Goatee or Not?

So this past week after not shaving for a couple of days I decided that I could try out a little facial hair. My only history with facial hair was a beard that I grew as a bet for three weeks in high school. My family will tell you that I’m not a huge fan and that I won’t ever keep anything for a long time. (They’re probably right.) It kind of bugs me that I’m not clean-shaven. I also get all paranoid that it looks crooked or whatever, I don’t necessarily like the way that water comes off of facial hair when I’m swimming and yeah, its just hard for me to keep facial hair.

Anyways this time I thought I could go for a goatee, nothing huge, just a little hair on my chin to give me some padding when I fall on my face. The first couple of days were fine and I didn’t hear any comments or anything. However, that all changed when I went to youth group on Wednesday night. Many of the students were like, “What is that?” “Why are you growing a goatee?” and “You look weird.” Nothing huge, I don’t care too much and just told them its just because. I got some comments from a couple of Navy people and I just told them that they are jealous because they can’t grow a goatee. (All facial hair, but a mustache is prohibited.)

The real fun came later on Saturday night when I got opinions from other people. Some people thought it was alright, some liked it, and some thought it was gross. It was funny thought because I wasn’t me asking people, it would just kind of come up. Stacy, the Lighthouse directors’ wife, at one point was like, “Jeremy, aren’t you glad you have so many big sisters.” At that point I decided that it would be something fun to write a blog about. I had a bunch of the girls at the Lighthouse, who have adopted me as their little brother who they make fun of constantly, telling me about it. I’m glad that I have a lot of older sisters here to keep me in check and make sure that I’m doing alright, (don’t worry Sara, none of them are as great as you) and it was pretty funny to hear all of their opinions about it. I’ll probably shave it before Sara comes to see me next week for her spring break (sorry), but we’ll see.

The stories not over though, so hold on. Today when I was walking to church I was happy to see the Johnson van pulling over to give me the ride the rest of the way. I didn’t really expect any comments or anything and we went to church as normal, but the crack up was after the service when we were in the fellowship hall and Ellie points at my chin and says, “Jeremy, that’s funny.” Louise started laughing and then Kara followed with a “Jeremy, that’s funny.” She was pretty cute when she said it and Louise’s mom followed with, “an example of what not to say.” It made me laugh and I’m still laughing to myself right now as I write this. I went over to the Johnson’s house to spend the day and Ellie asked me later, “Jeremy, where does that come from?” I didn’t really expect Ellie to notice it very much, but obviously she did and she felt fine sharing her opinion about it. I asked her if she liked it, if she didn’t like it, or if she just thinks its funny and she just said that she thought it was funny. So that’s my goatee story. I hope you laughed a little bit.

Japanese Roadside Construction

So if you haven’t learned yet, Japanese seem to go over the top in a lot of things. There are a lot of things that Japanese do that I really like and a lot of things that don’t make sense. For example, take a look at this roadside construction site. If you study the picture carefully you will notice that there is a lot of things going on for a simple road repair.

I would like to start with the roadside statue dummy thingy. Not only does it light up and flash, the arm swings also. If this were in back in the U.S. there wouldn’t be any of them left because they would all be stolen, covered with paint balls, or run over by cars. Its pretty funny when we are driving down the road and see these things. There isn’t a traffic controller in the picture, but normally there is one there also.


If the roadside dummy doesn’t get your attention then the flashing light will. Japan is a fan of the deep fluorescent lights and this one happens to be used for roadside construction. Its there to say “HELLO, BE CAREFUL! THERE ARE TWO GUYS DIGGING A HOLE BEHIND ME.” I understand that they want to make the workers feel safe, but is it really necessary?

Then you have the cones and the signs, which are all good and probably the only necessary things, but hey why not the flashing light and dummy. I’m not bashing Japan. They probably have a lot less accidents than other countries do, but I think that it’s a little over the top. Feel free to disagree with me, but I thought I could let you know about what you might see while driving in Japan.

Recent Adventure #2

My next adventure was a little one-day hiking trip with one of the chaplains. Before I went home in December we had a conversation and he asked me if I liked hiking. I said that I did and so we planned on hiking a little bit when I got back. I brought my boots back with me and was very glad to go on a hike. Japan is a jungle in itself with all the huge buildings and lights everywhere, but it was neat to get away for a day and see some of the countryside. We went on a trail on the outskirts of Kamakura and hiked for about 8 miles. The weather was super comfortable and it couldn’t have been a better day to go hiking.

