Storms, Volleyball, & BBQ

Ay, ay, ay... I haven't blogged much recently, I just don't always have the time to sit down and think about what to share.  It's been a bit of an emotional roller-coaster the last few days, but hopefully things will be a bit more even-keeled now.  I survived my first storm in Cairns.  It had been overcast all day on Saturday and threatening to rain.  It was still dark and the clouds did look rather menacing by the time I was heading to volleyball, but since it hadn't rained all day and I had nothing better to do I decided to take my chances.  Besides, maybe playing in the rain would be preferable to playing in the heat & humidity.  Due to the ominous clouds there weren't many people there, but we had just enough for a game of 6-on-6.  The clouds kept getting darker and covering more of the sky and eventually it started to lightning.  We played on, it wasn't even raining and there was no thunder.  Sadly, that didn't last long.  It soon started to sprinkle and I decided that since I had to walk so far to get back, and really would prefer to not get caught in a downpour, that I should leave.  I made it half-way and then the heavens opened up and gave me a shower.  I ended up running down the sidewalk in my bare feet holding my flip flops and phone.  Running didn't keep me any drier, but it did get me home faster.  It was a crazy storm and when I talked to Ruth at church Sunday night she said her brother's house had lost electricity for about 10 hours (which means no A/C!!!); and I saw in the paper that some trees had come down as well.

The next few nights at volleyball were packed, everyone was "fighting" to get on the court.  You don't usually have to wait too long to get in on a game and most everyone abides by the rules and waits their turn, but with so many people and only three courts there was definitely some tension. On Monday night it was so incredibly hot & humid, I can't even remember the last time I was sweating so much.  I had played until the lights went off and was sitting on the steps drinking some water and cooling down a bit before heading home, when Louis said, "Don't you have to work tomorrow?" It had totally slipped my mind...  All the fighting to get on a court and then trying to win so you didn't have to get off the court seemed to take precedent.  Caterina, Pukari, and I decided that we should plan a BBQ on Tuesday night and then go to volleyball afterwards (most of our mutual friends are all from volleyball anyway).  In the end Pukari couldn't make it, but Cat and I were able to save our spot at the BBQ area right next to the volleyball courts, so we got to chat while we waited for everyone else to show up.  Emma and Shinobou came (they came to the Pancake Palooza I hosted), along with Jordan, Max, Rith, Louis, and Neils.  It was actually a lot of fun - the only people I didn't know that well were Max, Shinobou, and Neils; but I've played volleyball with Max and Neils many times before so it wasn't a big deal.  Once we were done eating and had cleaned up we all headed to the courts.  There were lots of people already playing, but since we had enough people to make our own team it wasn't too bad.  We might do another BBQ again next week, or just before Christmas, and hopefully Pukari can make it this time.

My student this week was from a suburb of Tokyo and I ended up getting three days of teaching instead of just two.  Romey was busy with her photography business and asked if I would like to take one of her days.  Since Chiho left early on Tuesday because she was sick, and then cancelled the last lesson today because of a tour she'd booked it worked out perfectly because I ended up getting almost exactly the same number of hours I should have originally had teaching on just Tuesday and Wednesday.  I don't know if that makes sense or not, but I'm just glad I got some hours. Yesterday I took her to the Wildlife Dome and we got to see Goliath up close.

  She got to cuddle a koala and see lots of birds and ducks, so it was a good afternoon.  Today was also the last time I'll see Rei (my student from 2 weeks ago).  She leaves this weekend after being here for a month; she has been doing one-on-one lessons with Anne all week.  I also realized that next week will be my last week at Nova because we don't have any students in-between Christmas and New Years...

