Take Two

Here is a better recap of this weekend...

at our Friday night, Shaberanito we did "henna gaijin" stories with the Tokyo and Shizuoka BEST club. Henna Gaijin is "strange foreigner"... this was so much fun to perform and watch. Here is Asako, Kanako, and Shige acting out Pat Miron's story of having a "fatty" tattoo in an onsen. Tattoos are totally prohibited in the onsens because they are a sign of the mafia and they make other patrons really nervous. So instead of saying, "no mafia" they say, "no tattoos"... and so here is Pat (Shige) and Kanako as Pat gets into trouble. It was funny to watch and if you look closely at Shige's leg, they even drew the tattoo Pat had. Shizuoka BEST club member Atsushi and Aileen discuss 1 Corinthians 13's "Love"
At Minami-Osawa Koshi enjoys Starbucks and Mr. Donuts
Chris Ebbers takes a rest after shopping at the Outlet. He looks like he's trying to decide what to do next.
On Sunday Tokyo BEST said goodbye to Shizuoka BEST and headed off to Tsukuba for a "walking rally" which is like sightseeing or walking around a town, just to walk.

Here are Mamo and Mitsuru on the train on our way up.

I didn't get a lot of pictures from the area but it was BEAUTIFUL! Our friend, Tom, is going to open up a BEST club on Tsukuba campus in a year. It is a beautiful campus and reminds me of an American college campus. We walked around for probably a good four hours just taking in the beauty and the town. It's beautiful and so chill... we felt really relaxed in Tsukuba. Tom is currently is helping out with Utsunomiya BEST so he brought his friend, Himeji, who is a third year student. It was great to "mix" a little with Utsu BEST. (Two BEST clubs in ONE WEEKEND! Wow! It was fun to see our guys hanging out with other BEST members!!)
Mary checks out Tsukuba.

On the campus we played ultimate... Nate, from Lincoln, NE (here for two weeks) was the honorable "500" frisbee thrower.

Himeji, Mark and Tom (Tom's the one stretching) stretch for the frisbee. I think Mark caught this one...

On our way back to the train station we were given a mission... to take a picture. One person had to have their feet off the ground, another person had to act like a wild animal, one person had to be talking to a Japanese person (a passerbyer) and the last person had to be a bystander. Here is my team... Tom is the bystander, Mitsuru is getting eating by a lion (Mamo) so his feet are up in the air and he is calling out to a guy we asked to be a part of our picture.

We also went to a "tree museum" and the trees were great but the flowers (of course, I would say this) were better....