We stopped at some of the shrines and temples. (As I said before there are about 200 of them all over Japan so you see them everywhere.) One of the ones that we stopped at was made in 1235. The shrines and temples are (by the way, temples are Buddhist and shrines are Shinto) made for all different reasons. I know some of the ones we stopped at were made to prevent spirits from coming into the city. All of them are a little different, but they all have the same traditional ritual items. The hike was super nice. We stopped at a little rest stop along the way and got to see a good view. It was pretty cloudy around Mt. Fuji so that was a bummer because it would have been an awesome picture. Nonetheless, I had a great time talking with Chaplain Mulkerin. He’s been all over the world, knows something like 8 languages, and has a whole lot of knowledge about Japan and its culture.

Along the trail were these caves that we burials sites way back in the day. I took a picture in one of those. Also, I took a picture of the plum tree blossoms. Chaplain Mulkerin was saying that blossoms mesmerize the Japanese. Plums trees aren’t necessarily huge, but I know that when the cheery trees are in blossom that it’s crazy. I’m going to make sure that I get to go see all of them. Anyways he was saying that the Japanese are interested in the first blossom and that’s about it. I guess they will wait there all day and night to see the first blossom on the tree (I think it has to do with reincarnation and all that), but after the first blossom they are over it and go look at the next tree. Anyways I’m excited to go see all the trees in blossom, which should happen here pretty soon.

So I’m hoping that I get to do some more hiking around here. Eight miles was pretty good for the first time in a while. I’m thinking that I will be able to do some more when the weather is not so variable. Anyways that’s about it for hiking. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

Recent Adventure #1

So in the month of February I’ve been on a couple of little adventures. Well they’re not really adventures and more like day trips, but I still thought I could share them with you. Both of my trips were to Kamakura, one was sightseeing and the other was hiking. Kamakura at one point was the capital of Japan. It has about 200 shrines or temples and has a lot of history in it. Before I used to go to Kamakura and just kind of get lost, but now I’m trying to actually go and see things and go places that actually have some significance.

My first trip I took a couple from the U.S., who were out here to film a video for Malachi Ministries, to see the Great Buddha and a couple of the shrines and temples. I’m not totally sure, but I think that the Great Buddha is the second largest buddha in all of Japan and the third largest in the whole world. I hadn’t been there before and so it was pretty neat to see this huge statue. The temple that this buddha was in was taken out by a tsunami some years ago and so it is pretty weathered from all the rain and wind. Seeing the Great Buddha made me very thankful that my God is bigger than I could ever imagine. I had the chance to go inside the buddha and see its structure and this made me even more thankful that I have a relationship with and pray to God, who is perfect and holy and not empty and deteriorating.

We also visited some of the temples there and got to see some crazy statues and so on. If you look at the picture of all the little statues you will notice that there are a lot of them. I wasn’t sure what they were for, but I learned later that these statues are bought by women who have just had abortions. I don’t know what the buddhas are supposed to do, but I was blown away when I heard this. It was interesting to see all the Japanese architecture and visit some of these temples that are some crazy amount of years old. At one of the temples we went to this cool little look out and got to see some of bay at Kamakura.

I guess the beach at Kamakura is a pretty nice place to go in the summer. If you look close enough you might be able to see some windsurfers. (They must have been freezing.) Anyways that was about it for my first little adventure. I’ll tell you more about my second adventure in my next blog.

A Taste of California

For those of you who don't know my day off is Monday. Typically, I like to sleep in, talk to my family, and just kind of relax for the day; sometimes I read, sometimes I watch movies, and sometimes I do a whole lot of nothing. Anyways this past Monday I was doing a whole lot of nothing (I think I was cleaning my room and folding laundry or whatever) and the Cassidy family invited me to go with them and Rebekah to California Pizza Kitchen up by Yokohama. Of course I said yes. In Japan good, inexpensive pizza is hard to come by. I don't think I have ever had pizza on the Japanese economy until this past Monday. They have Anthony's World Famous Pizza on base and Sbarro's, but honestly they aren't really good pizza places. Pizza La's are everywhere in Japan, but the one time I went to check out the menu each pizza was like 25 to 30 bucks. That's a little expensive for me, plus all of the toppings were some sort of seafood.

