Thrift Shop October 2014

Today I experienced my fifth Thrift Shop.  I am amazed at how much is in that gym to start with, how much is left and how much has to be brought away!  

Jazz band is setting up.

Seniors are selling food to help raise money for their trip to Thailand.

Selling hot dogs, curry rice and chili.

CAJ shirts

Here they were selling pie and ice cream.

Nozomi Project came down from Ishinomaki to sell their wares.

On the Friday of Thrift Shop weekend, the families and staff of CAJ are able to purchase items from Thrift Shop as well as the other booths that are set up.  I heard that yesterday they BBQ 100 kg of meat for the Korean BBQ!  That's a lot of meat! 

Many, many shoes, but not many my size!

Some great deals on children's clothes.

Toys and games galore!

Clothes, clothes everywhere!

I love it that they have mirrors so you can see how the clothes look on you. 

Various housewares!

Some more housewares.

Sorry for the unclear picture. 

The registers.

Waiting in line to pay. 

Saturday, Thrift Shop is open for the community, from 9 a.m. - 1 p.m.  It is a little bit humorous as once the doors open, people literally run into the gym and run right to the place they want to buy something.  This year the first man in wanted shoes, so he took off to the area where the shoes were displayed. 
I decided to volunteer to help cut and bag at the registers.  I was at the Express Registers this year, but there was a steady stream of people waiting to buy their items almost the whole time. 
It does take an army to pull these days together.  The CAJ PTA does a tremendous amount of work and it does take hours afterwards to clean it all up.  It is a weekend that is full of excitement and it is a way for CAJ to minister to the Higashi Kurume community. 

Tama Hills bicycle ride

It is the fall season of sports at Christian Academy in Japan (CAJ).  Cross country is one of the fall sports.  Most of the meets are on Saturdays, although there have been a couple during the week after school.  The Saturday meets have been at Tama Hills, at a US base/recreation area.  I have figured out that it is about 17.5 km from my house to the start line of the cross country race.  One of the reasons I go on Saturdays is because I do enjoy the bicycle ride.  There is a long hill you have to go up at Tama Hills, but there is a pay off, in that you get to go down the hill when you come back and there is a store that sells US goods, like Cheetos and Kraft Mac 'n Cheese (yes, I can't figure that craving out either).  Today on the way back, I took a few pictures.

This is the route I took.

It's quite lush across the road from Tama Hills.

Tama River

Going over the bridge that crosses the Tama River.

A two-way street.

Crossing the tracks.

Sometimes there isn't a lot of room to bicycle on the road.

When I bicycle, sometimes I ride on the sidewalk and sometimes I ride on the road although when I ride my cross mountain bicycle, I tend to ride on the road.  On of the roads I follow is the Koganei Kaido.  I thought I would take some video.  My camera was in my right hand while I was riding, so it's a little bumpy.

Saturdays are great days to do some things outside of school.  I am very appreciative of weekends.   

October 10, 2014 Bicycle Ride

It was nice weather today.  Ruth and I decided to go on a bicycle ride today.  We bicycled for 28 km. 

There was varying road types and scenery.  Sometimes it was a little busy and sometimes not many other folks. 

We did stop at Starbucks for a drink and chat time.  We were able to sit outside and enjoy the weather.

It was a fun bicycle ride and a great opportunity to get to know where I'm living.  I'm very grateful for Saturdays and weekends! 

How's the weather?

I had kind of forgotten about typhoon season.  Last year we had a couple, the first coming on our Back to School day in September.  This year, I didn't think about them much.  I listen to Canadian and US news, but do not listen to Japanese news very often, until it becomes a topic of conversation in the staff lounge or at staff meetings.
This past week, Typhoon Phanfone (Typhoon #18) was headed our way.  I began looking at weather maps to see which direction the typhoon was heading.  It looks like it's coming directly for Tokyo.  I believe according to the predictions, the eye should be over Tokyo during Monday morning's commute.  A wise decision was made to close school tomorrow.  It has been raining all day today, sometimes quite heavy.  There have also been some gusts of wind.
This morning I attended the 8:30 a.m. service rather than the 11:00 a.m. service, because I volunteered to usher.  I took some video as I was walking back to the station after church.  I apologize unsteady video, but you can hear the rain.

 

School cancellation is a little more complicated than just no classes.  This is our School WithOut Walls (SWOW) week.  Decisions still need to be made about the grade 11 and 12 classes.  The grade 12 class is scheduled to travel up to Tohoku tomorrow at 8:30 a.m.  The grade 11 class is supposed to pack up tomorrow afternoon so they can begin traveling to their points of departure for their Wilderness Camp on Tuesday morning.  The grade 10 class does not depart until Wednesday, and the grade 9 class remains on campus, for the most part, all week.    

Rie and I have decided that we will not go to get my Japanese driver's license tomorrow.  With the large amounts of rain and the possible windy conditions, it is probably a wiser choice to not try and drive on the roads (Rie was going to drive to the licensing place.  I do not need to take a driver's test, just hearing and vision tests and bring some other documents to get my license.)  We will do that another day, hopefully when the weather is nicer.

I pray that people may be kept safe with the rains and winds the next 24 hours or so.  

