Finished

So I will officially be home for two months in a week. It has been a great two months, but obviously, finishing my blog was not a top priority. I have been meaning to finish it up these past two months and it is finally happening tonight, Monday, July 23. I'm sorry that it took so long to write this. I feel that it is appropriate to stop because my blog is titled "Jeremy-in-Japan" and I am no longer in Japan. I don't like leaving things unfinished, but with this last post I feel that it is complete. I don't know if I will blog again, it will probably happen, but at this point it has been too much of a struggle to finish this one and I think it would be a waste to start a new one until I get pumped about blogging again. I've enjoyed writing and I hope you have enjoyed reading. Thank you for following my time in Japan and for faithfully praying for me and supporting me. God has truly blessed me in this past year. Reading through my blog has made me miss Japan and all the people and experiences even more. Sayonara!

I'll post again if I start a new blog!

Coming Home

So after a month of non-stop craziness and then some, I got on a plane in Tokyo en-route to Los Angeles. It was a very sad time, but by the time I got on the plane I was ready to go. I remember sitting at lunch with Nate before leaving and he said, "I think you're at the point where you have nothing left to say, you just need to go." That was exactly how I was feeling. I wasn't over Japan and trying to get out of there as soon as possible, but after saying goodbye to so many different people and doing so much in the last month, I was tired and ready to come home to be with my family and catch up on some rest.

Anyways, after the 9-hour flight and so on, I arrived in LA. My family was there to greet me in very blog-worthy outfits. It has become a tradition in my family to dress up when we pick people up at the airport. This time they went for the blow up costume look and they definitely got some looks from people at the airport. I remember my sister telling me how some people from Texas asked them if they could take their picture. Anyways, this was the party for me at the airport. I was glad to be home, but so tired. That's all I have about this. I'm home, and I've been home for about two months. Sorry it took so long to get to this one.

My Last Day at the Park

One of my favorite things to do with Ellie and Kara was take them to the park. They loved going to the park and I loved to take them. We would always run around and play different games. Usually we played chase and hide-n-go-seek. I think every time I went over to the Johnson's house Ellie would ask me, "Jeremy, do you want to play with me?" Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn't, but most of the time I said, "Yes." After that I would always ask her, "What do you want to play?" (I already knew the answer to this, but I liked to ask her anyways.) She would always respond with, "Let's play chase." She loved to run around the house with me chasing her. After a little while we would get tired and Ellie would take a little rest. However, playtime wasn't over yet because we had to play game #2, which was usually hide-n-go-seek. She would always tell me, "You count, I hide!"


So on Monday of my last week in Japan, I took Ellie and Kara to the park. I think Nate and I played catch for a little while, but I'm pretty sure that we played a little bit of chase and little bit of hide-n-go-seek. I miss these girls. They're so cute!

The Japanese Sunrise

About a month before I left Japan, I decided that I wanted to see the Japanese sunrise. I thought that since Japan is the land of the rising sun that it would be a cool idea to see the sunrise before I left. I probably should of thought of this idea earlier because the sun was rising at 4:30ish. It would have been better to do this during the winter when it was only rising at 6:30. Anyways, I decided that in order to see the sunrise I would need to get to the beach, but in order to get to the beach I needed a ride. The trains in Japan don't run until 5:00 and there was no way I would make the sunrise if I left on a train at 5. So, I decided that Rebekah would need to come with me, well rather, she needed to drive me. Rebekah wasn't too keen on the idea at first and got even more aggravated as I kept bugging her. After a while I got over it and stopped asking her and decided that I would just go to the top of the hill by the Lighthouse and watch it from there (all by myself...tear.)

Then comes my last weekend in Japan. I hate packing, I greatly dislike getting ready to leave places and at this point I had been staying up well past 12 to finish things before I left Japan. I think our group of friends ended up hanging out till about 10 or something, but then I stayed up till 1 finishing up a video for Nate. At about 3 o'clock in the morning I woke up to some noise in the hallway and the bright lights of my bedroom. To my surprise Rebekah, Kimberly, Derek, Liz, and Bridgette had planned on waking me up and taking me to see the Japanese sunrise. It was a good surprise, but with a full day coming up, it was a little bummer that I only got two hours of sleep. (It was worth it though.) All I can remember from the waking up part was that I kept saying, "I'm so confused. What's going on?"

So after I got dressed we piled into the van and drove out to Kamakura. It just so happens that Kamakura is on the other side of the peninsula that we lived so we didn't get to see the sunrise over the ocean, but I'm not complaining. It was an awesome little getaway before I left Japan. The planning committee brought firewood and supplies for smores. I've never had smores at 4 in the morning, but I can tell you that they are still as good as they taste late at night. Derek brought along a guitar and we sang some worship songs and hung out on the blanket for a little while. Soon after, our party was crashed by a Japanese fisherman who said, "No hire." We are concluded that he meant "No fire." and so we buried the fire in the sand. After that we took to taking pictures and walking up and down the beach.

When I think back about Japan, this is one of the moments that I wish I could go back to. It was a great time with friends and something that I really miss as I'm sitting here writing this. Rebekah, Kimberly, Liz, Derek, and Bridgette, thanks for waking me up to go and do this.