So about 5 o'clock we all walked down to the train station, rode the train to our stop, and walked to CPK. I hadn't eaten too much during the day and so I was pretty hungry and I was so glad to see that the menu was just like the one back in the States. (You'll find in Japan that we have Denny's, KFC, and other well known restaurants, but they aren't really the same as the Denny's KFC's and so on that you are used too. Japan seems to add its own little Japan twist to a lot of things.) Anyways I ordered a Hawaiian pizza, which was delicious, and everyone else enjoyed their food. After we finished our food at CPK Rebekah mentioned that there was a Cold Stone's on the floor below us. There have been a couple of times when I have done the CPK/Cold Stone combination back in Ventura and so I was so excited when I got this full taste of California with some good pizza and some good ice cream.

Cold Stone is a lot of fun in Japan because every time you put some money in the tip box they sing a song. Normally it’s a Disney song or some other catchy tune that you can recognize, except they sing in Japanese and so it’s really fun to listen too. Anyways, we had a lot of fun putting money in the tip box and enjoying our ice cream as all the workers sang. The night was a lot of fun hanging out with the Cassidy's and Rebekah and I certainly enjoyed the food. The two girls are Hope and Jenna Cassidy and if you can't tell they are really enjoying their ice cream.

Escape 2007

Our big outreach camp for the middle school is called Escape. After a great week in Thailand Nate and I came back and had a full plate of things to do to get ready for Escape. Many of you know and prayed about our trouble with finding staff. We had to figure out t-shirt stuff, snowboard stuff, make sure we had the bus reserved, and so on. After filling up all the spots for students, figuring out all the last minute details, and being exhausted from our busy week, our Escape 2007 retreat began at 6 o'clock on Thursday night. We met in the youth room and had all the students come in and make sure that they were all ready to go. We decided to spend the night at our youth room the first night because the bus ride to Northstar was 6 hours long and we would have arrived their super late and still had to pay for lodging. Staying at the youth room seemed so much more logical.

There was one thing that happened for sure each day of the retreat and that was our sessions. A session was pretty much a youth group where we would play a game, spend time in groups, and listen to Nate teach from the Bible. Our theme for the weekend was "The Return" coming from the story of the prodigal son. Nate taught through the story of the lost sheep and the lost coin to build up to the return of the son. We spent time talking about God's heart for us, our heart towards God, and how he desires for us to come home. During the week of preparation and during the retreat itself God was always there. I could totally see him working and orchestrating the whole thing together. It was awesome to see the students encourage each other on the slopes and to see how patient the Northstar staff was with our whole group. This retreat was really a testimony to me that God is here working in Yokosuka and that he is moving in the hearts of the students.

Northstar, the place where we went, is a Burton Learn To Ride Center. Basically, they have a sweet lodge, with a complete game room, climbing wall, and trampoline, and they are specialized in teaching people how to snowboard in a day. After we woke up at 4:30 on Friday morning and rode the bus 6 hours to Northstar, we spent two hours on the mountain taking lessons from the staff there and learning how to snowboard. I've snowboarded once before, but I've surfed and skateboarded for a good part of my life so snowboarding came pretty easy to me. Everyone, including myself, was so excited because it snowed all night Friday night and all day Saturday and so our day on the mountain was fantastic. As I said I had only snowboarded once, but I was so excited to ride on some fresh powder that day. Having the nice cushion of 3 or 4 ft of snow I got comfortable pretty fast trying new things. When we got to free ride in the afternoon one of the staff guys took us on some powder runs through the trees that were so rad. Anyways many of the students snowboarded, some were on ski’s, and some just watched, but God really blessed us this weekend with great snow and even more exciting was that throughout the whole weekend no one got hurt.

We had a great group of students, many from different religious backgrounds, and a great group of staff. I am so thankful for all the prayers that went into this weekend and I am so excited to see how God works with the seeds that were planted this weekend. Everyone was pretty sore on Sunday as we rode the bus home, but many of the students are already making sure that we go to Northstar next year. This retreat was a success and I am excited to see the impact that it has on our students and community here in Yokosuka.

