Jean Of mArc

Have you ever noticed how adding spaces between letters in a title makes it a bit more dramatic? If so, I’ve already got your attention, because that’s what I did for the title of this post. If not, please read on anyway because you’re my friend.

This past weekend I went down to a JET Christian Fellowship Retreat in Okutama, which is about 90 on a train due west of Tokyo, yet is still technically within Greater Tokyo. I tell you that city is HUGE!! Anyway, it was a very lovely and off-the-path location out in the mountains, hosted at “Fukuin no Ie” (or “Gospel House”). Recommended spot if you’re wondering. Here are some pics I nabbed off Facey-Booky without permission (shh… don’t tell!!):

Group Photo!!

Eating one of the Dericious Meals! (I think this one was Bacon-wrapped Salmon)

Looking at the results from the HILARIOUS picture-telephone game!

If you hike out from the cabin a bit, it looks kind of like this…

This is us, musicing for worship time!

On the train back to Tokyo Station

It was a GREAT time, and I really feel like I learned a lot about God and myself while I was there. The guest speaker who came to join us for the weekend’s name is Lewis Rice. He is CRAZY energetic, is very loud, loves his life, and is very passionate about discussing God. But before I get too much into where he is and what he said, there should be something mentioned about me.

For the past few years I’ve been feeling compelled to do something more public in my life. By that, I mean becoming more vulnerable by putting myself out there in front of people on a regular basis. Secondly, the reason I would be in front of these people is to both energize them as well as to share God’s love for them. Thirdly, my heart is broken for the youth of Japan, as I read story after story of Japanese youth who feel they have no identity, they feel unloved by their parents, they tie their self-worth to academic success, and are committing suicide when things don’t work out. So many of them don’t realize that there is a God who loves them unconditionally, who has a plan for their lives, who will forgive them for anything they have done, who birthed them diliberatly, who will free them from any bondage and who will offer them eternal life in heaven. It hurts them if they don’t know that, and it hurts me if they don’t know that.

Now back to Lewis: when he was 15, he had more-or-less the same convictions that I have now. When he was 18, he worked for a few months in New Zealand (his home) to get enough money to get to Japan. When he arrived, he had no place to stay, no where to go, no work, and he knew nobody. He prayed about it, and within a week he had an apartment, work and was a part of the people at Jesus Lifehouse in Tokyo.

Now he spends his days in front of Japanese youth, sharing about God’s love for them, and spending the evenings doing outreach. He basically has a life that is pretty much exactly the kind of thing I have been envisioning. He has amazing stories to tell of lives transformed, from lives of hatred, depression, parental abandonment and suicidal thoughts, to lives that are completely transformed by the gospel of Jesus. They have become loving, happy, people who couldn’t say enough about God’s love.

Lewis shared about many different things to consider and think about. Here are some of the points I can immediately remember:

• Vision vs Goals – Having goals in life is a good thing, because it keeps us focused on what can/should be done next. Things like getting married, having children, getting a house etc would all be example of goals. But these are not God’s “vision” for our lives. By that, I mean that our life is not considered complete just because the goals have been achieved. If that were true, then one you had a wife, children and a house, you wouldn’t know what else to do with your life. The problem is, so many people, even Christians, settle on goals, and then go through mid-life crisises (crisi? Ug… English…) because they don’t know what else to do. Contrast this to vision, which is an endless goal. For example, sharing God’s love with youth. There will always be more youth to share it with, and even after it is shared the relationships and fellowship that comes out of that is endless.
• Don’t think, pray! – So many times we try and figure out our own problems by thinking and mulling over them endlessly. I sure know I do! My general strategy when predicting things is to think about the worst-possible scenarios so that I will be prepared to handle them. Then think of the bes-possible scenarios so I remain optimistic. Then think of the middle ground between the two and realize that’s probably what’s going to happen. But still, my brain will endlessly think of it more and more until I can’t even concentrate on things anymore. This doesn’t happen all the time, but when it does I hate it. But for those of us who know about Jesus, we know that we can cast our cares onto Him and let Him take care of them. We can turn our thoughts and worries into prayers and petitions, and if we get in that habit we will have a consistant relationship with Him. And trust me, God’s a good guy to be talking to! Even if He answers in sometimes very strange, difficult, or hilarious ways…
• Only God and People matter – The only thing that we can take with us to heaven are the people who go with us. Any goals which don’t involve people ultimately won’t matter after we are dead. And since we are only alive on Earth for about 70-90 years and we are alive in heaven for eternity, I would say that goals that focus on the latter are much more important!