Oh, and in other news, I found someone to travel with me!!!  Rith is a Melbourne native and he's heading back home this weekend.  He heard that I was traveling to Melbourne and Tasmania and said he would love to visit Tasmania, but didn't want to do it by himself.  I told him he was more than welcome to tag along, it's always more fun to travel with someone else.  Plus, despite living in Melbourne his whole life he hasn't really done any of the touristy things.  He has a car there and he said he'd be more than happy to do the Great Ocean Road highlights and maybe visit the Mornington Peninsula as well.  He said I can pretty much plan anything I want for Tasmania, he doesn't like to plan.  Kaylee & Ben, and Tom (other friends from volleyball) recently moved down there as well, so maybe we'll meet up with them and play some volleyball!  I was really dreading moving on from Cairns (even though I am definitely up for some different weather), and was incredibly tempted to just stay here until my visa expires.  Talking with Stephanie at volleyball last night she said something about how us regulars are like a little family and the new people have to pay their dues before they can be included.  I guess I've paid my dues by showing up nearly every day for the last five months, getting hit in the face, and putting up with everyone's teasing.  But she's right, if you come consistently and are a nice person, the regulars will include you into their group and help you play better.  While making popcorn the other night Matthew (poor guy was trying to clean the kitchen and I was in the way) asked me if I knew a guy named Jason from volleyball.  Matt just got a job at a mechanics shop and it seems Jason had come in to get some work done on his car and as a courtesy they were taking him home, but he asked them to drop him off near volleyball since that's where he was headed.  Matt knows I'm there nearly every night so he asked if Jason knew me.  It seems that almost every person I know in Cairns is from volleyball, or that's how we first met.  Anyway, Rith wanting to travel is a nice surprise and will hopefully make January not seem so depressing (since even though I'll be leaving everyone behind, I won't be traveling on my own just yet).

The Truth Hurts

Don't you just hate it when someone tells you something about yourself that you'd really prefer to think is untrue, but, after thoughtful consideration, you realize is actually quite true?  That was my experience last night, when in a conversation with Louis he told me he thinks I can be rather selfish, even though I'm a passive person.  Of course my first instinct was to protest, but I held my tongue and heard him out.  Sure, it sort of stung to hear that, but one of the maxims from work that they drilled into us was, "welcome criticism, and accept praise." Sadly, he didn't elaborate too much on the topic, so I was left on my own to ponder if it was true, and to try to determine what exactly had prompted him to say it.  How had I been selfish, when, was it really true?  If it is true, how can I change?  As an over-analyzer I probably gave some of the questions too much thought and other questions not enough.  For the last nine months it's been just me.  Aside from the normal social conventions and politeness, I only had to think of myself.  And even before moving here, I mostly had to just think about myself - I guess that's what comes from being single, I don't know.  How often do I actually put myself in the other person's shoes and try to think of things from their side before I decide something.  Often times even when I'm thinking of how another person might think or react to something it's ultimately so I can attempt to prepare myself for an appropriate response or reaction.  How sad that even when almost being selfless it still comes around to being about me!!  Unfortunately, googling "how to be less selfish" didn't immediately result in some easy answers.    But as in life, I guess it's a journey; one step at a time.  I guess it was rather appropriate timing, since it's now the Christmas season, the season for giving (and not being selfish).....

Cleaning

Since I had to cancel my shift Saturday night due to being sick, God graciously sent me a cleaning shift early Monday morning.  I had just woken up and was texting my Mom to say that I could call whenever they were free (Monday mornings are my usual time to call home) when I got a text asking if I could pick up a cleaning shift.  Since I was hired to do Food & Beverage work it was a bit of a surprise, but I'm perfectly capable of cleaning, so after some preliminary questions I said I'd take it.  I didn't have much time to get ready and be on time for the shift though, so sadly I had to cancel our weekly phone call.  The Cairns Convention Centre is the home of the Taipans (basketball team) and we were cleaning up from the game they'd had the night before.  The crazy thing is that the whole place is carpeted.  Yep, not just the "corporate seats" on the bottom tier next to the court, but the whole way to the nosebleed section.  Tons of food crumbs, spilled popcorn, etc.  So, we spent the first 4 hours with these backpack vacuums just sweeping the place from top to bottom.  Technically easy work, but since I'm not very big the vacuum started feeling heavy rather quickly.  In addition, it's easiest to see where you need to sweep if you stand in the bottom row and clean the row above.  The only problem with that is that I'm short and it was definitely a stretch for me to reach up and flip down all the seats to check for stuck food.  Oh, well... After we finished sweeping I was given a bottle of carpet cleaner and a little brush and told to go back through and scrub out all the stains (thankfully there weren't too many big, bad stains).  Once we'd done that we went back through and had to sweep up what we scrubbed out.  Like I said, not difficult work, but very tedious.  I was definitely a bit weary by the end of that 6 hour shift, but it pays the bills. 