Thailand Highlights: Part #5

The last of my Thailand highlights is titled, "Our Hogs". There are many more things that I could write about Thailand, but I don't really have time to write about every single thing we did in Thailand. If you have any other questions feel free to email me. Anyways the title "Our Hogs" came from our last full day in Chiang Mai. Eric, one of the other interns, was walking by a little motorbike store and saw that you could rent motorbikes for 24 hours for 150 baht. 150 baht is about $5. At first the whole group wasn't going to rent them because of safety issues and so on, but after everyone cruised on Eric's hog for a little while, we all decided that it seemed like a lot of fun. So we all went and rented motorbikes. All we had to do was pay the 150 baht and that was pretty much it. The guy gave us a little instruction on how to drive it, but not much really. In Thailand or at least in Chiang Mai, most of the streets are one way and so there isn't too much worry about the whole left side of the street thing. After we rented our hogs we began our first little cruise of what Nate calls, "Malachi Biker Gang Part 2".

It was so much fun. We were on 100cc, but you could easily get it going about 90 to 100 km/h on the straight aways. At first we were a little worried about the speed limit, but we soon learned that there wasn't really a speed limit. In Chiang Mai, there is a part of the city (where our hotel was) that used to be an old castle or whatever and so there is a moat going around the downtown area. This moat served as our little racetrack that we zoomed around probably 50 or so times. We had a lot of fun going to and from the massage places on our hogs and feeling like a local Thai person while driving around our little motorbikes. Nate always referred to our motorbikes as "Our hogs." Normally he would warm up "his hog" with some vrooom vrooom and then we would all start laughing. (Well I did at least. I thought it was funny that he always talked about our hogs as our hogs when they are so wimpy in the motorcycle world. It was a lot of fun though.)

On our last day we took a tour of some of the local temples and got to ride our hogs up and down the mountain. That was a special treat for us because we were actually going somewhere and not just going around in one giant square. We had a lot of fun going to the night market as a biker gang and everything. When we filled up at the gas station (for about $1.25) Nate and I both decided that $7.50 was well worth the 24 hours of fun. I hope you enjoy our biker gang pictures. We are one mean bunch of bikers. Oh, the picture of the two bikes with three people on each bike is our impersonation of how the Thai ride. We didn't ride like that at all. It was pretty crazy sometimes because we would see a little kid in front, a parent driving, then another little kid, and then another parent. Four people on a bike is pretty crazy. As you can see we could barely fit three.

Thailand Highlights: Part #4

I'm going a little bit back in time on my Thailand highlights, but I'm still going to share with you about my bungy jumping experience. Before I went to Thailand I knew that bungy jumping might be on the agenda and had decided in my mind that I wasn't going to do it. I thought to myself, "Bungy jumping in a third world country half way around the world, probably not a good idea." Nate wasn't going to bungy jump and so I figured I could follow his example and not bungy jump also.

When we got to Thailand, the first day we went to the place where you could bungy jump. Two of the guys, one was another intern and the other a son of one of the missionaries, were set on bungy jumping and had been looking forward to this moment for a couple of weeks now. I still didn't sign up and wasn't planning on signing up, but as I watched them jump I got more and more excited. After watching two jumps and seeing that it wasn't as crazy as I thought it would be and that their was water below you on the jump, I decided that it looked pretty fun and that I would give it a try. So I went and signed the paper saying that if I die, I won't sue them and if the ropes broke and I got hepatitis B from the water that I won't sue either.



I'm not scared to jump or do flips off the high dive, and I've done some rock jumping in my life and so honestly bungy jumping wasn't too different. I think the only thing that I thought about though was that I had to trust that the rope wasn't going to break when I jumped. When the instructors counted down I jumped. It was a pretty cool feeling. I forgot to breathe until my first free fall was almost over and so I let out a pretty big groan, but for the most part bungy jumping was a pretty cool thing. I enjoyed it, but by the time all your blood has rushed to your head and it feels like its going to pop after hanging upside down for so long, you're very happy to get standing upright again. I think the next time I bungy jump I will have to go bigger for sure.