When I first came to Japan, I didn’t know where things would lead. Now I feel like they may lead to the big city, to the youth searching for meaning.

For now, though, I am here, in Aomori. And I am more than in my place here for the time being. I feel like there is still a lot to be done here and a lot to learn, not to mention that the free time I’ve been having has been great for learning Japanese and maintaining a strong relationship with my wonderful fiancee Solveig. We will continue to pray about all these things and see where God takes us from there.

This blog post leaves me curious though, what’s YOUR v i s i o n ? Not your goals, but what means the most for you to do while here on this Earth for such a short time? Who will you serve? What will you do? Who will be affected? What is the purpose?

When I first arrived in Japan, waaaaay back in July ‘09, we were taken to Shinjuku, Tokyo, to the Keio Plaza hotel. I wrote about it a bit and posted pictures, but I really didn’t get a chance to look around or explore Tokyo on my own time.

Last week, the Japanese had 3 consecutive holidays in a row for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Naturally, I took 2 days of paid leave on Thursday and Friday to make a whole week of it. And then, on Saturday, headed down to Tokyo to meet up with Samuel. Samuel is another JET who came with the Montreal group; we met at the orientation there and have become travel buddies. He lives quite far from me, so this is really our only chance to hang out together.

Anyhow, here are some of the cool things that happened:

1. On of the first things we did was head to Shinbuya. If you haven’t heard of it, it is the home of a lot of shopping and such, but more interestingly, a TON of people everyday. In fact, it is the home of the world’s busiest intersection. You wouldn’t really tell when the lights are red and there’s only cars on the streets… they alternate so that only cars or people go at the same time here… but as soon as those lights turn green, whoooooooooa!!!! PEOPLE!!! Here’s a picture after the light has turned green:

As you can see, it was kind of busy there. And while being there, we saw a glasses shop that was closing for a bit for renovations, and they were selling glasses for really cheap (about $50 with perscription). I happen to really like glasses, and found a really neat blue pair, and Samuel found the same pair except silver and got them. It’s kind of cool because now we’re going around with really cool glasses. Okay I’m lame. Whatever.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I really like how much people use bikes to get around here in Japan, even in Tokyo. Here’s a picture of a bike rack in a busy area:

On our first night, we decided to be adventurous and stay at a capsule hotel. For those of you who haven’t heard of them, Tokyo is kind of famous for having many capsule hotels, so-named because you actually sleep in capsules that are all laid out on either side of a wall. They are for men only, since they are usually occupied by businessmen who need a place to stay while on a business trip. When I read about them, I thought that it was probably pretty crampt and not very nice, considering that it only costs about 28$ a night to stay in one. However, for the sake of adventure, we went and stayed in one, and were pleasantly surprised! First of all, when you arrive, you just pay by the night: they give you a key, a robe and a towel. You can go into a locker room to lock up your stuff and change into the robe, and the towel is for the shower/hot tub/sauna area. They also had a really nice lounge area with lots of chairs all pointed towards a TV that no one seemed to be watching, because they had walls and walls of manga (Japanese graphic novels) that you could take out and read. But because of my limited Japanese-reading ability, it was really no good for me. But still, the chairs were nice and they had free computers with internet to use. But the first night we were quite tired so we just headed up to the beds. They weren’t nearly as crampt as I had expected them to be: there was plenty of room to stretch out, and enough height to sit up. In fact, it was pretty much just like bunk-beds, except with walls around them. And you had a little roll-down screen that you could pull to block the light and for privacy. Here are some pictures of Samuel and I at the hotel!

Unfourtunatly, on the first night of being there, I ate something that didn’t settle with me… I don’t know if it was food poisoning, or there was some shellfish stock in the soup I had or what, but I started to bring it all back up. And then I went to sleep for a while, but then I woke back up to bring some more of it up, over and over for a few hours. After that, I was more feeble than I’d ever been before: I could barely move, and when I did it took all my strength. They only thing I was good at was sleeping… so Sunday was completely out for me.

