The Longest Day

They slept in two hours later. Today, I ended up getting up at 6AM, so I guess that's better. But still, I was tired. I do enjoy the Mortimer's munchkins, but you think they'd learn to behave after a while. Too bad that the Japanese school system really doesn't help to reinforce the discipline that they recieve at home. So, yeah, around 7AM I finally got up because Sato walked into my room to say "good morning". Chris wanted to keep his promise about biking that he made during yesterday's run. We boys went down and got our bikes and took breakfast with us to Showa Koen Park. Unfortunately, I didn't take my camera. At Showa Koen, we found a nice spot to sit down and enjoy yogurt, choco bread, and some juice. The whole time, Mako was talking about bugs. He went to the park with his kindergarten to catch grasshoppers, and today he wanted to do that again. Finally, we had all finished breakfast, and went over to the other side of the park to a grassy area that supposedly had grasshoppers. Chris stayed behind for a little bit to take care of the trash and lock up the bikes. Here I am, in the middle of a park in Japan, with three Japanese boys who speak mostly English, trying to find grasshoppers to catch. Something was bound to happen. And it did, because one of the park caretakers rode up in his Showa Koen Park van to come over and talk to me. In Japanese. All I could understand was that he was talking about our bikes, the kid's dad (who I think he thought was me maybe, I really wasn't sure), and something called "abunai". I explained that my Japanese was not very good, and I attempted to recruit Mako to help me, because he understands much more Japanese than I do. Nope, it didn't happen, instead, Sato kept talking to him in Japanese trying to show him something that he had found in the grass. Then Chris finally walked up and he and the park worked chatted. Chris explained that "abunai" means dangerous. The man was trying to tell me that it was not safe to leave our bikes alone on the otherside of the park unlocked. Well, they were locked up, Chris took care of that. We thanked the man for his concern then went on to find some of those mushii (bugs). It took a while, but I spotted the first grasshopper, and it was our biggest too. They looked just like a peice of long grass with legs. Quite difficult to spot. But by the end of our hunt, we caught ten of them. Mine was the biggest! It was about four inches long, the others were more in the two to three inch vicinity. We let them all go and tried catching a few of them again. The big one really took to Mako and let him take him all the way over to the bikes before Mako let him go. Then we biked home to take a nice cold shower before heading to church for the beginning of all of the Gospel Night preparation. I spend the morning relaxing for the most part. Tim and I went to 4Gamers to check out the cool stuff there. I found a soundtrack for a new Japanese movie that was cool (the movie is called Last Exile, and it looks alot like Laputa). When we got back, we split up into groups for lunch. Things got a little chaotic after that. Tim and my group just couldn't decide where to go. I made a decision for everyone, but it didn't work out because the soba place didn't offer take-out. I had gone to pick up drinks at this point and went back to the church with them. They found out that they couldn't get take out and went to First Kitchen instead. There, it took them half an hour just to decide what to get because the girls just couldn't be adventerous and try something by pointing and saying "onegaishimasu". Tim was really frustrated when he got back becuase they just woundn't decide and made lunch such a drawn out thing. Meanwhile, I was at church practicing and Megumi and Yo come find me to inform me that we need to change our mic check time becuase one of Megumi's band members can't make it for their time. Well, I'm not the leader, but alright, I'm making the decision. When everyone came back for lunch, I told them that we have to eat and practice because our mic check time has changed. We scarfed down lunch and then tried to sing. It's hard enough that one of the songs is high, but now we have to sing on a full stomach! It went well, and Megumi helped Joy find the harmony for part of "Come Thou Fount". Other than that, not much to report, because practice turned out great. Then we just kinda chilled until the main event. Tim finished his collection of Coca-Cola Dragonball Z figurines. He's got the whole set! Here was the lineup for the evening: Gospel Night Schedule For the most part it went in order: Ekimae Band opened with some group participation worship; then the youth group performed a song with hand motions (ya' gotta love it!); the chior did a lengthy, yet beautiful performance of a hymn (I think, it wasn't in English so I can't be sure); Megumi's band, Avenue, performed three songs, one of which was Sensei's song, "Introduction" off of The Witness album; Ekimae band got up and did a few songs; then we took to the stage for "I Will Call Upon The Lord" followed by "Come Thou Fount" (I know that the schedule says otherwise, but that's just the order Jon remembered them when Tomo asked him what we were singing); Chris did the Gospel message, which was excellent; then Sensei showed up from a conference that he was teaching at, just to perform "Thank You Lord" for us again; Ekimae band was back up for a repeat song; and Sennen-kai closed the evening with a beautiful rendition of "Amazing Grace". And look at our sell-out crowd! Really, this went great! Look at how much fun Sato had. We didn't mess up our songs, and they went great! Chris's message was an excellent presentation of the gospel. What an evening! Unfortunately, we had a few goodbyes to say today. The Yoshizawas were leaving, and so was Joshua. They will both graduate and move out of the area to become pastors next March. But there were some good things about the evening, such as seeing all of the Hosokawas, all of the Iwais, Ai, Ai's boyfriend (who really liked it, and had fun with Isaiah), Piro, and few of our other English students who's names I cannot remember. No Mr. Satoyama this year. Joy said that he's been working weekends and couldn't come. Sad. I would've loved to see him there again. Once 8:30 rolled around, Sensei started ushering people out. I went biking home. I saw the moon on the way home and though it would be cool to go over to the park and stargaze for a while since it was a pretty clear evening. But by the time I got to the park, the moon had set. And then the sky started exploding. Fireworks. It was at complete random. Apparently there's some sort of celebration going on at a park in Akishima. So I was able to take a few pictures of the fireworks but my camera died when I finally walked closer and found a good place for pictures. I stopped and watched the whole show. It was much better than the fireworks at Showa Koen last weekend. When it ended, I headed home. Chris was putting Mako to bed. They had stayed up and watched the fireworks from their balcony. Mako was saying, "...but Andrew missed the fireworks. I want to tell him about the fireworks." I stuck my head in and said, "Hey, Mako, I got pictures of it. I didn't miss it." Then he was okay and calmed down. I chatted with Chris a little then went to bed, for it had been a long day.