As of June 22nd, Yoko is now another year closer to 30. Yet, you would never guess it if you observed her in her Body Pump class. When it comes to the leg portion of the workout, she lifts more than anyone in the class. Seniors, house wives, business men, 20 somethings, and even the instructor cannot keep up with her. Needless to say, Erik is proud of Yoko.
We officially have a date set and tickets purchased for our return to Arizona. On August 25th we will be back in the land where the humidity does not stay above 80% for weeks on end. However, our return to Arizona will be short lived. We are returning to Japan in December and will be here for at least another year. There are 4 primary factors that lead us to this decision, and no, it’s not because Erik has started liking natto, playing the shamisen, or practicing kendo. 1. We feel the Lord wants us to be here to continue reaching out to Yoko’s family and others that we have contact with. 2. Erik needs to keep working on his Japanese. The Japanese language turned out to be a greater challenge than he originally thought. He had high expectations for himself but soon found out that it’s going to take some time. 3. Yoko would like to give birth here in Japan (no, we are NOT pregnant at this time). 4. Teaching jobs that provide housing are plentiful. If you would keep us in your prayers, we would greatly appreciate it. On the right side of our blog we have a section titled “Prayer Requests”. There you can find specific things to pray for.
Other than the above news, we don’t have anything major to report. June 23rd was the 3 year anniversary of our engagement. Yes, we are still newly weds and keep track of all those meaningful days. The below picture was taken from the spot and right before Erik proposed to Yoko.
Recently Japan has been very wet. We are currently in the rainy season which will soon give way to the hot, humid, typhoon season. Even when the weather man says it is only going to be cloudy, we must be prepared for rain at any moment. Erik has learned this the hard way.
The Japanese government gave us money to help stimulate the economy. We were pleased to receive a notice that Yoko would be getting 12,000 yen (about $120), but we were really surprised when we found out that Erik would also receive the same amount. Thanks Aso!

Learning About Japan Through Us

Here are a few interesting things that one may not learn about Japan without having spent some time here; this includes knowing what kind of garbage you have (see picture and #2).
1. In the Japanese baseball league there can be ties. If the game is tied at the end of 12 innings, it ends in a tie. One explanation we heard for this is that most people come to the games by train and if a game goes late into the night, the fans may not be able to get home.

2. You as an individual separate your garbage. There are various colored bags that need to be bought, each colored bag is for a certain type of garbage. Then you put your colored bag with bags that are the same color in a specific place to be collected. They are then loaded by hand into the garbage truck by the sanitation workers. There are no dumpsters.

3. One cannot buy a car without having a parking space for it.

4. Women tend to stay in the hospital/birthing center for a week after having a baby.

5. School kids clean their own classrooms and schools. After the classroom is cleaned, each student has a part of the school to clean.

We have been pretty busy since we last posted, mostly with work. Despite our schedule being full, Erik was able to get some sort of stomach illness for one day (thankfully not on a day with work) resulting is him not doing much other than just laying around. Yoko has had the opportunity to get to know one of the instructors at the sports club we go to and as a result Yoko has invited her to a church event that will be happening later this month. We are praying that she will be able to come with us. At church we had John Scott Evans, a very talented guitarist, visit us and bless us with his music. If you visit his website you can hear some of his music. Erik's mom had another birthday this week, and Erik had a chance to wish her a happy birthday by phone.

Erik and Yoko's Yokohama Tour Service

Since we turned down the offer for Erik to teach in China, we have seen an influx of teaching opportunities for Erik. This week he started a long term sub. It will last 2 months and is 3 days a week. He also acquired a new private student that he meets once a week. On top of this, he will be teaching 2 all day classes (one in June and one in August) for Japan's second largest steel company. The Lord is truly blessing us. This increase in income is coming at a prefect time as it will provide for our plane tickets back to the U.S. Also, the long term sub teaching does not fall on days that Erik has his Japanese classes. God sure is good to us!

Last Monday we had the opportunity to give 10 college students from the U.S. a tour of Yokohama. These students are from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University and are in Japan for a summer study program. We have this connection with ERAU since they have a campus in Prescott, and the professor that heads up this Japan program, we know from church. If you came to our wedding, he is the Japanese man who did the translating during the reception. We had a good time in Yokohama. Yoko did a great job getting us all on the correct trains and translating anything the students couldn't read. The 10 students we had were great. There were no attitude problems; nobody got lost; and they all were happy to try food they were unfamiliar with at a Japanese restaurant we went to for lunch. We went up to the top of Landmark Tower; it provided a great view of the Yokohama area. We had hoped to take the students to the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Museum , but it is closed every Monday. So, in place of that, we let the students loose in a local mall.

In our last post we mentioned that we would be going out to eat for our anniversary. We did that and had a great meal. It was a buffet, and we took full advantage of that. We hope to get a link up for the restaurant so keep an eye out for that in our "What and Where We've Eaten Recently" section. Below is an "anniversary picture" we took to mark our two years of marriage. Aren't we cute in the matching shirts. FYI, that wasn't Erik's idea : )

Going to Work in China!!!!

