Futon laundry

Coin operated laundry.  Pretty neat.  It has been a long time since I used a coin operated washer & dryer.  We put 2 futons in the right washer, capable of washing up to 22 kg.  The remaining futon, we put it in the left washer, smaller at max of 12 kg.  31 minutes of washing for 900 yen in the larger washer and same amount of time for 600 yen.  Since these futons are from the Kagoshima Sister missionaries, we needed to get receipts for reimbursements.  Sister Lee had to make phone calls to the laundry help center to request the receipts.  So this will be another regular task for us.

More Aquarium pics

This fish is strange.  It keeps sticking what appears to a forked tongue out.

A sea star.

sword fish

jellyfish

Had to get Sister Lee into the photo to show how huge this fish is.

Dolphin show.

 

Some statue outside of the aquarium, not sure what it supposed to be.

1 person submarine.

Eels poking their heads out of ground

These are eels sticking out of the sea bed.  Funny creatures.  It is like gophers sticking their heads out of gopher holes.

Kagoshima Aquarium

Monday, preparation day - more commonly known as P-Day.  So far most P-Days have been spent cleaning our apartment, wash laundry, some grocery shopping.   However on Apr 22, for P-Day we decided to go visit the Kagoshima Aquarium.  When we first came to Kagoshima, we received a "Welcome Wagon" packet from city hall where we can visit various attractions free within 6 months of our arrival.  Since we've been here for 3 months now, we thought we had better take advantage of those freebies before they expire.  The exhibits are very good.

Heading back to Kagoshima

Shinkansen - bullet train.  This is the way to travel in Japan.  Fast, smooth, on time, conductors & stewardesses are so courteous.

Local cemetery

This is the cemetery where many of Sister Lee's relatives are buried. It is only a few blocks walk from her mom's house.

On the way from cemetery to Sister Lee's old house, we walked past this entrance to a shrine.  Sister Lee says the entrance used to be at the bottom of the hill, so people had a good healthy climb to get to the shrine.  Even at this new entrance, people still more hill to climb.

Grandpa

We visited another aunt and took a picture of Sister Lee's maternal grandfather portrait hanging on the wall.  Both of us forgot to take a photo of her aunt.  Next time.

Tamago to Watashi

We try to go to lunch and eat this one dish that Hiroshima is famous for but we found out that there was a 1 hr. wait.  So we went next door, Tamago to Watashi, which means Eggs and Me.

This is what I ordered and the next photo is what Sister Lee ordered.  Needless to say, we really enjoyed it.

Peace Park Stroll

This is a statue of peace goddess in Peace Park.  We strolled through the nearby Peace Park after seeing the Tole painting exhibit.  Here we met some 4 tourists from Utah.  One of their nephews actually will be coming to serve somewhere in our Fukuoka mission.

This is the remnant of the building above which the atomic bomb exploded.

Just for fun, I thought I would add this photo because it had my name on the building.

Tole painting

This is one of Tamae's masterpieces.  She has been doing tole painting for many years now.  I was very impressed and suggested she should try to sell them.  Her painting was on exhibit with others at a local department store building.

Visit Auntie

On the right is an aunt of Sister Lee.  She is sister of Sister Lee's mom.  To the left of her is her daughter in law.

Here Sister Lee and Tamae joined in.

Just right next to the porch of auntie's house was a planter aquarium with real tiny fishes swimming.  The red is fake, but others are real.  If you look carefully, there is one swimming toward me that is just to the left of the fake red one.

This is the garden looking from auntie's house porch.

Here's a photo showing I was there too.

First Order of Business

After a 2 hr. 21 min. Shinkansen ride (on time - precise departures & arrivals) and nearly 3 months in Japan, we were craving for some pizza.  Sister Lee's sister Tamae picked us up at the train station and we headed for Costco in Hiroshima.  Here the food court is outside the main Costco store, so they allow anyone to eat there, regardless of membership.  I took my Costco card out thinking they would check it but no, the server didn't care.  We ordered the combo pizza and since we were at Costco, I also ordered the Costco hotdog meal deal.  In Japan it is 180 yen, which is slightly more than $1.50 back in the states, but it is still a great deal.

