Church cleaning & Mochi

Jan 13, 2020 - This was some Japanese national holiday "Coming of Age" so the Kagoshima Branch scheduled a church cleaning day and then have an activity to make mochi, a delicious pastry made from rice flour and usually filled with sweet red bean paste.  Cleaning is hard work but can be fun and enjoyable as shown here in a photo of President Sano (counselor in the Fukuoka Mission) and his wife.

This fence borders one of the parking lots at the old church building.  You can walk around the fence at the end (not very far to walk around) but Sister Sano decided to have some fun by climbing over it.  BTW, look at the cinder block foundation upon which sits the fence.  The foundation wall was all covered with moss.  I spent most of my time scraping off all the moss.  It was quite satisfying after seeing how nice the parking lot looked after a concerted effort by about 10 of us working together.

Making mochi the old traditional way.  2 people walk around a stone basin, gentle mixing of the rice flour / water by tapping with wooden mallets.

Then you pound the mochi with the mallet.  It is like at a carnival and play that game of trying to ring the bell.  They offered me a chance to do it, but because my shoulder problem, I had to decline.  It looked fun and everyone oohed and aahed when you get a nice strike where you get a very distinct popping sound.  In this photo it was Elder Sasaki swinging the mallet.

These 2 photos showed sisters inside the church wrapping the sweet bean paste inside the mochi.  They asked me to try.  So I did.  The first one, I apparently rolled the mochi in my hands too hard and thus the bean paste squeezed out.  You have to do it softly.  Learned from my mistake and did much better the next two.

OK, here is photo of finished product.  My first one is the 4th one from the left in the 3rd row.  You can see couple spots where the bean paste started to ooze out.  Right next to it (5th from the left) is my 2nd one, vast improvement over the first.

Best part of making mochi is the eating part.  Here is a photo of zenzai, sweet bean soup.  Just add one of the mochi into the soup, making it doubly sweet.  Before coming to Japan, I thought I would lose weight, thinking I'd walking all over the place.  Nope, I've put on a few extra pounds.  It is hard to lose weight when you got all these goodies to eat.

Posters Miracle

Jan 8, 2020 - English conversation class restarted after the New Year Holiday break.  The first 2 photos are of a portable billboard sign, one side has a poster of missionary work and the other a poster of free English class.  On the day of class, we set this billboard outside so passersby can see them as they walk by.  On this day, the wind was strong but at the time I set them out, it didn't feel strong enough it would knock it over.  However when I came out after class was over, they were indeed knocked down.  In fact, some nice passerby must have stacked them nicely to the side, but to my dismay, the posters were gone.  I walked up and down the block hoping they can be found, but no luck.  As I walked back to the new church building to close up, I saw out of the corner of my eye something white flapping in the wind inside the metal casing of the gate to the church parking lot.  They were the missing posters, both of them.  What are the odds that both posters would end up being stuck in the exact same place?  To get from the billboard sign was located to where the posters ended up, both of them would have had to fly up into the air, over the gate and over the bushes at a distance at least 30 ft, curl themselves inside the metal bars. The amazing thing too is that the posters only suffered couple tiny corners torn off, not even visible once put back into the billboard frame.  In my books, it is a miracle and they were preserved so that they may catch the attention of some passersby in the future.

Extra excitement on Interview Day

Jan 7, 2020 - On interview day, not only did we pick up President & Sister Mack at the train station but took couple elders to the foot doctor (as discussed earlier in post about clock with dancing figurines) and on this particular interview day went to pick up couple extra bikes from the Kagoshima Sisters' apartment for the purpose of missionary exchanges for out of town couple sisters who came for interviews.  It turned out one of the bikes had a problem, the back tire had a missing valve nut that keeps the valve from coming off.  These extra bikes are infrequently used, used only during exchanges, so typically the tires are low in air.  So when I tried to pump the tires up, I noticed the problem and had to rush over to the bike shop to get a replacement.  Thankfully the bike shop, where the missionaries do a lot of business, the attendant recognized us and gave a replacement free of charge.

Dancing figurines in a Clock

This is a clock at a foot doctor's office.  Photo was taken on Jan 8, 2020.  Right at 9 a.m. the middle section opens up (as shown), plays a song and then closes.  Then a nurse comes out from the door (bottom left of the photo) and announces names of persons who can come in to see the doctor(s).  The office does not take appointments over the phone nor internet.  Appointments are taken by physically writing name on a signup sheet at the office.  The building is locked until about 6:30 a.m. (varies depending on when the cleaning lady brings garbage down).  This particular doctor's office is usually very busy so it is not unusual to find people waiting for the building to open.  We've had a young missionary who needed his ingrown toenails attended to, so for most appointments a sister from the Kagoshima branch who lives near the office was kind enough to get up early in the morning to get him signed up.  The last few times, since they were so close together (Jan 7, 8, & 14), we didn't want to burden her too much so Sister Lee and I went to sign up for the 8th & 14th.  That's how we experienced first hand the sign up process.