Louis had the night off, so after a quick shower he and I headed back to his place and made steaks for dinner (he thinks I don't get enough iron and that's why I got sick the other day - not sure how he came up with that, but he decided I needed to eat more red meat).  Monday nights are usually volleyball nights, but I just didn't have the energy.  After dinner we finished watching "The Holiday" and then watched "Music & Lyrics".  I want to see if I can find White Christmas so we can watch that - he's never seen it and it's just not Christmas until you've watched that movie, at least for me anyway.  Oh, and I finally got to meet his sister, officially.  We'd stopped by to see her at the Night Markets once before, but she was on the phone the whole time so we just sorta waved and left.  Since she works at night she's always been gone by the time we arrive and I'm gone by the time they get home.  She took a few days off so I we were able to be introduced.  She's beautiful and super sweet; and in addition to speaking English, she's also fluent in Japanese!  He's the baby of the family, and she's the next oldest sister, and there are two sisters older than her.  Louis works with her husband at the RSL Club (sort of like the American Legion), but I've never met him either.  You can definitely tell, based on their interactions, that she's the older sister...which of course made me miss my little brother.  

Not sure if I'll get any shifts from the temp agency this weekend, but I have two days of teaching next week, so I'm at least guaranteed some money.  Oh, and I'm now on Day 3 of my 25 Days of Christmas Greetings (my cousin got a bunch of people to write me cards and letters, at least one for every day in December before Christmas) and I'm loving it.  The first day I got a photo, the second day a card and a home-made Christmas scene, and then today I got a cool story written by my little brother, based on movie quotes - it was very entertaining.  I hope you all are having a good week - it's Hump Day!!

It’s beginning to look a lot like….

Well, the library is decorated for Christmas and they had a lighting ceremony for the big tree down by the lagoon tonight.  They’ve got Christmas music playing in the mall as well, so Cairns sort of has a Christmas feel to it, but with the heat and humidity, I’m just not in the mood.  I did watch my first Christmas movie of the year though – Louis and I both love “The Holiday” and it was the only one he had.  It was technically before Thanksgiving (which is generally a no-no), but since they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in Australia I figured I was ok.  We had turkey for dinner and by the time he’d cooked and we’d eaten, it was a bit late to start the movie, but we didn’t have any other plans for the evening…we’ll finish it another time.  Well, we’ve both seen it before so I guess it’s not that necessary, but I do love the ending.

On Wednesday I was blessed with a lovely birthday package full of some of my guilty pleasures: nutella, peanut butter, oatmeal butterscotch cookies, and oatmeal fudge bars.  Tata, the new girl in reception, saw everything my mom had sent and immediately exclaimed, “They want to make you fat!”  I just laughed and said, “Yeah, I think you’re right.  Would you like a cookie?”  She only took one, but I took them to volleyball with me that night so that helped keep me from eating them all.  On Thursday I took some of the cookies to Nova to share with Shoko & Rei, and then Thursday night I stopped by Emma’s on the way home to share some with her as well.  What good are batches of cookies if you can’t share the love, right!?  Caterina fell in love with the oatmeal fudge bars and when Louis tried them he promptly decided that my Mom needs to open a café & bakery.  He claimed they pair perfectly with a “long black” coffee, so you have to sell them as a package deal.  When I told my mom she claimed he’s only trying to get on her good side, and while I can’t rule that out, you also can’t discount the fact that those bars are AMAZING.

I haven’t seen Alicia in over a month, despite us both promising we’d get together for coffee sometime.  Well Friday afternoon she finally had some time off work and when she was done with school we were able to meet up for a bit.  It was lovely to see her and hear how things are going.  She works really long hours and sadly doesn’t even get paid minimum wage, which is technically illegal I’m pretty sure, but it seems to be pretty common if you’re Asian and are employed by other Asians.  Agatha still hasn’t found another job (she has to find a company that will sponsor her visa, so it’s taking her a bit longer), but she worked so hard, for so long, without any real days off that she’s just trying to enjoy the time off.  Their Mom, an Aunt, and two young cousins are coming on Dec. 12th, and from the sounds of it we might not be heading to Tasmania after all.  It’s not entirely ruled out, but also doesn’t seem very likely.  I’ll still visit at some point, but my travel route might be a bit different now.  Oh, and I learned from Alicia (and further explained to me by Louis) that Korean’s don’t count their age the same way Westerners do.  I’m still not entirely sure I understand it all, but you’re 1-year old when you’re born, so, if I were Korean I would actually be turning 27 in a few weeks.  Plus, I think they change their age with the calendar year too, so even though I’m born in December I would have already been telling people I’m 26, so in January 2015 I would say I’m 27.  Hopefully that’s correct, I’d hate to be passing on incorrect information, but from the explanation I received, I believe that’s correct.

