Update

I'm back at the hotel for a few days, I need to take advantage of the high-speed connection while I can. I'm really grateful after staying in ichinomiya to have use of even these small facilities. an already-made bed, a net connection, a place to freshen up, breakfast, normal plumbing, etc.

tomorrow is a church service at jeffs church here in anjo. I'll need to get there around 8:30. Today I helped him prepare for his kids English club, and the church service that will follow. we cleaned out the front and took down the separator wall, then vacuumed and re-arranged the tables. we traveled around with jeff's son ken-kun (who I call cancun). he's a cool little guy. he follows me around everywhere, shows me all of his toys when I'm over at the brigham's house, and wonders where I'm at when I'm gone. on friday when he invited over this couple from the English classes to a BBQ, I was keeping ken-kun occupied. we found a small butterfly in the small yard on a blade of grass. he started blowing on it and swatting at it and chasing it around. I dont think i've ever seen a child have so much fun chasing a butterfly around. anyway, I took a picture of it so he could check it out in the house later. I also drew a picture of a butterfly with him based on the picture on the camera. now he can't stop talking about the butterfly. whenever it looks like I might be heading outside he'll ask me if I want to go looking for more. when we were commuting today, he was paying attention to the train announcements, and when we were biking to reach the school in ichinomiya today, he was making sure I was keeping up with them. he rode in the back of his dad's bike in a basket with places on either side to place your feet. that takaya guy that I met for lunch with jeff last saturday ended up being able to make it to class in ichinomiya today. we were happy to see that he made it. other than that, the usual crew (yuji, ami, lin) showed up. I helped out a bit with their lessons.

i've only got one more week here... things are beginning to look as if I may not be able to meet tama-chan. it's okay if I can't though. there has been enough to keep me busy this last week, and i've made many new aquaintances. anyway, I'll stop talking now and upload some pictures. I have to dump off quite a number since I haven't been anywhere with internet for a few days.

at the meitetsu train station in ichinomiya there was this special event going on with all of these little kids doing synchronized bell ringing. there was this lady directing and making signals with her hands (numbers) and the row of kids with that number would ring the bells. this was all in time with some tunes that are popular over here. around here it's time for the tanabata festable, and there are all kinds of different events going on all over. this was promotional for some school around that area. I took a pictures and made several videos. I'll have to show you guys when I return, it was impressive.