Monday, August 09, 2004

Groggy 

posted by: court 
Finally safely home again after a seemingly endless day of flying and a 12-hour night of rest in which I slept until 6pm Sunday. Still not entirely on US time but am trying to force my body to think that way. :)

The other 3 girls are still driving up from LAX. I'm not sure exactly when they're getting home - they talked about visiting some places on the way up, so who knows, it could be the end of this week! :)

Our flight from Japan was routine (just like a flight should be!) though I didn't manage to sleep much which probably accounts for my 12-hour sleep bonanza, as we essentially started the day over when we landed in LA and I still had a full day of layover flights back home.

So again, thank you for all of your prayers as we made this journey... though it still feels odd to be back in America, and I think I would like to return to Japan on a longer-term mission someday, it is good to be home.

Hopefully within a week or 2 I will be able to update this website the way I wanted to while we were over there, with a lot more photos and journal entries - and even a few videos, if I have room for them. Thank you for checking and for keeping up with us all this time! :)
posted at: 1:36:00 PM

Almost home; Tokyo 

posted by: court 
Tomorrow we hop the plane bound for the US. Riding home is one of those weird time experiences wherein we take off at 2:30pm, Japan time, and then land at 8:30am US time - THE SAME DAY. So it's kinda like starting the day over. The funny thing is it's nighttime the whole way back, as well...

Yesterday we left our hostel and went to the Narita airport, then hopped a train from Narita to Nippori, a hub of train stations about an hour away. God then helped us find the Yamanote train line (a circular route that encompasses the entire Tokyo metropolitan area) and we proceeded to stop at Shinjuku, Shibuya, Tokyo itself, and Akihabara. Shinjuku was fairly interesting but we didn't know where the really cool stuff was, though we found some of it in Shibuya, stopping at the big Starbucks building and the huge crosswalk right in front of it where thousands of people cross at the same time. Pretty neat experience. In Tokyo we visited the imperial palace and then walked 500 miles to the Tokyo Tower (or so it seemed) which we had spotted off in the distance. Upon arriving we took some photos, then went underneath and browsed the gift store and the aquarium (??). Akihabara is famous for being the electronics district of Japan and it did not dissapoint in store after store of the latest technology... including some of the smallest laptops we've ever seen.... widescreen too! We visited the Sega Arcade as well before heading back to Nippori and, after a brief train mixup, arriving back at the airport. In all a fun day and I praise God that He took care of us, kept us safe, and kept us from getting lost! :)

Today I think we might just hang at the Airport (which is pretty interesting itself; yesterday we saw a band, though we didn't know who they were... they waved at us though, thinking we were fans as we followed them to the security gate, heh) or go to Narita City itself... we'll see. And we'll see you all soon! Thanks for your continued prayers, they are lifting us home.

In Him,
Courtney

(PS the timestamp here is our actual time in Japan... hello from the future ;)
posted at: 9:22:10 AM

done 

posted by: laurel 
We are back in Narita now for debriefing. I cant wait to tell you all about our summer here, and share even more of just how cool God is. Its been great getting to meet some of the other teams, and it was very sad and hard to leave Kaminoyama this morning. To any who are in Kaminoyama, we all love you tons! God bless you! and once again, thank you so much for letting Christ shine in your lives. To those at home, see you very soon. And please pray that we can actually get around here our last three days without a translator ;)
posted at: 12:26:12 AM