Fire Alarms, Loud Speakers and Elections

Today our building was inspected by the fire department. Because we are a “guest house”, our system is checked every year (both those statements are assumptions!). As we arrived home from shopping, the inspector came out our apartment door, bowing and talking a mile a minute. I smiled. He kept talking and pointing to the fire bell outside. I thought he said “siding” but Roger heard “siren”. Since I had no idea what he wanted (Roger said he wants to see the extinguisher in the kitchen, but that didn’t happen), I smiled and held my fingers up to my ears. He smiled back and walked away satisfied. Shortly thereafter, we heard the sirens, not once but half dozen times. Another “inspector” came in and did another check. Guess we’re all set now.

Right outside our door in the park is a 4-way loudspeaker system. It’s about 50 feet high. Every evening at 5 p.m. for a short time, the bells/music sounds from the speakers. We have no idea why. Sometimes they announce something else – we just hope it isn’t “tornado coming” or “earthquake – seek shelter”! We do know where to evacuate – at the park about ¼ mile from here.

Lastly, I don’t think we talked about the elections. When we arrived, there were large billboards waiting for pictures. Soon everyone who was running for office had their picture up. Every day many times a day, cars would drive by our place and up and down the street to town, loudly advertising “their” candidate through loud speakers on top of the car. It was quite annoying! But we would smile and wave when they drove past us. Hopefully we didn’t encourage any communist party… And when they thought we were good possibilities for a vote, they would talk to us. We just smiled and kept going!

BTW, now that the election is over, the signs have been completely removed.

Roger gets annoyed at me, but I find some of this hilarious. How can any normal appearing adult be so imbecile that they can’t give a decent answer/response?? It keeps one humble!

Food - Very Important to one's happiness and survival!!

We found this corn at the 100 yen store ($1). It tasted great after we just microwaved it.

Notice the price of an ear at the local grocery store (420 yen).

A great way to carry watermelons!

Like small portions? These eggs are tiny!

A whole fish at a potluck – we were told it has to do with tradition and a good luck type of thing?

This place didn’t appear to have much variety in what they sold…

 On Mother's Day we helped a "sister" celebrate 100 years!

The cake followed the potluck - Japanese like to eat, too! They just stay in shape easier because they walk or bike everywhere!

Earthquakes, Walking and Church

We had heard that Japan has hundreds of earthquakes of various sizes every year, so I have been praying to not be in one. On Friday I was on the couch in the living room when it started to move. Twice it slid a little on the floor – not a lot, just a little. Roger in the kitchen didn’t notice it. The next day I was on the same couch (think I’ll stay off of it!!), when it not only rocked, the lights started to swing. I was sitting with a Japanese woman who registered concern. Later I found out that it was a 3 on their scale – not too far away registered a 5. When I asked what the scale was – from 1 to ?, I was told they don’t put an upper limit on them!! Hopefully we’ve had our quota!! (Again, Roger was under the building in the carport and didn’t notice it.)

We walked to church again today. Walking is hard – the sidewalks are busy, you have to maneuver. But even worse are the bikes. They don’t give notice and pass close beside you. It’s always a surprise/shock when they go by – if you happened to move the wrong way, they’d get you!! Evidently they are supposed to stay on the roads – there are even bike lanes marked, but they prefer the sidewalk – which is easy to understand when you see the traffic and narrow roads.

Walking is also difficult because of the (slight) unevenness of the sidewalks, store floors, and everywhere else we go. Coming up the steps to our apartment, we have to step over a brick wall several inches high. Then we step over the threshold into a small space for changing shoes. The floor steps up at that point again. Our bathroom floor is also somewhat elevated. A missionary lady told me she broke her toe on it! It’s embarrassing to stumble in a store because the floor “adjusted”!! And you don’t want to fall on the sidewalk – it’s too close to the road. There are no shoulders.

The weather has warmed up considerably so that we wish we had our summer clothes along! Supposedly this is exceptionally hot for this time of year, so we hope it will cool down again. In the meantime, we do have air conditioning.

On the positive side, we love going to the church. At 9:30 we “help” with an English class. Several of the attendees are “seekers” and several are believers. At 11 we go to the basement of the building for our English service. Our pianist is exceptional and we sing the beloved hymns, as well as some choruses. This church has consistently provided translators for my little Bible club in the park, but the last 2 weeks we haven’t been able to draw the kids away from the water and water balloons. I can’t say I blame them! We did hand out New Testaments which I had marked with their memory verses and Bible stories. By putting their names in the front, we hope they will take possession and read them! There were some teenage boys and one dad who also accepted a copy.