The last few days.....ok maybe a week or so :-)

So since our last update we've been quite busy!


Last week we went off to the Jesus Family Kids Camp. It was fantastic to get out into nature! The first time us kiwis had been in the bush since leaving NZ. Here's some photos for you....

Preparing to cook our own food

Cooking over fire....I enjoyed this.

On the final night of camp, we had a camp fire. I got to act :-) One of the leaders at camp is a art teacher and had made a big Goliath drawing. He gave me some lines in Japanese to practise. Pretty much straight from David versus Goliath, it was fun!

Goliath 

After I said my lines, this kids were given a small shovel and a flaming ball to throw in the hole. This represented the fire of God. After a few attempts one of them got a ball in the hole and Goliath burned!

Goliath burning!

Yesterday was fun and quite full! We started by collecting our alien registration cards (Yes, I know you always thought there was something strange about us). Then went to mumma's gospel, where Abs ran a game and I sung a duet (I still don't believe they asked me) and even sounded good! Then we headed to Mitarai Sama's house for dinner. Finally we enjoyed a late supper at Cafe Joy (near church, ran by a member) where Abs met her first English student and I practised Japanese with some new friends.


Interesting picture for you....Japan is renown for having vending machines for everything, cans, meals, cellphones, etc, but I still did not expect this:

Cigarette Vending Machine!

Some more words for you:

Shu - Lord, chief, master - One of the terms we use in church to refer to God

Tanoshikata - That was fun!

Kara & Made (Ma-De) - from and to e.g. 1:00pm kara - 5:00pm made

That's all for now....til next time (don't live too safe)

Some pics of our apartment and surroundings... including our bikes!

Here it is .... our mansion block! You can see Tim up on the balcony of our place. We are the top right. Couple of shops at the bottom. One is a bike shop :) 

Here's our balcony - primarily used for hanging out the washing. 

Bit our our surroundings. The giraffe building is a kindergarten. 

This is looking the other direction. In the distance you can see a green sign with an orange clover. That is our closest supermarket. Handy huh! 

Even more convenient is the vending machine that sits right outside our house, of course. You don't have to go far at all here in Japan to find a vending machine. 

This is our level of the apartment block. 

We are room 504! Here's our entrance.

Looking from our entrance to the dining area. Empty at the mo but we hope to get a table and chairs. 

 From the dining room looking into the room on the left. This is our lounge/guest room. 

 Lounge/guest room - balcony comes off here. 

On to our balcony - here is our washing machine :) 

And our washing....

 That's our view over to the apartment block across the road. 

From the dining room this shows how the two rooms sit next to each other. Sliding doors to the balcony come off both rooms.

Our bedroom. It has tatami mats :) and air con! 

Our futons... folded away during the day. 

Looking back into the entrance/dining area. On the left is doors to our wardrobe/cupboard thingies. 

Our kitchen. 

Our sink and bench 

Having a bendy tap is actually really awesome. 

Gas stove top - no oven though. 

 Just inside from the entrance, on your right is our bathroom and toilet. 

 Bath  and shower

 Western toilet

 Our view out the other side. 

That's the kindy with the orange and red windows. 

 No carparking... but definitely bicycle parking :) 

Here is Tim's red mountain bike...

Yep - it's a Lamborghini! 

And my pink rocket - check our my basket... very handy for the shopping. 

That's it for now.
xo

Abbie

This crazy adventure

Hey everyone. Here are a few more pics to show you a little of what life is like in this crazy country called Japan....

This was the first meal we prepared all by ourselves.... went to the supermarket and everything :) It's Yaki (fried) udon with chicken and veges. Yum!

This is Mummas gospel group doing at performance at church. Yukari leads the group.

This is the pastor of Jesus Family - Hirau San. 

Our first game of live baseball. Huge stadium! 

Osaka Hashin Tigers V Tokyo Yukults

Ken and Haruka took us to the game :) 

Here we are. Man it was hot! I (Abbie) almost fainted. But a whole lot of fun. 

Crazy Japanese baseball fans with their umbrella dance :)

This is us with Graeme and Lucy.

We are enjoying having time to seek God for what he has for us while we are here in Japan and are starting to put a few pieces of the puzzle together. We are finding ways to help us learn Japanese like reading the Japanese Manga version of the story of Jesus. It's awesome! 

Miss you all tons but we are loving the adventure we are on. 

xo

Abbie and Tim

A visit to our place

Here's a little video for you, its our mansion!

A day of rest

Today is a beautiful thing, a day of rest, well mostly. 


I went for my first run this morning, it is crazy hot here too! 32 degrees today! I lasted 20 minutes, and was a little disoriented on the way back and got a little lost, later discovering that I'd run straight past the place we are staying.


So, any way, a little about life so far....


Summer School:


Summer school was fantastic, it finished yesterday. It was full on! Very tired brains, but took a lot in and enjoyed it thoroughly, especially getting to know our fellow students. It was an experience that both of us will cherish for a long time. We made some good friends and had some good fun!


Here's a smattering of photos from the course.

Abbie's Class 

My group making some interesting Japanese dessert treats

Tim and Toni (from Abs class)

Abs and Toni eating the creation

Level 3 Graduation

Level 1 Graduation

Home stay with Mitirai Sama:


For the first week of of our summer school we stayed with the Mitirai's. They are an older couple from Jesus Family, and treated us so kindly! We now know them as Okaasan and Otoosan, Japanese for Mum and Dad. We thoroughly enjoyed our time with them, even having to speak Japanese with them, which was very helpful for our learning.


While with them we went to Nara and checked out one of the temple parks. We were treated to fantastic Japanese cuisine, abbie even received a lesson. We had lots of fun and many laughs, despite rain at time. Here's some photos from that time.

Abs cooking Barazushi

Our visit to Nara

It rained when we went to the look out (Okaasan under the umbrella)

Home stay with Yoshi and Yukari:


For the second week of the summer school we stayed (again) with Yoshi and Yukari. They were much closer to school, still a 50 minute walk each way. The walk was quite tiring in the humidity. We enjoyed our time with them, especially the Takoyaki (octopus balls) party. Here's a few photos from there :-)

Takoyaki

Yukari & Yoshi on the left, with a friend who joined us for the Takoyaki party.

Abs holding Keesa, with Rikido in front

Looking ahead to our next update: tomorrow Abbie will be dressed up for a special Japanese festival service and we're getting stuff organised to move into our apartment next Friday.