the station to avoid paying the bus fare. (At that point I had been walking for 4 collective hours that day and was getting pretty tired.) Getting on the train back towards the middle of Tokyo, we managed to make it to Toudai Univeristy (AKA: Tokyo University, which is like the Harvard of Japan) in time for the Chi Alpha Bible study/goodbye party for the IHOPU team. We met in a small room that would comfortably fit about 15 people ... and fit about 40 people into it. It was a great time, let me tell you! We had almost no room to maneuver, so it was easy to make new friends! Liz and I made friends with a group of nursing students from another university who spoke a little English and had a great time trying to communicate cross-culturally all night. The music and the people were refreshing and by the time I made it back to Komagome that night, I was full in my spirit though empty of physical strength.
I made it through the day, and though I was exhausted and got lost quite a few times, it was one of the best days I've had here so far. Great memories were made and it was a great confidence booster to know that if I get lost, I can find my way back... eventually. :)
Here's the rest of this week in a snapshot: Tuesday, the team arrived, Wednesday was orientation and passing out tracts around the church, Thursday was our awesome day of awkwardness, Friday was sightseeing day (I have a ton of pictures to be uploaded to Facebook soon and another post to go along with it), Saturday was our English party for the students we met at the Jr. high and high school (which went smashingly, by the way and is also a good story), and Sunday (today) was all day church and Father's day! Whew!
While I still have more catching up to do, in the mean time, please remember to pray for our team as we leave for Sendai tomorrow to do relief work. We'll be leaving in the morning and returning on Thursday evening. I doubt I'll have internet up there, so my next post may be a week or so in coming. Just please keep us in your prayers and remember to pray for all of Japan, even the places not directly hit by the earthquake/tsunami. Thank you so very much! We appreciate all of your prayers more than you may ever know. Blessings!
