Explorations.....

Fridays and Saturdays are usually our day off, but since our first reading session was Thursday, we decided to work on Friday this week. Today, Saturday, was our first day off, and we needed it. We have already done alot of work, and we now have 60 readers! Amazing huh? We also picked up 2 tonight. So anyways, Tyler and I slept in and at about noon the guys came to the church so that we could all go to Hitachi-city. We all left and walked to the train station and purchased our tickets. It is only 180 yen for one stop (that is less that 1.80 dollars here). Anyways, we finally got off the train and made our way into Hitachi. Bryan was craving McDonalds, as were Tyler and I, so we ate a good lunch there. Who-hoo, go mickey d`s!! There in Hitachi they have this 5 story department store. It is huge. We walked around there, and on one of the floors they have a 100 yen store. Basically, everything in the is 1.00 dollar. We picked up some souvenirs and began to leave the store. Mike, he owns an english school here in Taga and Mito, was singing tonight at this Italian restaurant in Omika. Mike is also a church member here in Taga. The couple that Tyrel and Bryan have been staying with, Rusty and Laura, also live in Omika. Mikes performance was not until 6:30 so we decided to go ahead and go to Omika early. It was about 2:30. We bought another train ticket and made our way into Omika. It is about a 25 minute walk to Rusty and Laura`s from the train station. The train system reminds me of the New York City subway system. The doors open and you have about a minute to get on of off. Although here, the trains only run in two directions and you just count how many stops it is to your destination. When we go to Tokyo, we will take the train. It is a good 3 hour ride. We finally made it to their house at about 3:30. We took a quick break and relaxed. They have a 4 month old baby, Alex, so Laura was going to go down to the beach. We all went and it was about a 10 minute walk. We got there and it was breathtakingly beautiful. We finally took some group pictures of us near the ocean. We waded around in the water for awhile and made our trek back to the house. We are in the middle of what is known as the "Pacific Ring of Fire". I really do not know what that means. The Pacific Ocean is gorgeous. Up on the hill there is this wonderful little white lighthouse just up there sitting by itself. We almost thought about going up there, but didnt want to walk all the way up there. It was almost 5 when we got back, and Rusty was waiting for us when we returned. Laura and Bryan went to the grocery store so Rusty, Tyrel, Tyler and I just relaxed. We left for the restaurant at about 6:25 (drove) and sat down to hear his performance. He has a wonderful voice. We all ordered pizzas (delicious) and then went back to the house. Rusty then gave Tyler and I a ride back to the train station so we could get to Taga. We bought our tickets and had about 4 minutes until our train arrived, so we bought some vending machine ice cream. Vending machines are very popular and are everywhere. We ate our ice cream and by the time we finished it was time to get off the train. We then walked back to the church which is about a 5 minute walk and I got on the computer to type this blog. I hope that you all enjoy these postings! I have not had much feedback, so enjoy reading. If there are any questions about Japan let me know. If any of you know of any particular kind of souvenir you want, let me know. Until we meet again......