7th Year running and again I am dateless, but before you assume I pity myself, you should have seen the suffering my friends went through. I think I managed to whinge enough for every single person who ever walked the face of the earth. Sorry guys, and Stan, while I loved your chocolate, I’m sorry but you’re not my type ha ha.
But enough about my relationship drama’s, let me catch you up to speed on what’s been happening in Tokyo.
The weather has been somewhat dreary, grey skies and wet socks have been the norm since mid January, yet of course one of the biggest highlights of a Tokyo winter, especially for an Australian like me has been...SNOW!
The beautiful crowning glory of winter! In the same way a Japanese spring has its cherry blossoms or a Connecticut Autumn has its beautiful orange leaves, winter in this part of the world has its snow!
To all my friends and family back home, contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t actually taste like sugar, trust me, I frolicked and danced in the falling white stuff for about half an hour, I now know for sure.
Here are some happy snaps of my first experience with snow, notice how I have more layers on then an Eskimo and Becky doesn’t even have a hood? Guess who the local is....
Exciting news, JLH Gospel choir has started back again! But we need people! And like I said, we need PEOPLE, not singers, singers of course are welcome but I’ve noticed, a lot of the time when I invite someone to come to choir they think it’s only for “good singers”. NOT AT ALL! Gospel choir is about exactly that, the GOSPEL, spreading Gods word through song, and if you have a love for that and of course a love for singing or gospel music come along!
Last time the guys were so totally outnumbered by the girls but this time around we are dominating! While it’s great that so many young guys have joined it would be great to get the numbers up on both sides.
Gospel choir meets usually on a Monday or Friday at Shinjuku Bunka Centre at Higashi Shinjuku station, the closest station (I think) is the Higashi Shinjuku station on the Toei Oedo Line. However meeting times and dates are sporadic depending on the availability of the room and peoples work schedules, but if you’re a member of our church get in touch with Schanita, our amazing Gospel leader for more information. The last time we ran Gospel Choir we had information in the church website but this time around I don’t think we put any info up, so I guess you’ll just have to come along to church to find out more! Ha ha.
The last few days I’ve been rugged up in front of the heater armed with a mug of coffee and my laptop job searching. I’m looking for a full time position and few opportunities have presented themselves which look promising, fingers crossed and prayers appreciated that it all turns out well.
Also last week was one of the wettest weeks I’ve ever experienced in Japan, and it just so turned out that last Thursday I had about seven hours to kill in a rainy wet Shibuya on my own. Shibuya is an interesting enough place that you can get lost in there for hours, but if it’s raining and like me you’re there every Monday and Thursday it tends to lose its “wow” edge...but only just a little.
Luckily my wonderful JLH friends came to the rescue, it turned out that a few of my friends were in Shibuya for a wedding, so I spent a small part of my day window shopping and I found some great little boutiques and stores, and then I met up with my good friends for an Indian lunch. All I can say is YUM! I love Indian food and I love the fact that there are Indian restaurants everywhere!
After lunch the group parted as some people wanted to get home and only those staying for street band remained, this left me, Nicky and Catherine. We headed for StarBucks so we could settle in for the next few hours somewhere warm, and also Catherine insisted we try their Valentine Hot Chocolate special, when she said “It’s so rich you could stand a spoon in it” she wasn’t joking, it was delicious. The rest of the afternoon was spent chatting about various topics of interest, Nicky was busy apartment hunting for her and Catherine’s new place whilst Catherine and I designed her “Devastating Wedding Dress” It’s a killer, but it’s a secret until the big day so Shhh.
Then afterwards because it was still raining instead of street band we did street teams. What are street teams I hear you ask? Usually when it rains, instead of skipping on outreach we break off into teams of about three or four and spread out over Shinjuku into all the cafes and fast food outlets. We then take a seat with our coffee or food and casually strike up a conversation with the people around us, get to know them and eventually invite them to church.
I was put in a team with Moto, Yusuke and Apple and we made some great connections, on the way back to the meeting place with the other street teams we stopped to get some “Taiyaki” I couldn’t quite figure out what they were but they seemed like little fish shaped pastries filled with different desert or savoury flavours. Mine was caramel mmm.
All in all, it’s been a good past few weeks, of course life presented me with its usual troubles but I’m hanging in there by the grace of God.
One of the most exciting things I’m anticipating...Spring is around the corner!
More next time.
To Be Continued.......
