The Festival

The Shizuoka festival was last month, and I promised to show you my costume. I dressed up as カオナシ or "no face" from the movie 千と千尋の神隠し or "Spirited Away". The character is a well known cultural icon which meant two things: I was super popular with the ladies!! and children under the age of 6 would run away from me scared... He is a ghost spirit thingy after all...

See. Spoooookkkkyyyy!

Also the character doesn't speak beyond an "aah... aah...", which was great for me, because staying in character meant not talking, which meant that no one, except for BEST club members knew I was a foreigner! People could come up to me and ask me questions, or say something, and I would just stare at them and offer them soup! Hilarious! IN YOUR FACE, language barrier!!


Speaking of soup, that is what we were selling at the festival. Above is a picture of our booth. See the character on the left? Look familiar? Anyway, as you can see by reading the sign, we had 4 kinds of soups; onion, corn, minestrone, and chige (pronounced, chee-gay) which is a Korean soup. They all tasted really good, and they students put a lot of time and energy into making them.

The festival is a big event for all the students, and everyone works really hard to prepare and sell whatever it is they are selling. So to have a foreigner dress up and make a fool of himself for the sake of the group, apparently, is quite memorable. And I helped sell a lot of soup too! Probably, mostly due to the fact that everyone was too afraid to not take the soup that I was offering to them... (if you've seen the movie, you know what I mean)

Hello, I'm back! A lot of people are pretty excited about the elections results around here. Especially Obama city Japan. I mentioned them before.

So, I recently sent out a newsletter the oldskool way (mail). Sorry if you were expecting a Japan postmark, but the company that mails them is located in America. Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed making it. Perhaps some of you reading found out about my blog from my newsletter. If this is your first time, make sure you check out some of the older entries too. They're fun!


Recently, it was Halloween. Unfortunately, Japan doesn't know what Halloween is nor does Japan celebrate Halloween. But that doesn't mean we still can't enjoy it! Also unfortunately, neither of the three men in that photo are me. Especially not bumblebee man! So, maybe this begs the question, "what were you for Halloween, Elbert?" Well, to not fully answer your question, I was a famous Japanese cartoon character from a movie...

Any guesses?

To be honest, I don't have a photo, but I will be wearing my costume again next week, and I'll be sure to take a photo, and tell you who I am. But this brings me to my next event...


...That's another Halloween picture.

Next weekend is the Shizuoka University festival. Festivals are big! As in a big deal! And they are rather large in size too. This one will be no exception. Each club or group usually sells something, and people from all over come to have fun. This year we are selling soup. The menu is Corn, french onion, and a Korean soup that you wouldn't understand even if I wrote the name. This is an important event for all the students, and we will be working hard together this weekend. (A recent e-mail said our goal is to sell 800 bowls...!!!) Our stand's theme is from the movie that my costume's character is from, which is why I will be wearing it at the festival. So, i hope to document the event, and try to give you the festival experience next week. Until then!

And here I go again!

Yes! It's been a year. It's hard to say whether it has been fast or slow. I'm sure for some of the people that wish I was back home, perhaps it seems like it's been a while.

Many of the yearly events are happening again. So whereas last year, I was doing almost everything for the first time, now I will have some familiarity with many of the things going on. Not to mention having deeper relationships, being more confident in Japanese, and hopefully less general frustration.

So, the semester has started again, and I can already say that things are looking really great. I now have an English class with a lot of my close friends. This semester, we will be reading, "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe". This, of course leaves, room for lots of discussion, and the students are looking forward to it. There are also a lot of students in this years freshman Bible discussion too. So, it's quite an exciting start to this year, and there is a lot to look forward to.

In the near future there is the Young Laborers conference, which is a conference for the Japanese Christians in the various BEST clubs. It's a good chance for them to meet and build community and grow together.

As for me, I actually hurt my ankle two weeks ago. I couldn't walk for a day, but it didn't seem so serious, and seemed to be better a few days later. So if you had asked me last week, I would have told you it was ok. However, this week, after playing soccer, something happened and my ankle got all swollen. I think I got bitten by a buy on top of my already swollen ankle, but I don't really know. It was strange because it did not hurt at all. Soooo, now my foot seems to be better again, but I think I'm going to avoid sports for a while and make sure.

As for everything else, I am fine. The temperature is lowering, which means were headed back for the cold winters again. I'm sure some of you remember me complaining about that last year. And if it wasn't for the economy, I'd have no problems; perhaps the only bad change from last year. The exchange rate is now 100 yen to the dollar, which is down from the comfortable 110 it's been at for a while, which is down from the 120 it was at when I first got here. It feels like a 10% salary decrease... Oh well, I suppose I can't complain too much. I guess we all have our economical problems.

Speaking of economy, which is now related to politics, which is now related to the presidential election, a lot of people really like Obama here in Japan. Some not for any real informed reason. Mostly, because there is a citiy in Japan called Obama city. Everyone in that city loves him. I think it's funny.

I haven't taken any pictures recently, so my apologies for a text wall.

My parents

Well, a lot has happened since August. Actually, a lot has happened since June! In some ways I felt like I had reached my limit on what I was able to do. Having three months of nonstop activities without break is quite taxing. However, I've been able to persevere and now I have some time off to get myself recovered before the semester starts again in October.

I was in Hokkaido for over a week and a half, which I will talk about later, but before that, let me tell you that my parents came to Japan!

Perhaps many of you already know, because you have probably talked to them since they have been back, but my parents came to Japan to visit me here in Shizuoka.

I had a very good time together with them. After almost a year away, I think it was good for the both of us to see each other again. Also, I think it gave them a good idea of what it is like here, and some of the things I do and people I live with. I hope they are now able to see why God chose me to be here, and why I love it here so much.

So, if you see my parents, I'm sure they have some great stories to tell you about their experience here.

Hidatakayama Part 2

The second day we went to Shirakawago. It's a preserved old Japanese village. It was quite fun. It's fun to imagine what life would have been like it a village like that. Here is a quite long video that you can watch to see some of the things that were there. If you can get over the motion sickness my shakey-cam will induce, you may find some interesting things there.



In retrospect, I think we may have just walked in the tool shed in the beginning. We couldn't really tell if it was part the the village, or where the hedge trimmer keeps his stuff. However, the bell was authentic, and sounded really cool. And I hope Gabi's wish comes true!

The whole trip was a very fun time with the summer team. There was more, but I'll spare you the pictures of old houses and buildings. Instead here is a completely unrelated video from the trip!

The greatest Engrish poster ever!

This picture speaks for itself...



Want to buy some ice cream and any?

Hidatakayama Part 1

The past few weeks have been jam packed, as it was the end of the summer workers time here in Japan, and the arrival of my parents. There is a lot of stuff to talk about, but I'll tackle them one at a time.

Hidatakayama was a very fun trip with the summer team. Nagaisan has dubbed it "little Kyoto" as it has that traditional Japanese feeling without having to travel forever to actual Kyoto. It was the first time since I have been in Japan (since October 2007) that I actually did something touristy. I had only been in Shizuoka (the opposite of touristy) and perhaps some trips with students, but never to famous places or somewhere you would see in tour guide. Hidatakayama is just that, and was very fun. I recommend it if you come to Japan, although you'd probably just go to Kyoto... Anyway, I could talk about it, but I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.


And I discovered the Triforce! Now I can save Princess Zelda!