A bit of a cold

I seem to have caught a bit of a cold… I started feeling it a bit on Saturday morning, but it has only been a bit of sneezing and runny nose, primarily in the morning. I felt okay yesterday but last night started to feel a bit of irritation in my throat and some soreness around my shoulders. It bothered me enough that I couldn’t remain asleep this morning and got out of bed about 4 a.m.

I took a bit of nap just now and am feeling a little better. I’ve been sipping some fresh ginger infusion mixed with a bit of frozen orange juice concentrate.

While napping I got a message from Amazon.com letting me know that the rice cooker had shipped – about 4 days ahead of schedule. Estimated delivery is early next week.

I went to meet with some of the other pastors this morning and learned that another of the restaurants will be shutting down for good after Thanksgiving. If I had a spare $200,000 lying about I might just purchase it (it is for sale) and run it as a hobby… but I don’t have that kind of cash just sitting about. It would be foolish to take out a loan on it, but an outright purchase with no expectation of making money might be fun…

Ordered a new rice cooker

I ordered us a new rice cooker today. The model is Zojirushi NP-HBC10. I thought about the next model up with pressurized cooking, but couldn’t get myself to justify spending close to another $200 for just that feature.

“Aren’t all rice cookers the same?” some might ask. The answer is an emphatic, “No!” When I was in Japan the time previous to the most recent one, we got Dad a new rice cooker. I got to use it quite a bit this last time there and was utterly astounded by how well it cooked the rice and kept it warm – even rice cooked and kept for 48 hours was still very good.

Our old rice cooker is probably about a decade old. Rice left in there even overnight starts to get dry and hard. There is no timer feature so I have to remember to make sure I get the thing turned on to cook in time. Not only that but the inner bowl is well past its prime. It was more than time for a replacement.

Since it’s coming via Super Saver shipping, it will probably be near the end of the month before we see it.

Sermon: A Matter of Perspective

(Click HERE for MP3 sermon audio.)

Texts: Matthew 7:12-14; Matthew 11:28-30; Jeremiah 6:16

This sermon discusses the apparent paradox between the narrow gate/hard way of life that is written in Matthew 7:13-14 vs. the rest and easy yoke (way)of Jesus that is written in Matthew 11:28-30. Perhaps it is a matter of perspective; i.e., on which side of Christ one stands, that determines how a person views the way of Christ/life.

(Oh, the new audio recorder provides a much better audio quality! Before, whenever I used the headset mic, the echo made the recording nearly impossible to understand. Today, the speech is definitely comprehensible.)

Return trip

Comments later

(Tuesday, November 3.) From Dad’s home to the Narita Airport we took two trains. A Chuo Rapid from Ogikubo to Tokyo, and then the Narita Express (Limited Express) from Tokyo to Narita Airport Terminal. We had sent our three large pieces of luggage by courier the day before. At Tokyo we had about an hour to spend so we purchased different kinds of bread at a bakery and ate them at the station. We slowly proceeded down to the departing platform and at 12:03 p.m. we left for Narita.

The train trip was uneventful. We passed through city and farms at a rapid pace. About 50 minutes later we arrived at the airport platform. That’s when the less-than-desirable adventure began.

I thought two hours would be sufficient to unload from the train and get boarded on the plane. It was sufficient, but barely. It took some 10-15 minutes to get from the train platform, passing through a brief security inspection, to the fourth floor departure area. Then we had to go all the way across the North Wing to retrieve our luggage sent ahead. And then we had to go back across the North Wing to enter the long lines to check in and obtain boarding passes.

I had hoped to get some lunch at the airport prior to departure. After we checked in I had to return the rental mobile phone. I didn’t quite know where the return location was and that took a little more time. Finally we went to the central area where shops and restaurants are located. There wasn’t a restaurant that seemed right and the first one we entered, no one seemed to come up to seat us. So we went out and located another, sat down, and ordered; and then realized that we really didn’t have enough time for this.