After I recovered, we went to several other districts in the area. These included:

Akihabara, the electronics district, selling pretty much any kind of electronic, video game, anime, manga, or whatever else your geeky little heart can think of. Everywhere you went, there were cheap gadgets, flashing lights, old and new games, and girls dressed up like anime characters trying to get you to come into the shops and buy stuff. Don’t believe me?

When going around the city during the day, you never know what you’ll see! Take for example this giant hamburger that I ate:

If you think that’s big, you should have seen the fries! Oh, and after you are done eating, eventually you have to use the pooper… or in Samuel’s case, buy a toy at a vending machine that ends up being an Asian-style squat toilet with a “present” already in it!

And everywhere you go, there’s interesting buildings to see, such as the following ones from Asakusa:

And there were others everywhere we went, like this one in Tsukigi. However, it doesn’t look Asian, and we have no idea what it actually is. Somehow that doesn’t bother us though.

When I saw the following, I just had to take a picture; it reminded me of a certain place from a certain university in a certain small town in a certain small province in a certain second-biggest country in a certain world in a certain galaxy of a certain Universe:

And even in the subway stations, there were amusing things to look at, like the following sign:

Truth be told, I didn’t know you weren’t allowed to swing your arms around at a subway station… at least, I think that’s what they are doing, I can’t really tell. At least now I know that I’m supposed to go to a beach first.

Oh, and by the way, we met up with Spider-Man!!! Although it looks like Tokyo’s low crime-rate is making him bored or something, because he’s starting to take up part-time jobs:

Of course, being a city, it looks coolest at night with all the lights lit up!

The following picture was a wall that we saw at night that was completely lit up, and displaying numbers around a corner in Roppongi.

The numbers changed often, but not in any noticable order; they weren’t increasing or decreasing, so we’re not really sure what the point of them was… probably none, but they looked cool!!

Later after that, we went to Yokohama, a city in the greater Tokyo area, but considered a different city. It was a pretty huge minato-shi (harbour city) with one of the biggest China towns in the world. Of course, if you really want a China town, you best go to China. Here is the China town:

And here’s what the harbour looks like at nighttime:

Pretty cool, eh?

Well, I know this wasn’t my best writing ever, but I just wanted an excuse to post a bunch of pictures since I found a newer, easier way to do it and wanted to take advantage of it. Thanks for humouring me.

When I was posting my previous posts, I was unable to upload pictures and video because I did not have internet: rather I wrote up my blogs on my computer offline, and the copied and pasted onto the work computer to upload just the text. Now I have entered into the 21st Century, and I have internet, so I can now provide you with photos and video of my new life! Sadly, though, a lot of the photos that I took until arriving in Tokyo are lost… but here’s what I got!

Nightlife in Tokyo. When you’re there, it’s hard to tell that it is actually night, because the neon signs collaborate together and emit elumination on par with the sun’s.

The Japanese sure love their vending machines! Yes, this is outside at night…

Tsubasa and I met up and went out for ramen.

The very first ramen shop I ever entered.

Japan loves to put characters on things.

The Prime Minister of Japan is Taro Aso… an election is coming up soon… do you think he’ll get re-elected?

Before I begin this post, it has come to my attention that some people think that I am already out in Japan. I can understand the confusion though, so here’s some clarification on this issue:
June 27th was my last day in the valley, but not in Nova Scotia. I left the valley on the 27th in order to come visit Mitch & Anastasia in Hollywood, California. However, I will be coming back to Halifax on July 9th, and will be there until July 22nd when I leave for Montreal. In Montreal I have a few pre-departure orientations. Then on July 25th, I will be leaving for Tokyo, Japan for a big orientation for all JETs worldwide. Then finally on July 29th, I will be heading to Hirosaki, Japan, where I will begin my new life as an Assistance Language Teacher at Hirosaki High School. There, that should save everyone some confusion!