Here we are, with our carts full, heading out on this long belt conveyor escalator, one cart for us and another for Tamae, going to the garage which is above the main floor.  We knew we would bring back a lot of food so we brought extra luggage, which was definitely used.

Going to Hiroshima to visit Sister Lee's family

As we are waiting for the time to go to the train boarding platform, I noticed we were sitting right by this coffee shop.  Almost thought we were back in the states.  Japanese branches / wards tend to show taped sessions of General Conference the following weekend after the live events took place.  We thought that would be a good time to go visiting.

Kagoshima Branch Olympics

First I was asked to find some games from the Internet such as from "Minute to win it" that can serve as events in the Branch Olympics.  The goal was 10 events.  I tried to keep the costs down for materials needed for the events, so I used things that we already had in the apartment.  A few days later, I was asked to be the host to the Olympics.  So I was busy hosting and Sister Lee became the photographer.  The following are some of the photos Sister Lee took.

This event is to bounce 5 ping pong balls into any of 5 cups.

The above is an event where  2 players play toss and catch.  We didn't have enough ping pong balls so each team can only play with 4 balls.  The catcher holds a stack of 4 cups.  Catcher catches a ball tossed from teammate in the stack of cups.  After a successful catch, catcher takes the top cup with the caught ball and put it in the bottom of the stack of cups.  Once all 4 balls are caught, next player repeats the process.

The above two photos showed the event where a tower of 4 cups are stacked with 3 card borads or stiff papers. The objective is to pull the separator paper quickly, fast enough to not disturb the angle of the top cup and let it fall on top of the lower cup.

The above 4 photos were taken from the event that tests expertise in using chopsticks. Each player had to transfer 5 skittles from one cup across the table to another cup.

It was a close contest.  8 pts for 1st place in an event, followed by 5 pts for 2nd place, 3 pts for 3rd, and 1 pt. for 4th.  The overall lead changed hands throughout the events and it came down to the very last event to decide the champion.  But all who attended were winners because they had fun and got to eat ice cream afterwards.

Another photo of seminary breakfast

Everyone enjoyed breakfast. I was still wearing my apron.  It serves another purpose as my large bib.  Now that I am wearing shirt and tie virtually all the time, I need to protect myself against my slobbering tendencies.

Seminary Breakfast

We got up early Tuesday morning (4/2) to make breakfast for the early morning seminary students.  That's like 6 people in the seminary class and 8 missionaries making breakfast.  We left our apartment at 5:25 a.m., picked up the portable grill from the teaching station, picked up a pair of missionary elders and headed up to church.  The photo above shows Sister Takahashi in the back, not sure what she is doing, and the other two are Sister Orth from Brisbane, Australia and Elder Cook from California.  He was in charge of this event so technically we can call him Chef Cook.  They were making the batter for carrot cupcakes.  Recipe was in grams but we didn't have a scale, so we estimated.  It worked out fine as the carrot cupcakes came out delicious.  People say too many cooks spoil the broth.  Well in this case, carrot cupcakes was raised by a village.  I peeled the carrots and chopped strawberries for the pancake toppings.  Sister Lee grated the carrots. Chef Cook and Sister Orth mixed the ingredients.  Then a bunch of missionaries scooped the batter into the cupcake tins.  Assembly line baking worked to perfection.

In this photo, don't remember what Sister Lee is doing.  Elder Ehlert, our zone leader, with his back to us, was in charge of cooking the pancakes.  Not in these photos, Elder Arnold cooked the scrambled eggs.  Anyway, the breakfast was a success.  The seminary students and teachers had a good time, as did we.  Food turned out great.  We had pancakes with strawberries and whip cream toppings, bacon, sausage, carrot cupcakes & scrambled eggs.