That’s about all the new info I’ve got to pass along.  I was to work in reception all day today and then go immediately to the Casino to work until 1am, but I got really sick earlier this morning and had to leave reception early and cancel my shift with the temp agency.  I’m feeling a bit better now, still got a wicked headache though.  Hopefully that will be gone by tomorrow morning.  Either way, I’m thinking I’ve put off a chiropractor’s appointment for too long, so maybe I’ll head to the one near Nova on Monday and see if I can get an appointment.  Not sure why I never did this before, but here are some photos of my hostel, in case you all are interested:

Kitchen

View from the kitchen/dining room

My Room - classy, right?

Just Another Update

I’ve been meaning to write another blog post, but it just hasn’t happened.  I ended up working again on Saturday night (I almost told them I couldn’t work, but made myself do it because I finally had an opportunity to make some money so I figured I needed to take it) and despite being told I would be finished at 10pm, due to the fact that I had to be up for work at 5:30am, that didn’t quite happen.  A bit of a long story, but I was working at the Casino (it's more than a casino, it's a hotel, restaurant, catering venue and casino all rolled into one) and they had 4 functions going on so I was assigned to the Graduation dinner which was going to be buffet style.  Hannah, the manager in charge of our group, was super nice and I told her I needed to leave at 10pm (Signature Staff was supposed to tell them ahead of time, but I had a feeling it probably hadn’t been passed along) and she said that was totally fine.  Since it was a buffet I again wouldn’t have to worry about carrying three plates.  After we’d had our briefing for the evening and everyone had been assigned tables and tasks for the night, the GM came and pulled me to the Engineering Australia Awards dinner because one of the other guys didn’t speak English well enough.  By the time I joined that group I’d missed the briefing, so only got a quick run through and then we were busy doing other things.  I never got a chance to tell Tim, the new manager, that I needed to leave early, but based on the handout he’d given me, the function was to be over at midnight, so I figured two extra hours wouldn’t kill me.  Oh, and did I mention this was NOT a buffet dinner?

Holding a tray full of drinks for 20min. during cocktail hour did not help my sore arms from the previous night, and I ended up spilling 2 glasses of champagne at one point – thankfully only one of them broke, and since it was on carpet the whole entire room wasn’t alerted to my plight.  The guests near me at the time were very nice, so that helped.  Then not 10 minutes later, while putting dirty glasses in the dish racks in the kitchen another glass fell off my tray and shattered.  Everyone in the kitchen heard that one!  There were four people assigned to do the food run, 2 people to carry 3 plates and 2 people to carry 2 plates: lucky me, I got to be one of the 3-plate servers.  The first run was fine, no dramas.  But then it came time to do the main meal and the plates were significantly larger and they were hot!  The first ones weren’t as hot, because they sat out a bit longer and had time to cool, but by the middle of the run they were burning my hands.  Your hands start sweating and it hurts like crazy and you’re trying desperately, and I do mean desperately, not to drop one while walking as fast as humanly possible so that you can hurry and put it down.  Somehow I did manage to successfully deliver all the dinner plates.  I was never so happy to see a tiny little dessert plate in my life!

Anyway, the rest of the night went well and we started to clean up.  I then found out we had to set up for another function!  Tim wasn’t really around, he’d shown us how to rearrange the room and then disappeared, plus I felt a bit funny mentioning it now.  Most of us were really tired and just wanted to go home, so we just worked as fast as we could.  Hannah wandered in around 12:30am and saw me and exclaimed, “What are you still doing here!?”  I told her it was ok, we were almost done anyway, but she said, “No, let’s go” and told me she’d sign off on my time sheet.  Who knows what time everyone else finished, it would easily have been 2am.  Morning, of course, came super early.

Louis and I had planned on going to the beach Sunday afternoon, and despite both of us being quite tired we decided to keep the original plan and headed to Palm Cove after my shift in reception was finished.  It was a gorgeous day, and I’m always so shocked by how lovely the water is here – it’s the most stunning shades of blue and green (which sadly doesn't quite turn out in pictures).