Now, right before leaving to LA, Solveig and I had the chance to borrow my parents’ vehicle and take a trip to various points in Nova Scotia. A trip around your home province may not seem that exciting, but hey, I don’t usually have a car, so it was something new! This trip was important to us because even though I am coming back to Nova Scotia after this current trip I am on, Solveig will no longer be there because she is currently on a cultural exchange in Kazakhstan, and won’t be coming back until after I am in Japan. Therefore, this was our last chance to spend some time with each other before webcams become our main mode of communication.

We sort of made up the trip as we went along. On Monday, Solveig, Mark, Yuko, Kasheena and I first went to the Oakland Farms Zoo, where the world’s largest known lion recently passed away. It’s actually probably the best zoo I’ve been to, having been to ones in Calgary, Hong Kong and Florida. Why? Because:

1. There are no lines for anything anywhere.
2. If the animals are friendly enough to approach, you are allowed to go right up to them and give them a hug or whatever (ie. no cage or fence between you and the animal).
3. They had loads of animals, both local and exotic: ponies, camels, ostriches, cougars, lions, goats, monkeys, raccoons, you name it. No giraffes though.
4. The animals there, at least on the day we went, were actually very exciting. Often you go to a zoo and the animals are sitting around with nothing to do. But at this zoo, the monkeys were swinging and playing, the panthers were knocking a ball around a pool, the ostriches were running around, the goats were eating out of people’s hands.
5. Most animals have a pretty nice area to roam around in. In some zoos I’ve been to the animals literally had concrete floors to run around on. Here they often had a large area to explore. Not as big as in Florida, but still quite nice.
6. The entry cost for students is 3.50$. Can’t complain about that!

Pictures of the animals will come as soon as I get them!

Then we all went down to good ol’ Digby, home of scallops and Cecil Wetmore (sing the song!). The day was rather cloudy, but reasonably scenic none-the-less. We stopped for lunch at the harbour, and took turns using our serviettes as sailor hats. That previous statement may require more explanation, but I’m not sure what more to say about it. I would like to show you some pictures, however I am not currently on my own computer, so I don’t have them uploaded to show you. Again, you’ll just have to imagine the places for now!

Next we continued along the Digby Neck. We were disappointed to find out that you can’t really see the ocean for most of the way down. On a map it looks so long and thin that you’d have ocean on either side of you, but don’t be fooled!! It’s mostly just trees. However, eventually we came to a spot where you must load up onto a ferry. However we decided not to, and instead pulled over to take a look around. It was actually quite a nice view of a long stretch of island. There were many levels, and the colourful houses were raised just above the sea. To our right, off in the distance and up high at a peak, stood a proud lighthouse to warn ships about the islands’ presence on foggy days (and this was just such a day). On our side was a dockhouse of some sort that seemed almost abandoned, though I was later proven wrong when I heard party music coming from it.

Solveig was in some sort of mini-paradise because as we walked along towards the ferry there were many lobster traps along the way. When the ferry returned from the other side, we decided to hop aboard. We didn’t take the car, we just walked on it and waited for it to cross. And it was during this time that the down-pour started. It was a wet ride across to the island, both because of the rain, and because Solveig and I were standing at the bow getting splash by the water. The ferry was very low-rise, so the water splashed up pretty high. We asked them how much time we had, and they said that the ferry would leave again at 6:00. On the other side we walked along the roads of the town… it was definitely and indoor day, as we saw no one else outside of their car. They probably thought we were crazy coming out all this way just to walk in on the deserted streets of a fishing village on a rainy day. If they didn’t think that was strange, they at least had a good laugh at our expense. Especially when we asked Solveig what time it was, and she said 6:00, so all five of us began running towards the ferry yelling “Wait! Don’t go!”, but we made it aboard. Then I looked at my cell phone’s watch, and it said that it was only 5:50, meaning that we looked even more ridiculous running towards the ferry. Either way the sailors (ferryers?) were very nice to us and let us sit in a heated room to warm up on the way back.

And that concludes this episode of Nova Scotia Trip 2009. Stay tuned for the exciting sequel, affectionately called “Tuesday”.

This year, after a lot of paperwork, an interview in Montreal, and months of anticipation, I have been given the privilege to join the JET Programme’s 2009 Team from Montreal. What’s that? The JET Programme has been up and running for 22 years, sending successful applicants across the world to Japan to teach English. Our applications were due in November, our interviews were in Feburary, we found out our results in April, our orientation was this past weekend, and we leave in July. Woo, did I forget anything?