Residual Summer blog post

Hello,
I know that summer is almost coming to close officially, with the fall equinox happening this week.  I do have a couple of pictures that I was unable to post earlier because they were part of a wedding video for my niece, Kimberley and her husband, Orisi (now my nephew!).

My and the bow. 

The finished bow, well, sort of.  We still had to do some adjustments. 

Some of you may not know, but I'm the antithesis of crafty!  I don't do crafty.  I have known to enjoy doing certain things here and there, but generally, I don't search for or seek out crafts to do.  I will help though.  That's what happened in the pictures above.  My sister-in-law Myrna, my niece Nicole and I spent one afternoon/evening working on making the big bows for Kim and Orisi's wedding.  Yup, I learned how to make a huge bow!  The turquoise material had a lot of sparkles in it and I was full of sparkles by the end of this craft.  It was kind of fun learning how to do put them together.  We actually watched a YouTube video that showed us how to put these bows together.

The second thing I was able to do, was to be in the video that was shown at the wedding.  In my brother's family, they have what appears to be a tradition; putting together a video that will be shown at the event, in this case Kim and Orisi's wedding.  I won't go into the scene, but it has to do with Kim driving, construction on the gravel road and her dad right behind her.  I was the flag person in this scene.  I had a reflector jacket, hard hat, sunglasses, stop sign and a wig.  It was fun to do.

Can you recognize me?

Kim and Orisi did get married the end of August.  The wedding was fun.  I'm glad I was able to be a small part of it, even though I was here in Japan during the event.  Thanks, for including me, Nick's family!  
Thank you all for following me along on this journey this summer.  I had a great summer, with a number of adventures and visits!  Thank you to all of you who showed great hospitality this summer and allowed me to crash at your place, to use your vehicles, take me in for meals, go on excursions with me or meet me for coffee.  I thank you from the bottom of my heart and may God bless you richly for the wonderful way you reflect Christ in your actions. 

Cross Country

Living in Matsukawa Place has its advantages.  I am close to school and I have a smaller place.  These two advantages can also be considered disadvantages.  My previous two places were three bedroom houses and now I live in a one bedroom apartment.  I have to be creative and thoughtful on how and where I put things.  Since I live right beside school, I do not need to ride my bicycle to commute to work.  That means I'm not exercising as much, although I try to get to the school's gym to work out, but I've found I'm not as consistent since bicycling isn't a must and well, the gym isn't always available or by a certain time at night, I just don't feel like going to exercise. 
So, being able to bicycle to Tama Hills for the cross country meet, is a welcome opportunity.  I did have to navigate a bit of a different route since I'm now coming from Higashi Kurume instead of Kiyose, but that wasn't eventful.  It is about a 17 km ride one way, with a steep hill at Tama Hills.  It felt great and I look forward to next week.  I also hope to be able to take my mountain bicycle rather than my Japanese bicycle. 
This year the Kanto Plain International schools purchased a new system to determine finishing times for the runners.  The students have to tie in a chip on their shoe laces and when they finish, run over these mats that pick up the chip's information which is recorded on computers.  It's a pretty slick system.  Bette V. and I have helped in past years and our job has become significantly easier.  When the whistle blows, we throw a chip on the mat and then pick it up to indicate the start of a race on the computer.  We check the computer to make sure it has recorded that.  As the runners run across the mats, we'll check to see if their chip was read. 

Mats the participants run over to have the chips read.

Computers that collect the chip informtion

Chip tied into the shoe laces. 

Ready to start!

CAJ High School Team

Coming to the finish!

Keep running until you're past the mats!

Well done!

To top off the ride, we were able to stop at the store on the way down the hill and pick up some American food!  I was able to have some Kraft Mac and Cheese and Cheetos.  I know, where did that come from!  I found that sometimes I have a craving for certain foods and it wasn't even something I loved when I lived in America! 
It was a beautiful day, not so hot and not terribly cold.  Once I returned, I was able to get some homework completed, clean up the apartment (advantage to having a smaller place) and do laundry.  I am glad we have weekends!  Now to get some more sleep! 

Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream

I have been attending Tokyo Union Church down in Shibuya.  Each week, when I walk out the front door, I see the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream across the street.  Today I gave in and crossed the street to get a scoop of ice cream.  I know, not good for a person like me. 

When I walked in, there was the usual greetings you receive from the employees.  What was surprising is the person who helped me, immediately pulled out the English version of the menu and began speaking to me in English!  there was a new flavour, American Dream that had chocolate, caramel and waffle cone in it.  Yup, I figured for my indulgence for the week, I'd take a scoop of that in a cup. 

I have to admit, it has been a long time since I've been to a Ben & Jerry's.  I don't have any special relationship with Ben & Jerry's, but I think because I'm in Japan, and Ben & Jerry's is from the US, it looks appealing. 
I found the decor quite interesting.  Love the holstein cow patterns on the stools. 

One thing I did get to read, was that Ben & Jerry's appear to be conscientious about being environmentally sound, according to the posters and video they have on the walls.  They are committed to Fair Trade.  There are other things they mentioned on the walls of the shop.  You can google them and find out more about all their involvement in organizations related to the environment.  I enjoyed sitting there eating my one scoop of ice cream.  :) 

Isn't this just an interesting way to show a video?  The video was showing the many ways in which they were involved in helping make "the world a better place."