Christmas Kotatsu

Here is a picture of my living room, slightly decorated for Christmas. This is where I spend a lot of time working on music, studying, e-mailing, and blogging (like right now!). The computer and mini Christmas tree are sitting on a kotatsu--I can't remember if I've explained what a kotatsu is before. Basically, it's a blanket covered table with a heater under it-very nice for staying warm. (Check the link for more information.)

My visa was about to expire in January, so I went to the immigration office recently to file papers for an extension. Two days ago, I got my final paperwork to renew my visa through January of 2010, so I'm glad that went smoothly. (It would have been very inconvenient to have to leave the country to renew from America in the middle of the school year!)

Almost Christmas-maybe snow?

Today our school had "UICS Family Christmas" party. It was a potluck dinner with games and some music. It was great to get together with everyone and enjoy some delicious food (including chicken and stuffing-yum!) Before the party, the high school students performed a short operetta-they're been practicing for quite a while, and did a great job!

The weather report says there's a chance of snow early tomorrow morning. Last time snow was forecast nothing happened, so I won't expect anything, but it would be fun to see some snow before Christmas.

Starbucks Gig 3

I just got back from our "live" at Starbucks. (Japanese uses "raibu" as a noun to mean "live concert".) Thank you to everyone that prayed for people to be open to receive the invitation to come to next week's Christmas concert; overall, everything went very well. People from the church came to support us, so the room was full both times we played (and I think more than full the first time we played).

Since I was playing, of course I couldn't take any pictures, so I don't have any to post right now; hopefully I'll get some later. Since I seem to be thinking about fast food a lot, just for fun, here's a picture of Wendy's latest promotional burger: the Creamy Aspara Bacon Burger! (sounds good - maybe I'll try it this week).

MERRY XMOS!

No, I'm not spelling that wrong; I saw this poster for a seasonal item at one of my favorite Japanese fast-food restaurants, MOS Burger. I thought it was a clever play on words. The poster reads "otona-mo kodomo-mo shiawase ni naru (*a kanji character I don't know*)" The first part I understood "both children and adults become happy", but I couldn't figure out the second part. Eriya just told me that the kanji means "taste", so it means something like "this taste will make both adults and children happy". At the bottom of the poster it reads, "mosu chikin pakku"--"MOS chicken pack". I'm assuming that this marketing campaign is trying to compete with KFC, which becomes extra popular around Christmas (that's a long story that I've talked about with some family members before). Basically, KFC in Japan takes advantage of the fact that Colonel Sanders looks vaguely like Santa Claus and dresses up all the statues outside their restaurants in Santa costumes-kind of fun, actually!

Venus Emerging From A Gyoza AKA Utsunomiya's Gyoza Statue

In October, the (semi-)famous gyoza statue was being moved to a new location on the other side of the train station when it was dropped and broken. The story made the national news here, and I sent information to some family members that had seen it when they visited. I thought the situation was a little bit funny, because I've heard that some people really don't like the statue that much. Well, my family members that visited actually were sad to hear the news, so here is the update: the statue has been completely repaired, and is safely standing at its (her) new location on the west side of the station, closer to the main entrance.

Christmas Is Coming

Last week, the preschool students helped to decorate the church's Christmas tree. I haven't posted many pictures of the inside of the church, so people that have never visited haven't seen much of it--this is in the entrance, right by the front door.
Good job, kids!

Japanese Test in Oyama

Today I took the basic level of the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test). I had been studying fairly regularly for a while, but the last couple of weeks I have been so busy preparing for music events that I wasn't as ready as I wanted to be. I'm really not sure how well I did because my reading is still so slow. I was confident in some of my answers, so-so in some, and just guessed on more than I was hoping to. The results aren't mailed until mid-February, so I have to wait a while until I know how I did.

The test was given in the city of Oyama. It's on the way to Tokyo, so I've traveled through Oyama many times, but today was the first time I actually stopped there. Today was a beautiful, clear day, so after the test was finished I took a walk around the city. I like visiting historical sites when I can, so I was interested to see that Oyama, like many cities here, has a park on the site of the ruins of a castle. After walking through the park, I noticed a street that led to the entrance of a temple. Even though most of the leaves have already fallen from the trees, I still thought the street was beautiful.

Starbucks gigs

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that friends and I were scheduled to play at some coffee tasting events at Starbucks in a couple of the local malls. Last weekend, we played twice on Saturday and twice on Sunday. Overall, it went very well. Lots of people from church came to support us. The pictures are all from our shows on Saturday. Our drummer, Hisato, had to work that day, so he wasn't there--sorry, Hisato, I don't have any pictures from our Sunday show yet!


The pictures are of Shinya playing guitar and singing, Eriya playing bass, me playing keyboard, and Kaori and Kazuyo doing guest vocals. (Family and friends that received the worship CD from me for Christmas last year, all the people in the pictures are members of the worship team that played on that CD.)


Someone mentioned to me that I look like a mannequin in the picture of just me--I laughed because it kind of does look like that. It's probably a combination of the lighting and me staring and concentrating on the music while avoiding looking at the audience so I wouldn't get any more nervous than I already was...