Denny's, fish, and Ku-man

I was driving the other day and to my surprise found a Denny's. I decided to save the treat and surprise Erik when he came home (he'd been away the last couple weeks). Anyway, we went there hoping to get a breakfast slam and ended up with...Japanese food. Actually Erik ate a Japanese version of a Korean dish, Bibimbop. It had a hamburger with gravy, kimchee, and rice with seaweed sprinkles. I had a baked rice with cream sauce, cheese, and mushrooms dish. Mmmm. They did have french toast on the menu, but it was in the dessert section.

Our fish are very happy with their plastic bonsai, bridge, and lantern. I was going to try a real plant, but got intimidated when I started reading online about the care of aquatic plants. I thought it was funny that the store also had a plastic flower bush with butterflies on it. Guess that's no stranger than putting a bridge and lantern underwater.

This is Ku-man and his family. He lives in a very cute room on my cell phone and he occasionally dances across my screen. He just sent me this picture with his parents in honor of my 200th phone call. Anyway, he sends me text messages every few days and I can text him or change his clothing or the decor of his room. I can put any pictures I've taken in a photo frame hanging in his room. He also has a photo album and takes commemorative photos of places that I have visited. I guess the phone knows what prefecture I'm in, so if I travel to a different prefecture, a photo of someplace from there pops up with him in it. I can record the date and put it in the album. Cool, huh (or silly?).

Queen of the Jungle

Church isn't just for singing, praying and studying: It's also for making papier-mâché lions. Our church has a kindergarten school and some lucky child will get to smash my curly haired lion to bits. The kids will be learning about Daniel in the den of lions. Although God's angel didn't smash the lions with a bat, hopefully, the children will remember that our God is a God who rescues.

New Little Ones

Here's my latest. I love sunflowers. I asked the teacher if using fake flowers was okay. I got a polite smile and a "no."

I went to a LARGE store called Joyful Honda. They had roosters in their pet section! After some deliberation, I bought 6 guppies instead. Marie, Tokio, Erik and I each get to name one. That leaves two fish as replacements (good to be thinking ahead right?). It's been 4 days and no untimely deaths, so far so good. If you can come up with good names for the replacements let me know.

Off to ikebana class again. I wanted to return the vase and frog (sharp spiky thing that holds the flowers) to the teacher, so I took the flowers out and put them in a teacup. Hope no ikebana experts will roll over in their graves. I'll show her this photo tonight and see what she says.

My Pride and Joy

Wow, this is the first time I'm posting a blog about something that happened less than a week ago. I went to my first ikebana class last night. Even though I am really proud of the finished product, I have to confess that I'm not sure how much I contributed to it. It reminded me of an education term "scaffolding." In the beginning, the teacher does most of the work. Anyway, there were rules to the design. For example, the subject (the tall leaf) is placed in the middle and is twice the length of the container plus the height of the container.

I am not a person of forethought....I biked to the class. So, by the time I got home the arrangement was a mess and I had to use the picture I took on my camera phone to reconstruct it.

Tateyama mountain

We went to Tateyama mountain. It was so beautiful. It was supposed to storm both days we were there, but were we blessed with only a few sprinkles...enough to keep us cool and limit the number of other sightseers.







We were almost 3000meters up, walking around on this beautiful plateau with two large lakes. The lakes reflected the surrounding mountains perfectly.



We took several modes of transportation to get up and down the mountain. We took a train, cable car, bus, and ropeway.




From the beautiful plateau, we were able to head down to "Hell Valley." There were steam vents spewing sulfur gas all around us. We actually climbed down all those stairs to see and smell it.

I was bummed that I'd forgotten to pack my hazmat suit. Man, did it stink. I'm glad we didn't bring egg salad sandwiches for lunch. We'd never be able to tell if they were rotten!

Okay, back to the beginning of the trip. We took a Shinkansen (bullet train) for part of the way to save time. The one hour trip was $50 each, but saved us several hours.

The inside of the Shinkansen was pretty nice. We had non-reserved tickets and on the way home accidentally got on one of the smoking cars. EEEEW! I was laughing because the guy next to Erik was trying to be polite and direct his smoke away from Erik. This redirection resulted in the guy behind him getting pummeled by smoke.

This guy is buying a ticket for the noodle dish he wants to eat. He will then take the ticket to the window and get his order cooked.

This is me eating my order as we waited for our train. There are many shops near train stations with tables that you stand at so you can eat on the run.

We got to eat bento on the Shinkansen. It's not just the picture...that really is a small egg. It must have been a quail egg or something. The veggy with holes is lotus root. We were hesitant to buy two bento, not knowing exactly if we'd like it or not so we ended up sharing. It was delicious.
It was packaged up neatly and had a yellow string sticking out of it. We pulled the string and it immediately started to steam and heat up our food. It was so exciting. We took several shots of the food before, during, and after.

