Week two

This week seems to have flown by! I can't believe sometimes how fast things go.
We spent our week at the universities around the Kobe area. At Konan we were finally able to eat lunch with some of the girls this week. They were really nice girls but they did not speak much english so communication was difficult. They other two universities were still difficult. It's just so hard to walk up to a complete stranger and try and start a conversation with them. We went to a new university on Friday called Kansai dai. It's a beautiful school with a large campus. I think it's bigger than Tech campus. All the buildings are in the spanish mission style so when you walk onto campus you feel like you've been transported to California or New Mexico. Kansai Dai also has a bigger international population so when we walk around we don't stick out as much, which is good. Charlie has a friend at Kansai Dai who is a Christian and a first year student. He took us around campus and gave us a tour. We ended up meeting some students who were apart of photography circle. We probably talked to them for a good hour and a half. We exchanged business cards (which are very important to have in Japan) and I'm hoping that at least one of the girls will get a hold of one of us so we can hang out or something. 

Kansai Dai

On Saturday we went to Kyoto. Kyoto is a very old city in Japan and it used to be the capital many years ago. Much of the city has been preserved so in some parts it feels like you are walking back in time. We first visited Nijo castle. Nijo was the castle of a very powerful shogun. This place was awesome. It has a floor, called the nightingale floor, that squeaks when ever you walk on it. They made it this way on purpose - to keep the ninjas out! Isn't that cool? The castle itself was not super big, but the grounds were large. The place had two moats! After the castle we went to the Kimono/textile factory and saw a Kimono fashion show. I'm sure the guys in our group were thrilled but us girls loved it. They were so pretty. They women look like dolls when when they were the kimono.

Me at the gate of Nijo castle

Kimono Fashion show ( Laura, I thought this would be your favorite ; ) ) 

Then we went to a buddhist temple called sanjusengendo, which means temple of a thousand buddhas. There were a thousand life size buddha statues lined up in rows across the temple. In the midddle of all of the small statues was a giant buddha. It was a very dark place. It was really sad to see people worshipping a statue made of wood and covered in gold leaf. Going there, in a way, gave me a renewed motive for what we are doing this summer. We are called to bring light to dark places. After sanjusengendo we went to another temple called kyomizudera. I think it means holy water temple.
On our way out of Kyoto, we stopped in Gion. Gion is the geisha district of Kyoto. We didn't expect to see any geisha because they are usually pretty sneaky but we ended up seeing ten! I was so surprised. Now, I don't know who knows what geisha are or not but it's a common misconception that they are prostitutes. They are not prostitutes but artisans. They are trained to play musical instruments, sing, and dance. Often they are hired to go to teahouses and parties. It's hard to describe them because we have nothing like it in the U.S.

All in all, Kyoto was a good day. It was definitely an eye opening day.
On Sunday we had to say goodbye to one of our team members, Matt. For the going away party we all went to an okonomiyaki restaurant owned by two sisters. According to Charlie and Teresa, it's the best place to get okonomiyaki. After eating there, I totally agree. I ate way too much but it was so good.

Okonomiyaki! : )

After we said bye to Matt we all went to church. There are three different churches that we go to. I went to Crossroads-Nishinomiya. By American standards it's a small church, but in Japan it's pretty big. I really like going there. It's an international church so the services are in english and japanese.
After church, Nathan and I went to meet a guy who contacted us wanting to learn english. In return he is going to teach us a little Japanese. D is a nice guy, about 26 years old. It's our hope that we will be able to share the gospel with him at some point during the summer.
I know this post is long. Sorry! I can be long winded at times!
Please pray for us as we go into a new week. Pray that some of the students we met would contact us and want to hang out more. We want to build relationships with them. If we do this it allows us to share the good news. Pray for me and Nathan as we try to establish a friendship with D. Pray that he would be a person of peace who is open to the good news. Also please pray for us interns by name - Katie, Emily, Nathan, David, Cody, and Josh. Please pray that we would be able to build strong friendships with Japanese students and that we would not be afraid to share the gospel with them.