Since our last post was two weeks ago, you'd think we'd have something to write about and a matter of fact, we do. Before we get to those details though, we are doing well. Yoko had 4 days off from work due to the Golden Week national holiday. She spent time with her mom and put in some good time working on her web site. When that is completed, we will let you know.
Now to the highlights, let's start with Friday, the 1st, at 10:00 am. Erik received a call from the English language school he subs for with the offer to go teach in Shanghai, China for at least a month starting on the 4th. Since it was to start so soon, we had to make a decision quickly. After some discussion and prayer, we decided to decline the offer for a number of reasons, the main one being that we will be seeing a friend from Arizona on the 17th and 18th of this month.
Tuesday, the 5th, was our 2 year anniversary. We had plans for the day, but due to it being a national holiday, Children's Day, and some scheduling conflicts, we didn't get to do all we wanted to do that day. As a result, we are celebrating our anniversary over a week or so. Tuesday the 12th we will go out for our anniversary dinner. Today, Saturday, we ate tiramisu and took anniversary pictures at a near by park.
Wednesday, the 6th, found Erik in Tokyo washing dishes at Kick Back Cafe; this is the cafe our church owns. Yoko stayed home so that Erik would not be able to depend on her. This was Erik's first time to take the 2 hour train ride (with 3 transfers) to our church/cafe by himself. Thanks be to God, he got there without too much difficulty and was on time. The day spent washing dishes was enjoyable despite the piles of dishes due to it being a very busy day for the cafe. Erik's prayer was that he wouldn't break anything, and again, thanks to God, he didn't. A few dishes were dropped, but nothing broke. Erik stayed for the Wednesday night service, stayed the night with some guys from the church and then came back home Thursday morning. Thursday morning was again spent on the train this time with the hordes of people heading to work (Click for a video of what it is like. I was already on the train so I didn't actually get pushed. Don't want to do that again. Japanese people are nice, but I don't need to be that close to anyone other than Yoko).
So those are a few of the highlights from the past two weeks.

What to Report?

Since we last updated this blog, we haven't had all that much going on other than the "normal" everyday things: eating, sleeping, studying, reading, praying, cooking, cleaning, shopping, exercising. The biggest thing that has happened didn't even happen to us. A friend of ours from church and who lives is the building behind us, gave birth to her first child Friday. Today we were able to see the beautiful little girl. The clinic (click her for a few pictures) where the birth took place is something else. It reminded us of a resort.
One thing that was supposed to happen was that Andrea Crouch was going to be at our church from the 22nd through the 27th. If you are not familiar with who Andrae Crouch is, he is a major figure in the Gospel music scene. However, much to every one's disappointment, his time here had to be canceled due to him being admitted to the hospital on the 21st with severe pain in his feet. We are all hoping that he can reschedule and still make it in the near future. Andrea has visited our church before and his visit had been eagerly anticipated by everyone at the church.
Here is a video clip from our local park. This duck likes to hang out with people even when there isn't food around.

Sakura in Bloom

We have been having a great Spring so far. The cherry trees or sakura were beautiful and we had a number of opportunities to get out and enjoy them. Last Saturday we spent the day with Yoko's dad, her brother, and his family. We were celebrating Yoko's dad's retirement. We started at Shinjuku Gyoen enjoying the sakura along with half of the people in Tokyo (to see a bigger version of our spring slide show, click here). We ended the evening with a meal of traditional Japanese food, Yoko's dad's favorite.
We also recently took a 23 mile/37 km round trip bike ride to see the Tulip Matsuri. One down side to all of Spring's beauty is that Yoko's allergies are in full swing. She has itchy eyes, uses tissues by the fist full and is very good at sneezing.
Some of you may have heard that Erik has been looking/applying for a teaching job. So far nothing has come about. Since we are returning to Arizona in August, it is hard to find something that is short term. However, he continues to substitute teach for a language school when needed. Erik's Japanese language learning has changed from formal language school to a community program that meets 3 times a week and is free. Also, with Yoko, he is reviewing the book that he studied in language school. This is helping reinforce those things that he learned some time ago.
For Yoko, in addition to putting up with Erik, she continues to teach at a nearby cram school and work on her graphic design/web development.
Sunday we had a wonderful Easter service at church. It was an all day event. We left at 9:00 pm and even at that time it was still going strong. After the "normal" morning service (11:00 -2:00) we had lunch and then there was baptism. This was the first baptism that the church has had since we have been there. In total 58 people were baptised. It was a wonderful time celebrating the new life the comes through a relationship with Jesus because of His Resurrection. After the baptism there was a break for dinner and then from about 7:30 on (we don't know when they finally called it a night) was a time of worship and sharing.

"Grab a Bunch of Food"

The cherry blossoms are officially in full bloom, and people are marking off spots in parks all over Japan to take part in the cherry blossom viewing event called "hanami". We don't know if we will have a hanami this year, but we are enjoying the cherry blossoms.
Both of Yoko's parents retired last week from teaching JR high school after 35+ years of teaching. They both are really looking forward to what they will get to do now. Yoko's dad will be taking gardening classes at a community college, oil painting and working on ballroom dance (his hobbies). Yoko's mom will be helping a friend who is having a baby this month and working on getting her parents house sold.
The last day that Yoko's mom worked, the three of us went out to eat to celebrate. He had the buffet lunch at the California Restaurant at the Radisson Hotel. Now this is a nice hotel and the restaurant uses cloth napkins, the kind of place you wouldn't expect to hear from the waitress "grab a bunch of food". Much to our surprise that is what we heard. The buffet was closing and the waitress said to Erik in English (all three of us were at the table), "The buffet is ending in a few minutes, go ahead and grab a bunch of food." Erik didn't say anything back to her (partly because he was surprised by the choice of words and the fact that she spoke to him only) but looked at her like she had 5 heads. There was a moment of awkward silence then she repeated herself to Yoko and her mom in polite Japanese. Since then, we have enjoyed telling each other to "grab a bunch of food".