The Good Stuff

One of the things that I have enjoyed since being home has been the food. Shortly after I arrived at LAX we went to In-n-Out and I enjoyed my first double-double, fries, and a neapolitan shake in three months. Let me tell you it was good. The picture is from my In-n-Out visit a couple of days ago with Jake. We enjoyed a good surf session and then went to In-n-Out and I got a three-by-three, fries, and a shake. In-n-Out is so good! Jake and I were talking about how you can live in Ventura for however long and not really miss it, but once you go out of the country or somewhere where there isn't In-n-Out you miss it a lot. I definitely missed it and look forward to visiting In-n-Out throughout this next week.

Sunday, the 10th of December, my family was invited to go with the Fullers on a land shark tour that Uncle Mike had won. We started off the afternoon with a nice lunch at my favorite restaurant Playa Azul. Of course, I got my favorite plate two cheese enchiladas, rice and beans. While I was waiting for my food to be cooked I enjoyed a couple of baskets of chips and salsa, which were so good. Nothing like Japan. They continued to bring out more and more chips and more and more salsa for FREE! It was good to be home.

After our lunch we all met up at the end of state street and got onto the land shark. We toured around Santa Barbara and then boated around the bay. We all had a really good time and enjoyed watching all the boats that were lit up going out of the harbor for the parade of lights. Sunday was a good start of my vacation at home. Since then I have enjoyed a lot of good times with my family and have enjoyed eating all the good food here, surfing, and hanging out with my friends. Look for more blogs in the next week.

Coming Home!

On Dec. 8th at 5:20 p.m. I flew out of NRT in Japan and 8 and a half hours later I arrived at LAX at 9:55 a.m. on Dec. 8th. Pretty cool, huh? I went back in time. That was the first time that I have crossed the international date line and I can say that I'm not looking forward to the next time because my body has had the hardest time figuring out what day I am on.

Anyways when I arrived at LAX and went through customs and got my luggage I went out to find my family. They showed up and were more than happy to see me. They also surprised me by dressing up. I felt pretty special because they dressed up just for me, but if you look at the pictures it wasn't the typical form of dressing up. I must say that my mother looked like a little 8 year old and the rest of the family went down from there. I was super excited to see them and enjoyed giving each of them three or four hugs. Anyways I hope you enjoy the pictures.


Oh and the other family in the pictures are the Shorts. Sam, my good buddy, came home from China that day and so we spent a couple hours at the airport waiting for his flight to come in. I think Sam was a little more embarrassed than I was because he didn't expect it. I actually would have been a little disappointed if my family hadn't dressed up so I was glad that they did. Look for some more goofy pictures of my family the second time I return home.

My birthday!

On December 5th was mine and Timmy's birthday. It was a little weird this year because it was the first time that Timmy and I have been away from each other for our birthday. We survived though and were able to celebrate it when I got home.

Anyways, while I was in Japan I had a very nice birthday week. It started on a Friday night when Nate and Louise invited me and some of my friends over for a little birthday dinner. The food was very good, the fellowship was good and overall the night was a lot of fun. Nate barbecued tri-tip and we had salad and garlic bread. Louise baked an fantastic apple pie that I enjoyed so very much. Thanks Nate and Louise!



Over the weekend I received some presents and a lot of "Happy Birthdays" from people at the Lighthouse. On Tuesday was my birthday and as usual I went to the middle school for lunch. I knew that some of the students knew it was my birthday, but I didn't really expect any of them to remember. I was walking down the hallway and Jill, well the students call her Ms. Pasterski, who was at Nate and Louise's house on Friday night remember that today was the day. So she proceeded to walk down the hallway with me and told some of the students that it was my birthday and they sang to me. After those students sang, I then had about 30 or 40 more students say "Happy Birthday" to me and some how it spread through all the grades that it was my birthday. It was pretty fun because I had about 200 "Happy Birthday's" from the middle school students. That was probably the most "Happy Birthday's" that I have received in one day.