Thailand Highlights: Part #3

The day after our safari we went on our second group adventure. This time instead of riding on an animal we decided to ride an ATV. Another cool thing about Thailand is that you can do anything you want for about 50 bucks. For this adventure we paid 50 bucks for about 2 hours of riding time in the jungle.

About all the instructor told us was to stay in a single-file line on the main roads up to the course, how to start the four-wheel, where the throttle was and where the brakes were. Other than that he let us do whatever we wanted. It was so awesome. The trails we were on were pretty dusty and so I was covered in dust by the end, but I guess if you go in the rainy season it is ridiculously fun because there is so much mud to slip and slide on (and you get covered by it.)

Anyways our group had an awesome time slowing down and then catching up to the group. I got some pretty cool turns in and almost gave Nate a heart attack when I almost lost control on one. (I knew what I was doing.) We stopped every once in a while to see the city from the top of the mountain, which was a little tough because of all the smog, but our ride was a blast. We took some group pictures about half way into our ride (that's how dusty I was half way in) and just really had a good time zooming past each other and seeing how far we could slide on our turns. It was money well spent.

Thailand Highlights: Part #2

One of the things that everyone told us to do in Thailand was ride an elephant. It’s a pretty touristy thing, but who wouldn't want to ride on an elephant. So when we got there we booked one of our days as a safari day. Included in our safari was an elephant show, an elephant ride, a bamboo raft cruise, and an ox cart ride. It was a pretty cool experience.

The elephant show was pretty cool. We got to see elephants dance, play music, paint, kick a soccer ball, and much more. It was pretty funny seeing them hop on two feet and sit up. Each elephant has their own handler and they are controlled by voice commands and this big stick with a point on the end. After the elephant show we got onto our elephant. Then we went on a little safari through the jungle for about an hour. It was pretty cool riding on an elephant. If you look at the pictures you'll see that that we are sitting in this little cart thing. I had never real been around an elephant and it was crazy to see how strong they are and all that. After the elephant ride we boarded some bamboo rafts and took a little cruise down the river. It was fun just sitting in the sun and relaxing. I got really sunburned that day and had a sweet farmer tan, but it was worth it. The weather in Thailand was super nice. It was about 80 degrees and super comfortable. If you ever want to go to Thailand make sure you go in December, January, or February because if you don't you will most likely hit some really hot and humid weather. It was nice for me because I could wear sandals and shorts everyday.

After our raft ride with Huck Finn we got onto some bumpy ox carts and rode them back to our car. It was cool to be on an ox cart because we got a little taste of what it would have been like to actually live there. After that we got into our car and drove back to our hotel. Our safari was fun and if I went back to Thailand I would definitely do it again.

Thailand Highlights: Part #1

One of the things that I enjoyed in Thailand (and did a lot of) was shop. Normally I don't like to shop, but in Thailand everything is super cheap and you get to barter with the salesperson. About three nights when we were in Chiang Mai our whole group went down to the Night Bizarre on one of the main streets in Chiang Mai. It was a pretty neat place. There were a lot of foreigners there and a whole lot of interesting stuff. Paul Bradley was with us the first night and so he showed us who the good vendors were and who not to go too. You could buy anything from a t-shirt to a taser. (Sorry Timmy, I didn't buy one. I knew you were looking forward to being tased by your older brother.)

Some things about bartering that you should know. First off, everything is already dirt cheap, so you don't need to worry about haggling for $50 or so. I made that mistake a couple of times and felt like a big jerk. Second, the first buyer is always the "lucky" one. If you are their first buyer they will try and make you a special deal (which usually isn't too special), but if you start walking away they will probably chase you and make you buy it because they don't want to start the night off on a bad note. You can pull this on them by saying that you are the first buyer and will bring them good luck and then tell them a price. Another thing you need to know is that some of these people are crazy. I had people grabbing my arm to get me to keep looking at their stuff. If you don't seem too interested they try and sucker you in by lowering the price and then if you keep walking away you might even get it lower. Also, be careful what you touch because if you even more than glance at something, they will start asking you your size, "how much you give me?” and "what color you like?" and the infamous "For you...I give you special deal!"

Shopping in Thailand was fun because I got some cool stuff (whether its real or not I don't know) and I got to play a little game along the way. The first picture is the Sunday night market, which was packed if you couldn't tell, and the second image is of some of the guys at the market.