As preparation for our brand new lives in a foreign country, which speaks another language, and doesn’t contain anyone or anywhere we are familiar with, JET has an orientation weekend a month before departure to help us get ready for the big change. Because the Consulate of Japan in Montreal is also the consulate for Atlantic Canada, I went to Montreal to attend this event for the weekend, and it was 100% worth-while.

First of all, it was a great opportunity to meet the other JETs that have been selected to represent Montreal this year. There were a little over a dozen of us (I think) as well as a number of previous JETs who are now part of the JET Alumni Association.

Second, it was a chance to get to know more about the programme and the people who run it. For example, we were able to get better acquainted with the JET coordinator of Montreal. When I first met Mrs. Giroux (the coordinator), it was at my interview and I was extremely nervous. At the time, she was relatively straight-faced and it was quite intimidating… though I assume that the straight-faces to make sure you can handle the pressure, since being in front of students in a foreign country qualifies as stressful for many people. It was great to get to talk to her more, though, because she is very friendly, inviting, and shared lots of helpful and useful information with us. She mostly facilitated the time between the talks, presented primarily by the aforementioned JETAA.

The topics of the orientation were many:

• Clothing and Packing
• Culture Shock
• Spare Time & Networking
• Money and Taxes
• Inaka (being in the country)
• Conflict Resolution
• Team Teaching
• Lesson Planning
• Classroom Management
• Language & Etiquette
• Reality Check
• Love and Relationships
• Q & A Panel

I won’t go into the details of each one, but suffice to say, there was a lot to take in! The JETAAs had great information to share. It was all very relevant, important to know, and there was a lot that was mentioned that we otherwise would not be aware of. They all had fun personalities as well, turning some topics that might normally be quite dry into interesting and hilarious descriptions of what to expect. What I found most useful, from the information, was mostly about culture: what to expect from the kids, the other teachers, and to be ready for anything because things will spring up on you, etc. But there were also a lot of things I didn’t know about that I can prepare here as well: getting an international driver’s licence, (maybe) registering medication, teaching materials to bring, what to ship, etc. Also, it turns out that our first month will not be spent teaching: we don’t actually start until September. Instead it is a time to get settled in, to begin lesson plans, to get to know the teachers you’ll work with, to get familiar with the schools/students (who are still around even though there’s no classes), etc.

If there was one down-side to the orientation, it was just that it was information overload and I couldn’t think about it all at once! Of course, that was just the nature of a weekend orientation. Good thing I took notes to read and got a handbook for future reference! And by the same token, there is only so much that other members can say and prepare us for. A lot of what we’ll need to know about teaching in Japan will only come from the experience of doing it and the time dedicated to the endeavor.

For those of you who don’t know, I have been placed in Hirosaki city, which is located in the Aomori prefecutre. Here’s its location on a map:

I’ve heard that it is very beautiful there, they have delicious apples, its in a good location and is neither too big nor too small. It’s population is 184,675 people, with a density of 352.7 people/km2. To compare this, Halifax (not the HRM, just Halifax) has 119,292 people, with a density of 1226.9 people/km2. As you can see, although Hirosaki has more people, Halifax has almost 4 times the density. So for everyone who thought that if you live in Japan, you must be shoulder-to-shoulder to your neighbor: if you don’t feel crammed in Halifax, you probably won’t feel that way in Hirosaki. Of course, these are just stats and I have yet to say anything from experience.

For any JETs out there who are reading this, this might be helpful to you:
Christian Lepierre, one of the JETAAs who was presenting at this orientation, has generously donated his teaching materials for download. You can get them here.

While I was there, I got a chance to stay with Donald Hunt, and meet up with Bradon Adams as well. They were both in musicals with me in High School, and it was great to see them again. Donald was very hospitable to me, and it was great to catch up. I also briefly met his girlfriend Hillary, who was very nice. We didn’t really get a chance to talk though.

Only 39 days until departure!!!

Dan and I were sitting around playing around, playing Evony, when Dan’s mom came home and reminded us that the outdoors still exists. She recommended that we go to the Quabbin Reservoire. Dan said he hadn’t even thought about going there, but she informed us it was a really beautiful tourist spot close by and she rightfully added, “we often forget about the amazing places that exist in our own backyard.”

