Church and Shopping

This morning we enjoyed worship and a lunch meal together next door at my parent's church.  I mentioned our pastor's wife, Keiko, in an earlier post.  She is battling recurrent cancer, yet remains so positive and cheerful.  She isn't always able to be out and about, but we did get to see her again today.  Earlier in the week she also brought over some tamago yaki (specially fried eggs) for us.  Gift giving and thoughtfulness is very much a part of the culture here.  We returned with some chocolates for her a couple of days later.  :)  Such a sweet spirit, and I'm so thankful that I've had the opportunity to visit with her once again.

We had rain and wind last night that cleared away the smog from the city.  It was beautiful to look out from Dad and Mom's hilltop home and see the mountains in the distance so clearly today.  Okay, so you have to look through all the power lines and concrete to see the mountains, but they are there!

In the afternoon Mom had to run an errand and dropped us off to do some of our own shopping and poking around.  We have no idea what this tiger was promoting, but the kids cooperated for a silly picture and Ami came away with a balloon.

It's fun to walk along the narrow streets and poke in and out of little shops.  We didn't go in this kimono shop, but the displays were beautiful.

We found yet a couple more 100 yen shops.....I think I'm about burnt out on them, but the kids enjoy them.  That doesn't mean I didn't buy anything, though.  I got a couple of sets of badminton rackets for the kids to use at the park, green tea chocolate bars, and a shoe horn.  You just never know what you'll find.  :)