Cancelling the order and apologizing we rushed out and walked briskly to the security clearance. Fortunately there was no wait there and got through quickly. We proceeded down to passport control and also made it through there without much waiting. We rushed over to our gate and saw that passengers were already boarding. We took a quick look around at the nearby gift shop but did not locate anything suitable to take on board as a snack.

We got in line, boarded and the long flight to Seattle finally commenced. There was a very brisk tailwind so the 8-1/2 hour flight turned out coming in at 7-1/2 hours.

We arrived in Seattle but could not immediately unload because the Border Patrol and Customs area were not staffed yet due to the early hour (6 a.m.) But it wasn’t too long (about 20 minutes) before they woke up and allowed us to deplane.

I’m not sure if it is the new policy for BCP or just in Seattle, but permanent residents have to join the same line as visitors. The way the lanes work in Seattle seemed very inefficient. The agents kept shuffling people around different lanes and as a result we waited a very long time. It’s a good thing we were early and we had plenty of transfer time.

We did finally make it out of the control area only to be greeted with another long line to re-enter the secured area… From there we took three short inter-terminal trains to get from the international arrival area to the North Satellite terminal. There we got some bagels and pastries to eat while we waited another hour or so prior to boarding our second to last leg from Seattle to Juneau.

The remaining flights were uneventful and we arrived safely in Petersburg.

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Ah… Jetlag

For a couple of days I thought maybe this time I won’t experience jetlag so badly… But… apparently the past two nights I was able to sleep simply because the fatigue from travel overwhelmed any sort of jetlag. Tonight, however, I am wide awake. I was sleepy around 8 p.m. so I went to bed, but by 11 p.m. I was awake. It is not 1 a.m. with no signs of sleepiness in the vicinity… At least I was able to use the time to put down notes towards a coherent sermon for tomorrow. I’d been working half a dozen sermon ideas for the last couple of days with nothing “gelling” together, but there is one now that is coming together.

The weather here is typical Petersburg: cloudy and rainy. But last evening it was also quite windy. There is a bit of snow now on the peaks of the hills around the area.

Tokyo Disneyland

Comments will be added as time permits.

Our day (Thursday, October 29) started fairly early as the trip to Disneyland takes about an hour and a half. We first walked to Ogikubo station, rode on the Chuo line rapid to Tokyo then transferred to the Keiyo line to Maihama station. Then it’s about a 10 minute walk to the ticket booths. When we entered the park, it was about 10 a.m.

We saw many guests dressed in various Disney character costumes. “Was this a normal, Tokyo Disneyland thing?” we wondered. It turns out that in the days around Halloween, the park allows guests to come in full Disney costume. Thus we saw lots of Alice costumes, quite a few Minnies, hosts of other Disney princesses, and various other characters.

We first headed over to the newest attraction, Monsters, Inc.’s Ride-and-Go-Seek adventure ride. The FastPass was already at 18:45 or thereabouts. We skipped that one and went to Star Tours next door which had a five minute wait. After that we went over to Space Mountain and got its FastPass, then returned to Monsters, Inc. and waited about 75 minutes. It is the newest attraction and therefore attracting all the crowds, but I’m not sure it was worth all that waiting under normal circumstances. It was a ride through a number of different scenes and each person gets to shine a flashlight on the scene to look for monsters and Boo that may be hiding. However, the ride was halted for maintenance not long after we went through, so I guess waiting for it was okay in that respect.

We raced all the way across the park to Splash Mountain and got its FastPass, then raced back to Space Mountain. After that we wandered half the park for lunch that wasn’t exorbitantly expensive and was acceptable to all of us – not at all an easy task. We ended up about where we started looking for lunch: at the pizza counter service restaurant next to Space Mountain. We all had a slice of chicken vegetable (always includes corn) pizza set, which included a small drink and about half a dozen mini cream puffs drizzled with a little chocolate (even fast food is somewhat artistically presented in Japan). For our drinks Shelley and I selected apple tea soda. It was quite good.