So we headed out to the Quabbin, and indeed it was very close. We had no trouble finding it, and it was indeed a very beautiful place. Its history, according to Wikipedia, is this:

Metropolitan Boston began to outstrip its local water supplies in the early part of the nineteenth century. Many possible sources of water were explored, including groundwater and rivers, but none was considered adequate in quantity and cleanliness to meet the needs of the rapidly growing city. After several years of controversy, the Massachusetts General Court (the official name of the state legislature) authorized the construction of the Cochituate Aqueduct to bring water to Boston from Lake Cochituate in Wayland and Natick, Massachusetts.

However, Dan gave a more Dan-like explanation of the history behind the place:

Once upon a time, there was a big city in Massachusetts named “Boston”. Its existence extends to this very day, and in all likely hood it’ll be around until even after the rapture. One day the people of Boston woke up and realized they were thirsty. “We’re thirsty, but we have no water,” said Boston. They scouted out their state and found four small towns to exploit. They told these towns, “Hello, we’re Boston. We’re thirsty. Give us drink!” The towns replied, “We haven’t much water to give.” So Boston said “That’s okay, we’ll just flood you and use that water as a reservoir.” And the four towns said “We don’t want to be flooded!” But Boston replied “Yes you do!” and they flooded the four towns. And that is how the Quabbin Reservoire was formed.

Anyway, we took some pictures while we were there, but they are on Dan’s mom’s camera, and I don’t have them right now, so I had to choose some pictures online that resemble the sights we saw there. They are not quite accurate, but they give you an idea:

Pretty nice place, eh?

For the next few days, while Dan was at work, I got to spend time with his whole family: I went to Dunkin’ Donuts with his mom, I went to see a movie called The Soloist with Dan’s grand-parents, and then I went out for lunch with Dan’s dad. It was good to spend some time with them because I hadn’t seen them much since being there. And on Friday evening, we went to his sister’s place to meet up with her, her husband Rocko (from Rocko’s Modern Life fame), Dan’s brother Andy and his brother’s wife. We watched an episode of Lost, but I had never seen Lost before, so I was completely “Lost” myself. *Comedy Drum Hit* And then we played a bit of Wii and went home. I kind of wish that we had done something together that involved more direct interaction, but it was as it was.

On Sunday, Dan and I went to church, and I noticed that the area that he goes to church has some amusing street names. Among them? “Kellogg Ave.” (where I’m assuming breakfast cereal is made), “Fearing St.” (where horror movies must take place) and “No Pleasant St.” (which sounds pleasant enough):

Afterwards, we went to a games shop called Worlds Apart, which, I discovered, is a non-profit establishment run by volunteers. They let us come in and play games all afternoon! Dan’s brother Andy had suggested that we play a game called Dominion, and when we arrived that was the very game that a volunteer there recommended that we play! So we played it with him, and had a lot of fun. It took a long time though, between Dan and I having to use the washroom and Alex (the volunteer, whose birthday it was) having to attend to customers.

Oh, and don’t use the word “washroom” in the US, they don’t seem to know what that is… It’s only “bathroom” down there… even if it doesn’t have a bath.

We then continued playing the game with Aaron, one of Dan’s friends from small groups and church, and his brother. If you want proof, here’s a picture! (Aaron’s on the right… the one that’s not me.)

We played there the whole afternoon, and I was seriously considering buying the game. Because it was only a card game, I figured it would be about 30$ or so. But it turns out it was 45$…. AMERICAN!!! *Dun dun duuun*
So I decided not to buy it, and soon after that Dan and I headed out of the town… but on the way out, I had a thought: this is a non-profit organization, all of the people there are volunteers, and they let us come in and spend the whole day playing games for free. Don’t I at least owe them something for that? And I’d like to support what they are doing. Even if I could buy the game elsewhere at a lower price, I wouldn’t be supporting their organization by doing so. So I asked Dan if we could go back so I could get the game, and he graciously agreed. I went in and bought the game, and I felt really good about purchasing it as well. It made me realize how I should think about spending my money. Originally I was just thinking about “How much am I willing to pay so that I can be the owner of this game?”, and when it was more than I had wished for, I backed off. But I really should have thought about it in terms of supporting them. I guess I’m just used to thinking the other way around since most commercial things I buy are from bigger companies that don’t really need my money.