Now back to the clock.  Japanese people likes punctuality.  Shinkansen is definitively the best example of punctuality.  This is another example.  After the clock plays the song, the announcing nurse comes out to call patients in right at 9:02 or 9:03 on the clock.  I thought the office was late because it was supposed to start at 9 a.m., but then I looked at my watch (digital) and it was right on at 9:00.  The clock was purposely set couple three minutes early so it would have time to play the song and alert patients to get ready.

Photo of 6 zones conference

Sister Lee and I are way, way back in this photo, last sitting row and almost near the center.

Where there is a will, there is a way!

Jan 7, 2020 - Interview Day

Last interview day, the interviews were conducted in the classroom for privacy and training session was done in the lobby.  The lobby doesn't have working heaters yet so it was cold and our 2 portable heaters just couldn't do the job in such large lobby and long hallways.  So this time we were looking for alternatives.  We tried the kitchen but it has no doors and our makeshift door just wasn't sound proof enough.  Our final solution was use the vestibule, space between the 2 sliding doors at the entrance before the lobby.  For privacy we used from our apartment laundry poles and laundry racks to hold up extra set of curtains.  Inside the lobby we used a table.  We put a portable heater in the makeshift room.  Since there is no wall outlet in the room, we had to tape down an extension cord.  We also shut down the sliding doors since they are motion sensitive.

Here is a photo of all of us at the interview day.

Another visit to Sakurajima

Jan 4, 2020 - Sakurajima Act II

The first time we went to Sakurajima, the ferry line was way long.  This time the line was not that long and I thought maybe we could make it onto the ferry.  Unfortunately, we didn't make it.  They allowed 2 more smaller cars onto the ferry but stopped loading at our car.  However we got to be the first car loaded on the next ferry (every 15 minutes) and thus the first car to exit the boat.  Next photo taken from car as we approach docking.  We had similar luck in our return.  We were the 5th car to be loaded.

Last time the weather didn't cooperate so we skipped a lot of the sightseeing and focused on visiting church members.  This time the sun was out and even though it was January, the temperature was warm enough.  We soaked our feet at the onset near the Sakurajima Visitor center just like last time but we allocated enough time to do some sightseeing before our first visit appointment.

I am not very good at doing this selfie thing but here we are.  People on the left are Chinese tourists.

Sister Lee says the temperature of the water is just perfect for her, not too hot and not too cold.

There were a bunch of Chinese that were sitting in the area of the following photo.  I waited until all left so I could take this photo.  In the background is the cityscape of Kagoshima.

In the visitor center, there are actually exhibits.  Last time we didn't have time to explore but this time we walked through the exhibits.  I found this one to be the most interesting, the world's largest radish was grown here.  I think what is inside the display case is just a replica.  I wonder if they grow large because of the volcanic soil.

Here is an outdoor store stand at the parking lot of the Arimura Lava Observatory with couple real radishes.  They would be dwarfs if placed next to this exhibit.

Here's Sister Lee with Sakurajima as the backdrop.  This is probably the closest we'll ever get to an active volcano.  There is another spot on Sakurajima that we could drive to that is closer.  If we go again and if weather cooperates, maybe we'll try that view.

The path at Arimura Lava Observatory consists mainly dirt path (lots of ash) and steps as depicted in next photo.  Lots of ash covering the steps so best not to run.  What is interesting and not very noticeable until you take a close look, the rails look like wood logs but in reality metal pipes but covered & painted to look like bark.

Here is one of several pavilions at this lava observatory.  You can actually see another pavilion further back in the photo.

I took this photo because there is container of helmets underneath the bench.  In the visitor center, there is a bulletin keeping track of # of eruptions for the year.  In 2019, there were 228 eruptions.  That's nearly 2/3 of the 365 days in a year.  Every day we can see smoke coming from the mountain, but obviously there is a criterion of what actually can be counted as an eruption.  Nearly 2/3 is good enough reason to keep the helmets handy just in case.

For big eruptions, there is this shelter right next to the observatory parking lot.  My question is what do you do if falling debris block the entrance once you are inside.  I guess better hope rescuers can come to check out these shelters soon after major eruptions.

Further down the road from the lava observatory was this gate that got buried from the huge eruption of 1914, which lava flow changed Sakurajima from an island to being connected to the main Kyushu Island.

Zenzai

Jan 3, 2020 - Missionaries were told not to visit people from Jan 1 - 3 so as not to interrupt people's plans of celebrating the New Year.  However, the Mishina's wanted us to come to teach them English on the 3rd.  So we did.  At the end of each lesson, Mrs. Mishina always feed us one of her refreshments that she makes from scratch.  This time it was zenzai, a sweet red bean soup with mochi (rice flour) balls (rice balls are known as yuan in Chinese).  It was yummy.  Since I haven't eaten yuan for many years, it was very satisfying.

Daiso Earfull

Dec 27, 2019 - Daiso is the best known 100 yen store in Japan.  It is like the dollar store in America.  While helping the Kagoshima Sisters buy a bike in a store at a nearby shopping center, Sister Lee and I went upstairs to a Daiso store.  I couldn't believe they actually were selling ears of sweet corn, individually wrapped.