June 2013

Last month these friends took us to dinner.  This month we had them to our home and made pizza.  Their little boy enjoyed the park near our home. 

The sister missionaries in our ward are both 19--now girls can serve at 19.  They are working well.

One Saturday we visited Kamakura--an area with many temples and a beach.  We went to the Meigetsu-in Temple because it is famous for its hydrangeas and they are in bloom now.  They were beautiful.  There were many kinds and colors, but mostly they were blue.  Above you can also see a stand of bamboo.  Japan has many kinds of bamboo. 

When these little statues are to honor children, they are often clothed in red. 

Buddhist Temples are guarded by four guardians like the one above at the gate.  Some of them are pretty mean looking!

We also went to Hase (in the Kamakura area) and saw the Great Buddha. It is 44 feet tall and was cast in bronze in 1252.  

Look how strong I am!

 

 

 

We were able to go inside the statue.It was interesting to see how they constructed it in about 30 pieces, using different shapes of joints to connect them.

 

We took time to walk along the beach and happened upon a windsurfing competition.  I couldn't figure out how they were able to stand still in one place for a long time waiting for the race to start.  It made me want to go wind surfing!

We had a two-week trip this month.  The first week was in Sendai mission--a part of Tokyo on the northern end of Honshu (Japan's main island).  Each day we attended a zone conference in a different city.

Here is the Sendai mission board where they post their baptism pictures. 

Most zone conferences include a musical number.  These missionaries were very musical. 

They served us a delicious lunch of Japanese food.

Missionaries are the greatest!

Sister missionaries too!

The mission home is in Sendai and we spent several nights there.   We went up on a little hill nearby to jog in the morning.  It was quiet and green.  Sendai mission is in the "Tohoku" area of Japan.  It is very green and has mountains covered with pine and other trees, in addition to miles and miles of green rice fields. 

After our talks, they missionaries did "Radio Taiso" an exercise program that is widely used in Japan.  It mostly consists of stretching for about 10 minutes.  In the mornings, Japanese congregate in the parks and do these exercises together with the aid of recorded music and instructions. 

Rice fields in theforeground.

Morioka was a beautiful little town with a pretty lake.  Above is our church building there. 

We took a walk around the lake in Morioka and met these 4 and 5 year-olds having a picnic lunch.  Each age group has different colored hats.  They were very cute and interested in "those funny-looking Americans."

At the far north of Honshu Island is Aomori, the apple producing area of Japan.  It is also a seaport.

There were many fishermen on the bridges and they were catching a lot of fish. 

More Missionaries!

Sunday morning a senior missionary couple took us to church in Ishinomaki, a small town on the coast that was severely damaged by the tsunami and earthquake in 2011.  The members there were very friendly and they served us lunch after church.   Above are the sisters of the Relief Society at church.  It was their ward conference so there were lots of visitors.

Ishinomake was a beautiful town.

In March of 2011 (at 2:46 p.m.) there was an earthquake and tsunami that caused the deaths of 15,883 people.  1676 people are still missing.  They had about a 15 minute notice about the tsunami after the earthquake.  The earthquake moved all of Japan eight feet towards China.  Some areas didn’t have back up generators so their warning systems didn’t work.  These were the areas with the greatest fatalities.  One school lost 90% of their children.  In some areas the water was 40.5 meters deep (about 121 feet?)  The wave traveled six miles inland.  We saw pictures of a bus on top of a 2 or three story building.  All cars that were in the water were destroyed.  230,000 people are still in temporary housing. 

Below you can see the flat area near the water where houses used to be.  Now there are just foundations and a few destroyed homes that are still standing.  People are not allowed to build here again, but they still have to pay their mortgage.

This island in the river in Ishonmaki was covered with water during the tsunami.

A pile of cars that were destroyed, along with many other things.

They collected the debris and then have been sorting through it to recycle what they can.  We saw piles of cars, sawdust (from wood debris) and other kinds of sorted trash. 

Some people are still living in the upstairs of their home, even though the bottom floor is destroyed.

Even the cemeteries had a lot of damage.   Many have been cleaned up because honoring the dead is very important in Japan. 

The tsunami bent the steel supports of this building (above).

This large, lovely home was destroyed.  Inside was a closet full of mud soaked clothes and a piano laying on its back among other things. 

 

 

Fishing was the main industry in these seaside towns.  Most fishermen lost their businesses because their boats and all their equipment were destroyed.  The church has done a lot to help the fishing industry rebuild.  Many children were killed in the tsunami, and others have moved away because of the radiation leaking from the nuclear reactor and the effect it has on children. 

We also drove through Matsushima, a popular seaside resort.  This town is still a popular tourist destination.

 

 

The second week of our trip was spend in Korea.  First we went to Daejeon.  Here we are in Seoul. 

Trianing the missionaries again! I love to take pictures of the sister missionaries.

While in Seoul we visited the Demilitarized Zone.  We learned a lot about the Korean conflict.  On the way we drove along the river (Khan River, I think) and saw the fences with razor wire on top and the guard towers to keep spies from coming down the river and entering South Korea.  Above is part of a monument where they hold programs commemorating those lost in the war as well as those separated on the other side of the DMZ.  Our tour guide's mother was separated from her family in the north and never saw or heard from them again.