 We had a picnic lunch on the sand and then decided to go for a swim.  The water was incredibly warm, I think someone said it was 24C (which is about 75F), my Dad would have loved it.  Thankfully jellyfish season isn’t in full swing and the beach had a stinger-net section, so we didn’t have to worry about that too much.  Monday was a rather lazy day, followed by an evening of volleyball.  As you might recall, Monday’s are the free VB clinic.  Erin and her friend Grace were there again (they only ever come to the clinic), as were Pukari and Caterina.  I’ve gone to the clinic several times and we usually “learn” the same techniques every time, but this week we actually learned some new things and finally got to work on serving again.  My overhand serve is coming along quite nicely now.  Anyway, since I didn’t have to work Tuesday morning I stayed until the lights went out, which I haven’t done in quite awhile.  It was a fun night because I ended up playing with such a variety of people, pretty much all of my volleyball friends were there at some point and I was able to play a game or two with them.  Louis usually has Monday’s off so we usually see each other at volleyball, but he never showed up and I rarely take my phone, so when I got back to my hostel around 10:30pm I wasn’t surprised to see he’d texted me, but was surprised to learn that he’d had to work and he’d come by to see me after finishing work.  I texted to tell him I’d just got back from volleyball and he said he was over in the restaurant.  I guess a bunch of his friends had made plans last week to go out for dinner but since he’d had to work and couldn’t go he’d never heard where they were having dinner.  He’d run into them while waiting around for me so it was nice to get to meet some of his Korean friends.  Several of them are masseuses and most of his guy friends are former futsal teammates.   They all mainly chatted in Korean, which doesn’t bother me after living in Japan; a few of them did talk with me in English though and they all seem very nice.  I guess they were surprised to find him there and even more surprised that he was dating someone who isn’t Korean.  Well, I think that just about brings you all up to date – I hope you all have a very blessed Thanksgiving with lots of cranberry sauce and pecan pie.

Recap of the week

What a busy week!  I worked in reception Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, taught at Nova on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, then last night (Friday) I also had my first shift with Signature Staff!  The students this week were great, not that I’ve had a bad one yet.  We had three students, Rei (23), Yuika (27), and Tazuko (71).  Rei and Yuika had their lessons together and Tazuko had lessons by herself because her English level was higher than the other two girls; I taught Rei & Yui twice and had Taz once.  Yet again, despite the age difference the three of them got along famously.  I think it's in large part due to their culture of respect for your elders coupled with the fact that any women over the age of 60 willing to travel alone, to a foreign country to study English, has got some spunk.  And who doesn't love spunk? The girls called her Mom all the time and made sure to look after her when they did tours together.  Taz told me that she probably would have been too nervous to do some of the tours on her own, but the girls took such good care of her that she was having a great time and making so many memories.  When they did the night tour of Paronella Park, she told me they were careful to make sure she didn't trip on anything in the dark.  Taz has a great sense of humor and is very chatty; we rarely did the lessons the usual way because most of the subject matter was too basic for her; we often just went off on rabbit-trails and talked about whatever subject came up.  I figured as long as she was speaking English it was good practice for her.  She learned to speak English from American & Canadian teachers so she liked my pronunciation of words since that’s the way she learned.   Yuika and Tazuko left today to go back home to Japan, but Rei is staying for another 3 weeks, so I’ll be teaching her again next Thursday.  Her final two weeks are special one-on-one lessons and only Anne has been trained for that, so, unfortunately, I’ll have another month off.

 After lessons yesterday we all headed to Rusty’s Market and sampled some of the fruits and veggies.  It’s coming into mango season, so we definitely took advantage of those samples.

Last night was also my first night as Food & Beverage Staff with the temp agency that hired me.  Despite the crazy heat and humidity, our uniform is black pants and a long-sleeve black shirt.  Luckily for me, and to my great delight, Louis texted me to say he’d drop me off at the Cruise Liner Terminal (where the event was being held) so that I wouldn’t have to walk there in the heat.  We were serving at the Tropical Tourism North Queensland Awards Banquet, so there were about 300 guests there and everyone was quite dressed up – someone said it was about $165/person to attend.  I was lucky to meet up with a nice woman named Tash when I first arrived and we quickly bonded as we were both completely inexperienced and this was our first shift with Signature Staff.  Fortunately, we got put on the same side of the room and were both put on beverage service since neither of us had experience carrying 3 plates at a time without a tray.  They had shown us how when we were hired, but I’d never actually done it.  When they were splitting us up between food and beverage service they asked if any of us weren’t comfortable with the 3-plate carry and I quickly raised my hand.  They’d already stressed how big of an event this was for them (they were actually up for an award so wanted to be extra impressive) and I just didn’t want the pressure.  I found out later from another guy on our side of the room, who had done this many times, that beverage service is a lot less work, so it seems I made a good choice.  By the time they cut us it was 11pm and my feet were killing me.  I thought I’d bought a decent pair of shoes, but knowing how much I hate wearing shoes (and how infrequently I actually wear shoes), I probably wouldn’t have been happy no matter what shoes I wore.  But all in all, the night went pretty well; I didn’t drop or spill anything and I only mixed up drink orders a couple times (that I know of anyway).

