Day 1: Tokyo/Fuchu

Everyone arrived safe this morning and thus began our adventure.  Pastor Rich (from CC Fuchu) met us at the airport and took our bags back to the church while we went about some business.  What a blessing to not have to drag our bags around on the trains (as the train stations usually only have stairs - no elevators or escalators).

What happened on our first day?

Breakfast was our first adventure - we found a small cafe in the train station.  The waitress didn't speak any English.  The really interesting thing is that the menu had only one item on it . . . a scrambled egg, a piece of toast, a thin slice of ham, a few drops of ketchup, and coffee.  That was it, only one item.  Everyone in the cafe was eating the same thing.  It was still a challenge communicating - was there anything else?  How many did we want?  Did we want hot or cold coffee?  The waitress was fantastic and was trying so hard to help us.  The food was good.  The coffee was actaully espresso and was very smooth.  Perked us up.

Is it  alive?.......Octopus balls?  Yes!  We found a restaurant at a food court and we were watching them be made.  The pans and the process looks like eibelskebers.  Ordering is usually pretty easy when you can point and a picture and then indicate how many you want.  These octopus balls are covered in fish flakes.  The heat from the balls made everything look like it was alive and dancing - both the fish flakes and the octopus tentacles.  Yes, they were actually moving from the heat (or was the octopus still  alive?  not so sure).  However, they were delicious!

Corn ice cream - tastes a lot better than it sounds.

Wolf in sheep skin.  Is it beef?  A little bit of Japanese would have been helpful at that time.  It was a beautiful piece of meat. Looked so tasty and delisous and so beefy.  It is funny how you can be fooled by chicken livers.  Someone (who shall remain nameless) purchased a fresh kabob and thought it was beef.  As they chewed off the first chunk, it became very obvious - beef does not taste like chicken livers.  It was really quite funny and the livers did not go to waste as someone else got to enjoy them.

Lucas, Aaron, and Steve went for a nice walk in the afternoon.  Actually, we all went to a park and in order to get home we split into two groups for the ride back to the church.  The van broke down as it pulled into the church on the first trip.  Rather than waiting for reinforcements, they decided to walk home.  Going to the park seemed like 6 or 7 blocks.  That turned into a 40 minute hike through the city of Fuchu through the heat and humidity.  It was a good adventure.

Vending machine are everywhere.  Are you walking through side streets in Fuchu and feeling a little thirsty?  Look ahead, there's a vending machine!  Yes, they pretty much are everywhere and they mostly sell beverages - iced coffee, water, iced tea, etc.

In America, it is easy to find trash cans.  In Japan, not so much.  They really are rare.  The odd thing is, you don't see much trash or litter.  Most of the people take trash home. The process of disposing of garbage is pretty complicated. Japanese citizens must separate their garbage. Plastic things go to pink bags, which you buy from the city, burnables go into green bags, plastic bottles seems the most complicated: caps off to separate bags, labels MUST be taken off, bottels MUST be washed and smashed and go the white bag. That is why country is so clean. Also the goverment is encouraging people to go ECO(green).

So many things happed in one day. It is like a puzzle, so it is hard to put everying in one beautiful picture. On Saturday we had a dinner with some of the church members and passed out.