This was taken from the train. We saw rice fields, mountains, and the Sea of Japan on the way. The sea was an especially pretty color contrast to the green and yellow fields. So anyway, if you want to see more pictures go to our slide show. I also added captions to the pictures. You have to click on "slideshow" in the upper left hand corner. http://picasaweb.google.com/crystalchapla/Tateyama#slideshow

Job Chapter 9

I heard a good sermon this past Sunday about Job. Job was a God-fearing man who was blessed with wealth and a large family. Job had everything taken away from him: all of his sons and daughters were murdered, his livestock and servants were burned, and he was afflicted with painful sores from his head to his feet. Job was totally dejected, but he knew that he could not point an accusing finger at God. "If God snatches away, who can stop him? Who can say to him, 'What are you doing?'"

In Job's day, a mediator would solve disputes in court. However, in Job's own words, "God is not a man like me that I might answer him, that we might confront each other in court...If only there were someone to arbitrate between us, to lay his hand upon us both, someone to remove God's rod (punishment) from me..." Job wanted someone to stand between him and God, to hear his cries and take away his punishment.

Job's plea was granted by God when he sent his son, Jesus. Jesus is our mediator. He stands with one hand on God and one hand on us pleading our case before God. We cannot stand alone before God, we need Jesus.

Play Ball

Marie and Tokio on the way to Seibu Dome to see the Seibu Lions beat the Orix BlueWaves
Saturday, Aug. 16

We had great seats behind home plate.

The cheerleaders and lion mascots (in fairness both the male and female lion were represented) doing the Japanese Macarena. I write "Japanese" because it was not the Macarena.

I don't think this guy likes being on the big screen in outfield.

We all got balloons. Everyone was waiting in anticipation of the end of the 7th inning when we could release our balloons and watch them fly.

The 7th inning lasted WAY too long and as everyone waited they continued to blow up their balloons more and more and... BANG! We all jumped (and laughed) every time a balloon popped. If anyone was shot no one would ever have know the difference.

We had a great time and the Lions came back and won in extra innings. We got to eat yakitori (chicken kabobs) and omuraisu (omelet stuffed with chicken rice and covered with gravy) while watching the game.

Shinjuku

We spent three days in Tokyo for our 10th anniversary. This is a side street right outside of Shinjuku Station. It was crowded everywhere we went in Tokyo.

This city would be an A.D.D. person's dream. Large screen tvs playing, cars and people rushing about, neon lights, restaurants galore, crosswalks chirping (to let you know when to cross), Cameron Diaz dancing with an umbrella on a big screen (cell phone ad), several different languages being spoken, trains going by...we loved it!

This is Shinjuku Staion. An average of 3.6 million people used this station PER DAY in 2007 and it has over 200 exits.


This building looked cool at night. You can see that the train from Shinjuku Station goes right by it.

I now know of 2 Krispy Kremes in Japan. This one was very close to our hotel. The sign says "35 minute wait." We saw the wait as high as 50 minutes. We wouldn't wait five minutes for Krispy Kreme in the U.S.

Obviously, we are not in the U.S. anymore and a donut from Krispy Kreme is worth the wait. We had a grapefruit filling donut that was really good. Much better than Mister Donuts, but not quite up to Dunkin Donuts level.

Here's our New Sunroute hotel room in Shinjuku. Erik was flat against the wall when he took this picture. I tried to get out of the way, but still managed to be in the picture! It was not a planned shot, although it looks it. There were pajamas folded neatly on the bed and every amenity you would need except for a change of clothes.

Hamariku Garden

Hamarikyu Garden

We (Erik, Marie, and I) took a 45 minute boat ride along the Sumida River.

Erik and I love sushi. At kaiten sushi the sushi is on a conveyor belt.

Sushi chefs stand in the middle of the U-shaped conveyor belt and prepare the food.

If you are easily offended, don't look too closely at the wording on this girl's dress. I wonder how much it costs? Anyway, we see English like this on clothing more often than we'd like.

While we're on the topic of interesting use of English...I thought this was funny. I hate when people ride loads. Maybe I should put this sign on my fish tank. Please very stop it now!

Somehow, with all the fashion displays and shops in Harajuku we only came home with this Nudy Boy picture. Who had the camera? Not me!

Sony Building

This is the Sony Building in the Ginza area. I "borrowed" this picture because I didn't have a good one of the outside of the building.

I took a picture of a picture of us at the Sony Center in the Ginza area. The center showed off its lcd tvs by displaying aquarium fish. It felt just like walking through a real aquarium.

The Sony Rolly amused this little girl. It's basically a dancing MP3 player. Here's a link to see what it does: http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=2ITLzs9k4j4 Deepest apologies if you don't like Ricky Martin.

Kids lined up to design their own turtle and add a personal message. After you picked out the colors, your turtle would swim by on the screens and then show the message you typed.

Of course, I got in line too. Like my turtle? I don't know why it put my name at the top, though.

View of a Ginza street corner from a sandwich shop. Oh, and Marie.

For our anniversary dinner we decided to eat at a yakiniku place. The meat was so good. The business guys in the background are sitting on the floor, but we chose a table.We also steered clear of anything that resembled innards.

We were able to go to the top floor of this office building and get a 360 degree view of the city for free. The 3 pictures below are shots from there.

Look at the tiny looking trees. It's easy to see how our necks were killing us the next day from looking up so much.