11:26pm
This morning we biked to church where we sang "Wonderful Mercifuil Savior" and "Be thou my vision." I gave my 2nd testimony and Laurel gave her 1st. During Ito-sensei's sermon I read a bunch of Job (have almost plowed through the entire book). Three high school girls (in their uniforms) had come to church to see us and we chatted with them afterward with Noriko's help, and mentioned karaoke and upcoming American Night at the church.
Afterward we biked back to the house with the girls following and showed them the noisy kittens. Our core group showed up to do a "Yamagata Tour" at that point; Laurel, Jeri and I rode with Noriko and Moe rode with Pastor Ito and two of the girls.
In Yamagata, our first stop was Mos Burger - sugoi! I sat with Ito-sensei, Noriko, and Jeri, and we chatted about music and the sister city thing and suggested they visit P.A. someday, then answered some of their questions about P.A. and sports in Washington and goofed off for a pic. Laurel and Moe chatted with the girls.
After that I ended up in Ito-sensei's car and we stopped briefly at a church in Yamagata, then went to Mr Donut :D and an arcade (VERY LOUD) where there were a ton of hilarious games (including that music game made famous on the internet and also one that had monkey bars... heh); there were also a bunch of purikura booths, so we did two of those, both of which seemed to malfunction and required a wait. I saw the "Derby Owners Club" but it was back in the bar section. Other selections included a typing game (??)... some Americany gun game... a trucker game... and etc. After that we went to Jusco (the big mall) and stopped at KFC to take pictures with the Colonel (and his weee beady eyes!) and sit in the awesome massage chairs that are just there for the relaxing! :) Also ran into one of Laurel and Moe's elementary English students.
I think we went home at that point - Jeri and I rode with Ito-sensei and he dropped us at home, where we cleaned a little until around 5:45 when everyone showed up for karaoke (Yumi-chan and Noriko again). We met the 2 boys (cute Kazu-kun and Uta-san's son Koshiro) at the karaoke place, went to the 7-11 for drinks and then headed into our karaoke room.
It was way fun! We all got into each other's songs and sang along and danced a lot and goofed off and had a great time. We did "Yatta!" (again) and they sang the Japanese part while laughing at our dancing :) they also sang along with "Hello Goodbye" and the Sailormoon song, haha. We sang along to the Japanese version of YMCA.
Some of the songs:
ME: Rain (w/Laurel), Hello Goodbye (with the guys), Go your own way (w/Moe), Spiderwebs (w/Moe), Sailormoon theme, The good life (w/ Moe), no Reply (w/Moe - which they thought sounded good), I think I love you (w/ Moe)
Everyone: Macarena, Yatta, A whole new world, Crazy, Billie JEan, I think we're alone now
Annnd a bunch more I don't remember. Kazu-kun sang along with us a lot and laughed at our examples of "American dancing" (a lot of 70's type moves and the twist). Yumi-chan had a great voice! Whenever they'd sing a song where English displayed on the screen we'd sing (or shout) the English part and they'd all laugh. ("BOUNCE BOUNCE BOUNCE WITH ME! BOUNCE BOUNCE BOUNCE WITH ME!") It was a ton of fun and we spent like 3 hours in there!
Afterward we took a few photos out front and the boys left (after we invited them to American Night) and the rest of us headed back to the college in Yamagata (Moe and I rode with Noriko and danced/sang to "get this party started") and wandered around the fountain taking pictures and rolling down the hill, then drove up to a lookout (where there were a LOT of parked cars o_o) and played Actionary at the top of the lookout gazebo building thing with Noriko picking words (and sentences) for us to act. That was cool and we played for awhile with the final phrase acted being "Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson singing karaoke at Neverland" heh.
Took a few photos and drove back to Kaminoyama, back to the house, chatted for a bit and headed to bed.
We leave one week from tomorrow.... :C
It has gone by SO fast...
and we're just now making true friends.
Lord, please let us leave an impact here...
let us be used greatly in Kaminoyama.