This morning I got a lesson from Tusa (the Samoan gentleman at my hostel who randomly gives me meals) on precision cutting.  He's taking a course on hospitality management, or something like that, and I had helped him with his homework one morning last week.  The assignment was to write up a plan for giving a coworker additional training in something.  So he wrote out the things he need to do and used me as the employee he was going to train.  By the end of the assignment I realized he thought he actually had to do the training (not just write an assignment proving to the teacher that you knew how to prepare and plan a training), so I explained (or so I thought) that he didn't have to actually do the training, just write up a plan for giving the training.  Then on Thursday he asked me if I was free Saturday morning, he was going to buy the vegetables and show me how to do the "precision cutting."  At this point I decided to just go with it.  He's so sweet and it was actually interesting to learn how to do it - looked pretty impressive as well.

Other than volleyball evenings and dinner with Louis, that's about the jist of my week.  Another muggy day here in Cairns, so I think I'm gonna go jump in the pool....

God & Ramen

My church here in Cairns sings this song quite a bit and we sang it again last night - I love the words, when you stop to think about them they're very powerful, and hard to sing at the same time.

"Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders, let me walk upon the water wherever you would call me.  Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander, and my faith will be made stronger in the presence of my Savior... I will call upon your Name, keep my eyes above the waves.  My Soul will rest in your embrace.  I am Yours, and You are mine.  "

While talking with my parents this morning my Dad and I talked about my need to be intentional with my faith.  I have no problem answering questions when people ask me about church, like Emma did last night; but I never take it that extra step and ask them what they believe or what they know about God or Jesus.  I'm far to complacent to just answer questions, and never ask any of my own or go deeper and tell them (without them asking) why I go to church and why my faith is important to me.  As my time in Cairns winds down that's definitely something I need to work on with the people I've met.

Friday night I got to do another famil request and was able to bring Louis along for the ride.

 We did the Cairns Harbour Cruise and despite it being too cloudy to get a good sunset it was really fun; I always love being on the water.  We searched for crocodiles in the mangroves along Trinity Inlet, but didn't see any (I'm not sure if it's that common or not and I didn't think to ask).  I had a totally lazy day on Saturday and then yesterday after my morning shift in reception a group of us went to one of the movies that was part of the Japanese Film Festival.  Rav had told me about the festival (who doesn't love free movies - even when they are in Japanese) and since he wasn't able to go since he's back in Brisbane now I recruited a few friends of my own.  I knew that Pukari loves Japan so he'd probably go, I wasn't too sure about anyone else though. Louis ended up having to work and couldn't come at the last minute, Caterina was going to come until she realized it wasn't going to be in English. In the end Rith joined us, as did Mei (Caterina's friend who came to our first dinner together), and Emma came as well and brought one of her Japanese friends from her hostel.

 Everyone (except Pukari) was late and since it wasn't a regular movie it started on time (the nerve!) and I missed the beginning.  I really enjoyed it though; it was a documentary about the life of Kazuo Yamagishi and his famous Tokyo ramen shop, Taishoken.  This blog post explains it pretty well:

"The God of Ramen traces the life of Kazuo Yamagishi and his struggles. Yamagishi was the inventor of tsukemen aka dipping ramen, where the noodles and broth are served separately and you dip cold noodles into hot broth. It’s a style of ramen that has become increasingly popular in Japan. Thus, Yamagishi is considered the God of Ramen. It’s a raw and unpolished piece of film, cheaply shot....the story is so much more compelling and heartfelt. You gain much respect for Yamagishi’s work ethic and his treatment of apprentices, but you also see the hardship, sacrifices and loneliness which I guess is part and parcel of being a chef sometimes, but you rarely see that side displayed in such human terms."

When the film was over we all decided we should have met up for Ramen before hand (the good ramen shop was already closed by the time we got out).  Anyway, most of them headed off to volleyball and I told them I'd stop by after church.  It was a good service and I enjoyed the topic (God as our Father) and afterwards I headed to the VB courts (they're only a block away).  I managed to get in two games before I headed off to the night markets to finally do my opal necklace recon work.  We were waiting to get on the courts when Emma asked me what a church service was like.  I'm still not quite sure how I could have used that opening to talk more about my faith, but I'm praying I can think of something if the opportunity presents itself again.  Well, I guess that's all for now.  I get a whopping three days of teaching this week, so that's a blessing.  Guess that will keep me busy too!