03/12/2007AD - Ichikawa to Sapporo

Date: 3rd December 2007AD
Time: 11:20pm
Location: Sapporo, OMF Guest House
Current Mood: Tired and excited!

What happened:
After a quick breakfast we met with various OMF missionaries from around Japan to pray for OMF and it’s work around the world. I had a chance to meet with a couple – Peter and Janet Dalmond – who will be working in Sapporo shortly (they come in a few days). It was a highly encouraging time of prayer and sharing and meeting others from around Japan whilst getting in on God’s work.

We then took our bags for a long ‘stroll’ to the train station: very tiring work carrying 20kg+ bags up stairs and on the train. Had a cheap lunch at the airport – chicken curry, which had a scant serving of chicken. Flight to Sapporo via JAL (Japan Air-Lines) was relatively unpacked. Slept for a bit and we landed around 4:00pm, but by this time the sun was already setting and it felt much later to us. Met Richard East and was surprised to see how young he was!

Moved into the guest house in Sapporo, which was recently acquired and we were one of the first groups to be using the facilities. Also met Stephanie, a girl from the UK also on a short-term mission (5 weeks) taking care of Missionary Kids, and Manuella, the daughter of Wolfgang (director of OMF in Japan). Manuella and Stephanie served us dinner of Ramen noodles with crispy bacon, boiled egg and seaweed – which was very yummy!

Later that evening we all piled into Richard’s van to head to the local supermarket. We practically bought out the whole store, but in reality the shopping carts only made it feel this way because they were tiny!

Showered, had some dessert, chatted with Mel and Jay for a little while, then went to bed.

Looking forward to:

• Beginning our work doing some leaflet dropping tomorrow
• Snow!
• Meeting the people of Sapporo

Interesting thing I noticed today:

1. All the people on our flight had either khaki or black coloured jackets
2. There is a great sense of harmony and order to Japanese society – hard to pin down exactly what that is, but I don’t ever get the sense that things might go crazy at any given moment
3. When the temperature drops below 0 degrees Celsius, it all feels the same = cold!
   
4. Serving sizes for meals in Japan tend to be smaller than I’m use to

Interesting food I ate today:
Chicken Curry – airport food – expensive, but nasty
Ramen noodles with crispy bacon, seaweed and boiled egg - Sapporo is famous for Ramen, and even though this was an 'instant' variety it was still very delicious.