Tuesday night was a continuation of my birthday. Even though it wasn't for my birthday, Stacey and Paul Cassidy invited me to go along with them to the New Sauno Hotel in Tokyo for a Lighthouse Board dinner. Honestly, it was the nicest restaurant I have ever been in. I wore a shirt and a tie, ate with three different forks, tried some escargot, which is very good, and had the biggest piece of steak in Japan. Then for dessert I had a spectacular bowl of creme brulee with a nice candle on top. (You can see that in the picture.) The night was really fun and I enjoyed my birthday very much and am so thankful for everyone who made my birthday a very special one!

Osaka and the Shinkasen

So these blogs are a little late, but I am still going to write about them. Anyways a week or so before I flew home, Nate and I had the chance to take the bullet train, shinkasen in Japanese, down to Osaka to visit Hamadera Bible Church. Riding the bullet train was on my list of things to do in Japan and so it was pretty sweet that that was the way of travel for our visit. I am not totally sure, but the bullet train goes 186 mph or 168 mph. It is pretty unreal to be sitting in this train, with no seatbelts on, going 186 or whatever mph on land. The bullet train was also the setting for Nate's now favorite video "Track Star" which is a must see for all Nate Johnson fans.


Anyways, our visit with Osaka was very succesful and was the first step in connecting our youth with their youth. I was very encouraged by the time we spent there and learned a lot about Japan and the Japanese people. We were busy the whole time. We tried Osaka's famous takoyaki and okonomonaki, which I have to be honest and say they weren't my favorite. We went to downtown Osaka and visited the famous Dotonbori street. One of my highlights was going to the Patagonia in Osaka. One of my goals in Japan is to visit all of the Patagonias (For those of you who don't know Patagonia is a surf/outdoor company that is based out of Ventura. It has cool stuff, but is very expensive.) and get a sticker from the store.




Osaka was cool. I got to experience huge tv's on the side of buildings, all the lights and big city buildings, but also got to spend a lot of time with really cool people at Hamadera Bible Church. I am excited to see what God has in store for Hamadera and our youth.

Hat

Many of you know that I like to wear hats. Typically I wear a hat 4 or 5 times out of the week because I like them so much. Right now my favorite hats are my black Dodger hat and my O’Neill hat. (Go Dodgers!) In Ventura I wore hats a lot and being in Japan hasn't changed that. Kara has noticed that I wear a hat a lot and has often asked me for my hat even if I don't have it with me. On Friday night, Nate and Louise invited me and some friends over for a little birthday dinner and some good apple pie and that night I wore a hat. Sure enough, Kara wanted to try my hat on. Its always fun playing with Ellie and Kara and I especially like seeing Kara try my hat on and start laughing and then play peek-a-boo from there. Anyways I will write about my birthday in another blog, but here's some pictures of my favorite little girls in my hat.

A Step in the Right Direction

On our recent trip to Osaka, which you will here about in a later blog, Nate and I had the pleasure of eating more Mexican food. In no way was this Mexican food comparable to anything back home, but it was a step in the right direction. This place was called El Ponchos. It was on the 8th floor of some building in Osaka and fit about 20 people total. It had quite the array of Mexican memorabilia and honestly had a good Mexican food restaurant vibe coming off. Still though there were a couple of disappointments.


Disappointment #1: Take a look at the size of that chip bowl. Pretty big, huh? Our friend who took us there said that there is normally a little bowl of fresh salsa that they bring out and she asked for it, but the waiter said that this little jar of "salsa", which was more like hot sauce, was it. The chips also had some weird seasoning on it, but hey I can handle not having chips.

Disappointment #2: Honestly, I think that disappointment #1 was really the only disappointment. I mean the food wasn't fabulous, but it was a lot better than the last place. It had a little different flavor from typical Mexican food, but still I had a good plate of cheese enchiladas with some quesadilla and some other stuff. Their guacamole was surprisingly good also. Nate had been lecturing me about how you just need to get used to not having good Mexican food. I guess I softened up a little bit from my last experience because I wasn't too disappointed with this place. (Nate wasn't really lecturing me.)


El Poncho’s still has a long way to go, but honestly it was about a B-/C+. As I said before it wasn't comparable to anything back home, but I wouldn't mind going back there when I am craving some Mexican food.