Recycling

We've been recycling since we arrived in 1987, and it was years later that blue bins arrived at home. We take our styrofoam trays to a bin to be recycled, and we wash and flatten our milk cartons to be recycled, and separate our cans, bottles and plastic bottles. Burnable garbage and plastic garbage is separated, but both are burned. The plastic is burned at much higher temperatures to prevent the release of dioxins.

But, this town in the mountains takes it to a whole new level! https://www.facebook.com/SeekerNetwork/videos/1077313645626123/?theater

Religious?

Here's a good article to explain how such a secular nation can be simultaneously so religious.

http://newsonjapan.com/html/newsdesk/article/113663.php

Yum!

No, a Japanese barbecue isn't that different from what we're used to. We happened to arrive at the barbecue park just as the thousands of cicadas in the trees had shed their shells and started singing about it. The children decided to collect them all. Crunchy, but not filling. 

We went for the more ordinary fare of hot dogs and hamburgers. The Edmonton team (see the next two posts) were on hand to enjoy it with the children of our English Day Camps and their families. Here Jeff is helping Tetsuya get the grill going for the hot dogs. 

There was the team and five of us from our family, and another forty or so children and adults from the day camps in Harumi and in Shiohama, our own neighbourhood. 

Even Emma found the watermelon tastier than the cicada shells. 

Praise Time Retreat

We had an overnight retreat at Torchbearers Yamankako, the Capernwray school where Laura will soon return to resume kitchen coordination while continuing studies online.

Little did we know we were arriving in Yamanakako on the day of their huge annual fireworks display, but the traffic jam on the way should have given us some warning. We enjoyed the fireworks by the lakeshore. 

Afterward, a campfire and testimony time, and S'mores. 

We did do things other than eating, but it seems a number of our pictures are of that activity in particular. 

You can tell that the Edmonton team (see blog post below) was with us for the weekend as well. 

English Day Camp Reprise

Six years ago Jeff and Yumi brought a team from Beulah Alliance Church in Edmonton. They returned this year with another team to do more English Day Camps to help us make contact with people in both Harumi and in Shiohama, our new neighbourhood.

I think this is Jeff and Yumi trying to teach "this is his ear" to the children, or it could be that Jeff's in trouble with Yumi. 

 This one's a little easier to interpret. I think it's the classic "Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes" song.

The boys really enjoyed Rich. We had 80 children in Harumi and Shiohama, divided into preschool and elementary school aged classes. It kept everyone busy and active, in 30+ degree heat and high humidity. It doesn't get quite this humid in Edmonton, it's safe to say.

Lunch after Worship

The typical church lunch in Japan is curry rice, which only involves one pot and a rice cooker. The curry is nothing like what they serve in the subcontinent, but it is comfort food.

While we did do the traditional potluck for the Loves' farewell (see post below), our spur of the moment choice on a sunny day is the terrace at Triton Square, and food from the food court, or the convenience store or grocery store, which both sell obento box lunches.

See You Next Year!

We live our lives in 5 year blocks, with one of those five years being a home assignment year. Don & Carol Love have headed back for a year connecting with churches in Saskatchewan and Alberta, and we had a farewell party for them after our Sunday morning Praise Time.

The Kogawa family did a power point presentation at the farewell with the background music being the Beatles' All You Need is Love. We've still got the love, but we'll have to get by for the year without the Loves.

Out Our Front Window

If you look up "older posts" at the bottom of the page and go back a few years you'll see how I bragged about our old neighbourhood, Harumi. Sailing ships, zeppelins, you name it, we had it there.
Now we live about a 15 minute bicycle ride and three bridges east of there, and looking out our window on the 10th floor we look down on the Sumida Shipyard.

Well, you couldn't build ships here, because the bridges are too low. But, these smaller craft are built from steel like the larger vessels. The big gray barge to the right was a recent project.

With those big props, this looked like a tugboat, and there are plenty of them around here. But, in time it became clear this was something completely different. 

This is the "Kachidoki" (the name of a neighbourhood just north of Harumi), a brand new fireboat.

Incidentally, the slogan over the door reads in Japanese and English, "We love the human being, the sea and the ship" Maybe it loses something in translation... 

Tokyo has large fireboats, but some low profile ones like this with towers that can fold down, so they can go under bridges and through the network of canals in this area to fight fires close to the water. With the long history of devastating fires and constant threat of earthquakes, the Tokyo Fire Department has a budget that could probably run some small countries. They have a fleet of at least a dozen helicopters, and several dozen fireboats. 

Low Tech, High Touch

We've been surprised how in high tech Japan the newscasters on national TV will use a pointer and a chart or illustration on an easel rather than snazzy C/G screens with items flying in and dissolving out. It seems the personal touch is valued over the impressive media presentations.

So on our Easter party for children, Emi used a picture book and told the story of Easter in very colloquial Japanese (that we expats struggled to understand) and you could hear a pin drop the entire time.

We can't compete in the area of impressive spectacles. We'll leave that to Tokyo Disneyland, IMAX and Cirque d'Soleil. When it comes to the personal touch, we see an impact on lives. 

Children

As I write this Carol is going to "Yummy Club" which is for elementary aged children. There is English conversation, songs, a Bible story and a memory verse. This was something Carol had started and is now led by Keiko. Carol is only participating at this point. 

On Sundays during the informal service we call "Praise Time" the children meet in an adjacent room at the place we rent for the morning to do their own study of God's Word. The story they're working on is about Jesus' temptation in the wilderness.