By Sunday, it was time to wrap things up. To do so, we first made a trip to Dan’s workplace: Pride Gas Station! That’s right, I was there… in person! But not in the following pictures:

And finally, after that, we made a trip to Boston, to visit the city a bit before I flew back to Halifax. On an airplane. In the sky. Dan had never really spoken highly of Boston before, but we thought it would be cool to explore a bit before heading out anyway. We were going to visit the New England Aquarium, but then we decided it made more sense to spend the time outside, since it was such a nice day. The first thing we did was go to Omni Parker House Hotel, which was where the very first Boston Cream Pie was ever created! Naturally we each got one! Although… it’s more of a cake than a pie, but I’m sure they are sick of people pointing that out by now:

And for those of you who are curious what ours looked like:

The pie/cake had about a 3 or 4 inch diameter and was about 2 inches high. The outside had a light frosting with chocolate on top and vanilla (?) along the sides. Also covering the sides were some sort of sliced nut- I think it was almond, and lots of it. Whatever it was, it tasted kind of like coconut. The inside had soft, moist cake and in the middle was… uh… oh yeah! BOSTON CREAM! It was quite a good little treat, though expensive at 9.00$ each!

Overall though, I was surprised because the Boston cream taste that I’m used to from Tim Horton’s Donuts wasn’t nearly as distinct in the real thing. I’m not sure how to explain it, but it just didn’t taste quite as strong. Although I was glad to have the chance at trying the real thing, I think I actually prefer the donuts. Go figure.

After that, we went around the city of Boston’s Freedom Trail, which is a set path, laid out by red bricks along the downtown of the city, outlining special places still standing from America’s early history. We were going to go on the tour, but it was more than we wanted to pay for, and Dan said he would give me the same tour for free. So off we went.

One of the most interesting stops we made was to the Old North Church. It was from here that Robert Newman, the sexton at the church, organized a plan with Paul Revere to signal him using lanterns as to where the British troops would be located that night. It was from this signal that Paul was able to make his famous ‘midnight run’, to warn the Americans that the British were coming to disarm them. This happened right before the battles of Lexington and Concord. He has since then been much “revered”. (Cue to laugh out loud)

I won’t write up all the details or post all the pictures, but I will leave you with this one clip of Dan and I visiting Boston’s Old City Hall. It will make you feel like you’re going back in time…

I am now in the House in Belchertown, Massachusetts with the one, the only, Dan O’Shea! I just arrived in Boston on Monday evening, and was welcomed with a treat of Dunkin’ Donuts. But in America-land, you can buy their breakfast sandwiches at any time in the day, and their “mediums” are actually “extra larges”. This really is the land of the free.

Dan and I have been having a good time just saying ridiculous things, talking about and studying Japanese, making meals mostly involving onions, sausage and perogies, teaching Dan some JAVA, playing games, watching anime, etc. The anime is called Zipang and is about a modern war-ship that accidently travels back to World War II. It’s pretty interesting because they are caught in the cross-fire of real battles… except that they have a ship that could easily help out the Japanese. The question is, should they? Pete would be proud that we are being so productive.

We are planning to go to a small group, or “house church” as they call them here, tonight. Should be fun. It’ll give me a chance to meet some of Dan’s friends, since so far it’s been mostly Dan, myself and Shen (Dan’s dog).

Also, we might be going to the store to grab an iPod Touch. I’ll mostly be using it as a Japanese-English dictionary while in Japan, but there are plenty of other uses I’ll discover for it, such as keeping contacts and calendars.

Right now we are playing a free online strategy game together called Civony. The whole game is in real-time, so set something to build and if it says it’ll take 14 minutes, it really means 14 minutes. It’s not intended to be played all in one sitting.

Oh, and later we’re going to try and make some Chicken and Apples in Honey Mustard Sauce. Yum!… I think…

Dan wants me to say that what is going on here is significant. That’s all he can say for now, because he doesn’t want to put any of his operatives who are in the field in danger. I’m sure we all can understand the sensitivity of this subject matter.