Following lunch we went on what I think was my favorite attraction: Buzz Lightyear’s AstroBlaster. The guests get into a small vehicle which then goes through different scenes. Each person gets an AstroBlaster with which they try to hit targets. It was a lot like a shooting gallery except that you are moving all the time. I got 55,000 points, which apparently is rather mediocre…

Because we still had a little time before Splash Mountain, we headed across the way to Micro Adventure. “What is that?” you ask? It’s the Japanese name given to the U.S. attraction, “Honey, I Shrunk the Audience.”

We went across the park to Splash Mountain and breezed our way to the front with our FastPass. It was definitely “interesting” listening to the songs in Japanese. (Sample in one of the audio clips below.) Elise wanted to get the photo of us coming down the mountain (to have proof that I actually was with the family), so we did. Afterwards we headed to Big Thunder Mountain but decided to forego it when we saw that the FastPass time was 9 p.m.

We headed to Pirates of the Caribbean and queued up, preparing to wait the 60 or so minutes that was shown at the back of the line. But the line went quickly and we only waited about half the time. After exiting the ride we stopped at a nearby crepe restaurant and had some dessert crepes.

From there we went across the park again to the Haunted Mansion. This being the Halloween season, the Mansion was said to be decorated all for it. Even though the wait time was predicted to be about 80 minutes we decided to wait for it. Like Pirates, the actual wait turned out to be about half the time. The Mansion was decorated in The Nightmare Before Christmas theme.

Elise and the girls rode the teacups, and that was it for the attractions. Elise wanted to stay to watch the Electric Parade – a wait of about 2-1/2 hours. We wandered about the different shops and such.

I had started to get a headache around noon and by this time had gotten quite severe. After browsing a number of shops, it was becoming unbearable and I decided to sit and rest for the remainder of the evening.

The ladies went off to watch the parade. After a while the parade came through close enough to where I was resting so that I could see it go by in the distance.

And then it was time to head back into Tokyo and home. We boarded the train and at our transfer in Tokyo, we decided to stop and get some supper. Tokyo station is huge and it is like a mall. There are all sorts of shops. We ended up at an Italian restaurant where we had spaghetti and a lasagna. Then it was back onto the train for home.

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A few audio clips:

• Monsters, Inc. ride precaution announcement – in Japanese and English.
• A segment of Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah, in Japanese.
• The hustle and bustle of the Tokyo Disneyland World Bazaar.

Four Migraines in Eight Days

Yeah, I think I’m ready to head back home; away from big crowds, lots of noise, and ceaseless activity. I handled it okay the first week, but with the second it seems like my stress reserves had worn down to nothing and every little thing seemed to lead to a headache.

In under 24 hours we will be heading off to Narita Airport.

More Optical Illusions

These images are from my dad.

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This is a video of a painting that appears to change perspective as the viewer moves around. The end of the video gives a hint as to how the painting is constructed to allow this illusion to occur.

A large pear

Walking into the nearby green grocer this afternoon, I spotted a very large western-style (European/North American) pear. It is grown in Yamagata Prefecture (山形県) and the variety is named Le Francais (ラ フランス). The price was 150 yen. As is the case with many large fruit here, it was individually placed in a protective wrap. I measured it and it was about 9.5 cm tall and 8.5 cm in diameter. I won’t know if it is good or not until we slice into it.

Halloween

Today happens to be Dad’s birthday. We had a birthday party last night instead of today. Last night we had beef curry, assorted sushi, salad, and cheesecake. We got Dad a digital audio recorder (so he could record his sermon today), and a small crab robot toy (which didn’t work as well as I saw on the demonstration video at a store).

We didn’t do anything terribly fancy this evening. I put together garlic bread and Elise cut up some vegetables for a salad. I put together some potatoes, carrots, shiitake mushrooms, vege-ham, onions, green onions, eggs, konbu-dashi, salt, sugar, soy sauce, and water for a sort of a bit-like-stew-but-not-really creation. I don’t know what to call it.

Afterwards we had some pumpkin “pie” that Dad brought home. I write “pie” because it was really a kind of a large dinner roll-like bread filled with sweet pumpkin filling and all made to resemble a pumpkin (for Halloween, of course).