sunday morning we woke up and got ready to go to church. aiko fukuda, sans takashi (who was gone on a business trip), took us to their church, a small but beautifull built church within walking distance. we sat through the service, not really comprehending much of anything, until an american missionary working there came over and started interpreting for us. after the message (which was surprisingly original and something i wish i remembered now…), my dad actually got up in front of the church and talked about why he was involved with wycliffe bible translators (they all knew takashi was), and how just about anybody with any skillset can take part in the work. after that we had lunch at the church, where i met several younger people, all girls, between the ages of 18-24. i answered their questions when i could understand what they were asking, and had a pretty good time. although, they all liked to giggle a lot. after that, i was invited by several people to “sports day”, which is primarily for younger kids through high-school-aged kids. since i had nothing else to do, i went with them to a gym for the afternoon, where kids of all ages were divided up into two teams, and where we played vicious rounds of volleyball, dodgeball, soccer, and aerobic dance (yeah, you should have seen that last one).
i made friends with another 20 year old guy named take, and a german missionary who spoke english and japanese named tobias, and our soccer team dominated. i will confess, however, to quite shameful performance at dodgeball (they play a rather different style of it, which involves much more strategy than i remember).
that night was sushi dinner with aiko fukuda and her mother-in-law, and it was fabulous. here are some pictures: [plates of sushi, oh how good!] [“unagi” over rice (eel). it was amazing] [my dad and i with aiko and her mother-in-law].
and with that, our time at the fukudas had drawn to a close. on monday, the next day, the plan was to do a little more touring around the city, then to go to a hotel near narita, which we had got reservations at before talking with the fukudas, where we would spend monday night. tuesday we were to leave for the states!
and all did go pretty much according to plan: on monday we toured around a different part of town: asakusa, an older and more formal area. kazu was once again our guide, along with his girlfriend and her friend, both from the east coast of the states. it was fun to have some more americans around to talk to. the most memorable event of the day was visiting the senso-ji shrine, the largest buddhist temple in tokyo, i believe. here are the accompanying pictures: [lantern gate] [view of another tower] [same tower from another angle] [my dad and i in front of the lantern gate thing]. there was also a pretty huge market leading up to the temple: [market by senso-ji]. after hanging out around the temple for a while, we got some lunch at a ramen bar, and we all had a fun conversation amid the slurping of giant noodles.
then, it was time for us to take leave of kazu & co. so we headed back to tokyo station via the subway and metro [metro station] [subway station]. from there we took the narita express, a fast train from tokyo to narita, which beats the limousine bus service any day. we got to the airport and took a free shuttle to the holiday inn hotel where we were to stay that night.
from then on things moved much more slowly and relaxed: we had a quiet dinner at the hotel restaurant that night, i took a long bath and read, and we watched CNN. boring, yes, but it was nice to slow down some. the next day, tuesday, was our last day in japan. we got to the airport 4 or 5 hours before our flight, and went to the admiral’s club. there i started reading a book series i had brought, consisting of the riddle-master of head, heir of sea and fire, and the harpist in the wind, all by patricia mckillip. i’d read it before, but i was struck again by what a fantastic story it is, and i ultimately finished all three books before landing in san jose. also, in the admiral’s club, i had a few jack and cokes, toying with the idea of trying to match Jonathan’s Day of Most Alcohol ConsumptionTM. i also took a picture of the 777 which turned out to be our bird to san jose: [american airlines’ flagship].
sooner or later we got on our flight to san jose, and absolutely nothing interesting happened on it. i read non-stop, as i mentioned before, and finished the trilogy i had started. i didn’t end up drinking a lot; for whatever reason i guess i didn’t feel like ingesting a conintuous stream of wine. we arrived at san jose something like 5 hours before we left (go back a few posts to my itinerary, if you want), and hung out at the admiral’s club there before our next flight, which was late. it left eventually (which is more than you can say for some flights!), and we got to dallas no problem. we paid our respects to dfw’s admiral’s club also before our flight to orlando. i mostly just sat and thought about the trip, since i was too tired to do much else. but in order to fight of jet lag i didn’t sleep on the flight to orlando, either: it, like the rest, was without event and we sailed smoothly in tuesday night.
it was a real adventure, i think, full of physical and mental and spiritual challenges to overcome. more important than that, though, i became rather enchanted with japan and japanese culture. i would definitely love to go back, spend a year or two there, and learn japanese. i would love to talk to japanese people, with their emphasis on personal respect (something that has not only gone down the tube in america, it has completely left the tube), their reserved nature, and their hard-working minds and hands. but the future–who knows. i doubt that i will ever love one place enough to settle there when there are so many places that i’ve not yet visited, so many languages left unsampled…it is overwhelming sometimes, but i guess that’s just what happens when you have, as a personal goal, to know everything and be able to speak to everyone in the world.
for now, i am just happy to have been able to spend a week there, in a real house with real japanese people, and not stuck in a cramped high-rise hotel afraid to dive into the differences below. and, i am happy to have been able to spend a week with my dad, for the time was precious, and the memories it created will be even more precious the further back they point, like a map to better times.
the end.
