Abunai…
AAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh I JUST DELETED A HUGE POST!! AAAAAAAAAGH.
ok Marston… regroup… I had a funny story about how I went to the daily lunch meeting of the bible study and we they were all murmuring the word “abunai” and finally I heard them say “Timu wa Abunai” [which I thought meant "Tim is dangerous"]. I reacted to this with a “Watassshiiiii????” (who, ME??). To which they tried to tell me something that I couldn’t figure out. Then, they pulled out their pocket electronic dictionaries, and showed the two following:
“Vaccinate the boy!” [there's a word for that?]
“measles”
And, if you wikipedia Measles, you will find that a number of universities in Japan have actually closed in 2007 because of large outbreaks of Measles. Well, now I guess it’s Tohoku’s turn. They haven’t closed Aobayama or anything, but I guess it’s going around pretty bad.
Uh, mom or dad – am I vaccinated? (I think I am… but keep the others in the Bible study in your prayers please).
And, in other news, here’s a bunch of pictures from my trip to Yamagata last weekend. Blast… I had such great captions for them all. Well… here will be the quick summaries!
Erei, Megumi, and Ai (yes they are gorgeous. Darn my Japanese ineptness!!)
Takuma (church music leader), Maki (pastoral intern) and Reika
Waving good-bye to Masako-sensei and Guy-Smiley (I don’t remember his name, but he is always smiling. You will remember him as the one draped in kids from the Song-farewell party)
We set right to work on Bingo!
Megumi hands out the first prize…
Bei-san acting (acting) all tough
These kids won a prize! A Kleenex box! (They still loved it)
Bei-san and his wife won in the same round. He is excitedly waving the Kleenex and other, probably similar, prize around, and demanding a photo
Beautiful Japan out the window… monkey probably hoping around in there.
When we got there, all the women carried umbrellas around, because of the sun. I found out later its because they are scared of getting little black dots on their skin from the sun.
After the sermon, we had a group photo (with MY camera!!! Victory!!! But that means I have to make prints tomorrow…)
The students eating together. You will recognize Erei and Pearl eating w/eachother and on the right is Takuma and Masato.
I ate with this group, and who were so great. I sat next to the Kawakami-sensei, and little girl who is always looking at me suspiciously. She accepted this time, though, especially when I asked her what her favorite food was. She proudly told me “jagaimo!” (potato).
We busted up to the small petting zoo afterwards. I was unaware that Ostriches are so funny looking
Feeding the goats
The girl who fascinatedly rubbed my nose (“hana nagaii!” – long nose!) now examining a deer:
Poking the Ostrich again with grass
Skipping the part where I find and take photos of dragonflies and giant furry caterpillars, etc. these are some great older people in the church who are always serving everyone else:
When we got back we were so beat
Thats a great picture of an osterich. so what does “abunai” mean after all?
I’m thinking of visiting some of my customers at the end of July or beginning of August. Is there a good time for you for us to hang a bit?
Uncle The
Uncle Ted – that would be really cool. I am gonna be leaving probably around August 15th because that is when my apartment lease in State College begins. Where are you going to be, in Japan? It would be the coolest if you could meet some of the people I know here, but I would be happy to do anything, really.
Jacobmarian – yeah the Ostriches had me cracking up. Abunai does mean dangerous, I guess it’s the context that determines whether the object is dangerous or subject to some sort of dangerous thing.
Shinjuku of course!
However, perhaps I can figure out how to stay extra. I’ll noodle on it. Good to get the deadline of August 15th.
UT