Happy Super Terrific Day

Sunday was such a great day in Mito. Aaron and I went to his church. We walked probably 4 or 5 miles. In Mito humidity, though, it just seemed like 20! There were SO many Japanese people at church -- I had thought it would be mostly AET types -- there were LOTS of those, too. It was a standing room only crowd. The service is done in mostly Japanese. Then after communion, the "foreigners" go to a different room for the sermon time -- much like our Kids for Christ dismissal. In the foreigners' service there were announcements, songs, and a devo style sermon. Then we met back upstairs with the Japanese church group for closing. It was VERY nice. I met so many super sweet people. Aaron and I went with two lovely young women to lunch at a curry place called CoCo's. It was delightful. This is a great favorite place of many of the AETs, and Aaron and his friends highly recommended it. They ordered the very mildest curried rice and veggies for me. I loved it. Then we went to Starbuck's and got vanilla cream shakes. I loved that, too. I had never had any of these treats before. The girls, blessedly, had a car and dropped us back to Aaron's apartment. We were going to read for a few minutes, take a little nap, then walk around downtown, maybe shop and enjoy the sights. That was the plan at 2:00 yesterday. The next thing we both knew, we woke up and it was 7:30 at night! I didn't even know if it was day or night. For some reason I had jet lag -- but so did Aaron!!? So we sat around in shock for an hour or so, then we commenced to cook yet more pasta and bread for dinner, and do laundry in the odd little "washing machine." In Texas, this thing would be classified as a toy, but never mind. So then I hung out these wet items or ironed them sort of dry. Apparently, only the Emporer has a dryer and he is very careful about using it. We had a ball, as usual. We watched some of the new Simpson's season 5 DVD that I had packed for Mr. D., and it was funny. Aaron was slightly appalled at how much his apartment had morphed since I had come with all my gear everywhere, not to mention the laundry hanging all around and the ironing board set up and smoking. I got up this morning (Monday) at 5:10am just like yesterday. Aaron is appalled at that, as well. See, this sun, here, rises at 4 or 3 or something. Anyway, by 5:10, it looks for all the world like 9:00am to my asleep brain, and I'm not sleeping with all that midmorning light in the room. So I took this happy, super terrific bath. Not exactly the fabulous public baths that are so famous in Japan -- Aaron has done that, uh, it's probably not for me -- but a delightful bath none the less. The bathtub, which has never been used, is short in length, but really deep. It is SO great. I mean, I had that hot water up to my neck. Now, Aaron's electric bill will probably be $1000.00 just for this one bath. People speak in hushed tones about hot water and electricity usage here. Aaron's washer DOESN'T HAVE a hot water hook-up anywhere on the appliance! The concept of washing with hot water isn't understood. No wonder there's a language barrier. We're operating differently, here. No, it's gone beyond different planet, different region, different culture, different language -- we're operating on an entirely different dimension, here. We're heading, Lord willing, to Tokyo in a few hours. We are going to visit Aaron's schools -- if our ride pans out......then, on to Tokyo Station and, maybe, Kabuki Theatre tonight -- if we can get tickets! Yes, I see all the ifs!!