We then went to an observatory where you can look through binoculars and see into North Korea.  South Korea is very green, but North Korea is barren because all the trees have been cut down for fuel.  We could see an industrial town where until 3 months ago South Koreans were allowed to go and work.  Now they can’t go into North Korea any more at all.  (below)

 

One amazing thing that I didn't know was that North Korea is still trying to attack South Korea.  South Korea has found four tunnels like the display below that have been dug through solid granite under the DMZ.  They have blocked the four tunnels but have opened the Third tunnel to tourists up to the blocked point.  We went into the tunnel, descending a long way down.  The tunnel is 1635 meters long, 2m wide, and 2 m high.  We had to wear hard hats because of the rocky outcroppings that you can bump your head on.  We had to stoop over a lot of the way.  This tunnel would allow an army of thirty-thousand fully-armed North Korean soldiers to pass through within an hour.  It is the one that came the closest to Seoul.  It is believed that there are other tunnels not yet found.  It was amazing to me that these tunnels have been dug since the DMZ was created.  In one of the museums they listed all the things North Korea has done since the Korean War and showing that for them the war is not over—they are still trying to attack South Korea. 

When the tunnels were discovered they tried to say that South Korea dug them, but you can see that the direction of the holes drilled for dynamite point in the other direction, proving that they were dug from the North. At the end of the tunnel we were under the DMZ. 

South Koreans really want to reunify North and South Korea.  In addition to the social benefits of being reunited with loved ones, they would be able to build railroads like the one pictured in the map above to ship goods between Korea and Europe and places in between. 

 

 

Never take your freedom for granted!!!!!!

May 2013

May started off with "Golden Week" a week with so many holidays thata most people take off the whole week.  We took the opportunity to visit Hakone. 

The first stop we made at Hakone was to walk in the Ancient Cedar Forest.  These Cedar trees were planted in the early 1600’s to provide shelter along the road between Kyoto and Tokyo (old and new capitols).  They are amazing trees—large, tall, and straight. 

It is a beautiful place in the mountains with a lake. We took a "pirate ship" across the lake. 

Here are some of the people we met!

There is a ropeway and tram that take people over a mountain.

There also are a lot of hot springs because it is a volcanic area.In the hot springs they cook and hard boiled eggs, but the sulphur of the springs turns the eggs black.Of course, everyone who goes there has to have a hard-boiled egg! 

 

 

 

This man is moving the eggs around in the hot spring.

Yum, black hard-boiled eggs and a sulfur smell!

 

 

Here is a view of Mt. Fuji--with the top covered with clouds.

 Here are some of the people we met!

We took the tram and a train on over the mountain.  At the bottom of the other side of the mountain was a quaint town with a stream.

Back in Tokyo, this is a beautiful Buddhist temple with Azaleas in bloom.  Azaleas have been very beautiful in Tokyo!

More Azaleas!

 

 

Some Japanese friends we met in Europe last summer took us to Ukai Toriyama for dinner.  They have beautiful gardens and little traditional tea room type houses to eat in.  Above you will see little monuments to children.

Their little boy is playing some traditional games.  Like all little boys he likes to build and then knock things down.

They also have a 1-month old baby.

We ate traditional Japanese food, cooker at our table over a little cooker.  Here is a fish on a stick.

 

Some members of our Eikaiwa (English conversation) class came to a ward social.

We were delighted to spend a couple of days in training sessions with mission presidents and their wives throughout our area which includes Japan, Korea, Micronesia, and Guam.

From the Tokyo Tower (above) we had a nice view of the city (below).

There are 35 million people in Tokyo--and many skyscrapers.  If you look carefully you can see a bridge over the port and where the river meets the sea in the distance.

 

Eating donuts with the missionaries at "Krispy Creme"

Japanese are very enthusiastic about sumo wrestling, so we went to a match.  It was more interesting than I thought because people explained to us what was going to happen.  They were excited that we were interested in going.  Un fortunately the lighting did not allow good pictures.

Sumo is an ancient sport and has been around about 1500 years.  It has religious roots.  It had few rules until 1603 when the Shogunate was united and sumo groups were organized. 

One Saturday we visited "Nokogiriyama" which means something like "mountain of jagged teeth."  You can see the unusual and rock formations near the top (below).  The cliffs are perfectly straight and squared.

 

We rode a tram to the top.

 

 

The view of the ocean from the top was beautiful.  Also we enjoyed seeint the many shades of green on the mountains on the way up.

Nokogiriyama was built in the 700’s as a Buddhist temple.  There is a huge Buddha which was carved (along with over 1500 smaller Arhats—novices who had undergone spiritual awakening) by Jingoro Eirei Ono and his 27 apprentices who dedicated their lives to this.  It took about 20 years.  The large Buddha is 28 meters high and is carved out of the rock on the mountain.  There is another Buddha that is also very tall, but is only engraved on the surface of a flat rock surface.  We hiked around, passing many small shrine areas with other Arhat statues, each with a different face.  Some of the statues had been vandalized by anti-Buddhist people in the past.  It is hard to imagine how they carved not only the statues, but the straight and squared cliff walls. 

This area is dedicated to children who have died.  The little red things at the bottom are tiny budha statues that people buy and donate to this pile in memory of someone they loved. 

Nokogiriyama was truly an amazing place to see!