More on Tokyo (Now with video!)

You thought I was done talking about Monday, didn't you?

....Actually, so did I. But I realized later that I forgot all about our visit to Tokyo!!
So, without further ado, lets talk about Meiji shrine.

The walkway to Meiji Shrine

Meiji shrine, viewed from above. The forest is man-made from 10000 donated trees!

We began our trip out with a train ride from HK station, which is a uniquely Japanese experience in itself. Trains in Japan are awkwardly quiet. Awkward in the fact that it's usually the group of white people making all the noise. An observation I made: at one of the stations, there's a sign that reads, in English and Japanese, "You might be having fun, but please keep your voices down!" The poster also had a little cartoon showing a little cat-thing on a train being frightened by a group of women's chatter. WOMEN's chatter. Are you trying to say something, Japan?
Anyway, the first stop on out Tokyo tour was the serene Meiji shrine, a shinto place of worship. (Look! Pictures! Finally!)
From the wooden torii gate that marks the entrance of the shrine,  there's a tree-lined walkway about a half-mile long. The shade gave us much-needed relief from the sun. Informational signs, paintings, and pictures appeared as we neared the main body of the shrine. There was even a huge rack filled with large barrels of sake, donated by local breweries. The Meiji regents must really like to party.
Supposedly, the spirits of the Emperor Meiji and his consort are enshrined here. Emperor Meiji is famous and revered for introducing western culture to the secluded nation of Japan. Shrine-goers visit the Meiji shrine to worship the deceased rulers.
 Unfortunately, my camera died shortly after entering the shrine, so I don't really have any pictures of the main grounds. I'll nag Bri for some later. But the shrine consists of a very large, square, stone courtyard dotted here and the by big trees bound by a thick rope. I'm sure this has holy significance, but I'm not exactly sure what it means. In the pavilion surrounding the courtyard, there were dozens of vases filled with all kinds of fresh flowers, making the grounds smell very nice.
The whole shrine had a very simple motif: neutral colors, no showy decorations, not even at the main altar (Which I honestly can't recall very well).  And the whole place was very quiet.
I think that was one of the biggest differences between the shinto shrine and KCC, Grace, and other Christian churches (besides, well, the whole religion thing). We discussed how at Christian places of worship, there's almost always a feeling of community. We sing together, we listen to sermons together, and we go out to the lobby and chat with each other afterwards together. At the shinto shrine, there was none of that. Just a bunch of people going up to the altar, silently praying, and slowly slinking away afterwards. You certainly get the impression of devotion when you see all the money donated, all the work gone into preserving the shrine, and the amount of people visiting. But there's just an empty, quiet feeling about the place that's really kind of depressing. And then you get to the giftshop, and then that kills the whole dignity of the place a little. (It does serve delicious green tea ice cream, though.)

All in all, the Meiji shrine is a peaceful, quiet place, good for getting away from the city to think. From a Christian perspective, it really is a good place to meet with God. You'd think that, since Shinto is a very nature-based religion, the devout would appreciate the shrine for similar reasons. But this really isn't the case. Most just walk up to the altar, pray, and leave. 

Did I just get death-wished by a 7-year-old?

Warning: rant ahead.

And it's now Saturday, and I'm finally getting to the Monday blog. Sorry it's been so delayed. You have to understand, MISSION TRIPS ARE BUSY THINGS.  It's just so hard to smoosh them in every day :( But now I have some freetime, so I might as well keep a' goin'.

Rant over.

On Monday, we went over to KCC for "Grace Coffee Hour," which is a nice little time for chruch members to come together to talk, worship, and and eat delicious treats prepared by the wonderful KCC kitchen ladies. The team and I preformed a few of our worship sets. Then we found out we needed to practice more. Luckily, BEK worship went MUCH better. Several children said it was their favorite part of the day. Awww~ Plenty of warm and fuzzies for the worship leader, a certain Ms. Me!

While at Grace Coffee Hour, I ran into a few familiar faces: Souma-san, aka, the Ginza Guy ("And now, we go to GINZAAAAAAA!") the sweet lady who gave me, Laura, and Emily handmade bookmarks last year, Sanai (a good friend of Mary Beth Kirshman, for whom I play delivery girl to) and of course, Pastor Taizo and his wife Kimiko. I'd also like to add that I got two hugs (one from Pastor Taizo, one from the bookmark lady) within the first 72 hours after arriving in Tokyo. Japan really isn't a touchy-feely place. Hugs just really arn't that appreciated. So to get two is kind of a big deal, to me anyways. ^^

While we were at Coffee Hour, the team and I met a 7-year-old girl named Hinata. There was no common language between us, except for an English "Thank you" from Hinata and whatever scattered Japanese words ("Neko... hime....oishi....tsuki desu ka?"*) we could come up with. But we still had fun getting to know each other. We had Japanese/English lessons back and forth, learning colors, numbers, and currency exchanges! We learned each other's favorite colors, and how much yen equals a quarter.

As we chatted, Hinata drew the most adorable pictures of me and the team. She paid TONS of attention to detail, giving me glasses (and a bow in my hair, which I wasn't actually wearing. But oh well, points for creativity!), Bri sunglasses (she was wearing them at the time) taking extra care to write "Hoosiers" across Joe's IU hat, and percisely recording the patterns of Jason's facial hair.

But she drew us all as ghosts.

Granted, very very  cute ghosts! But still ghosts all the same. We accepted our portraits happily and even asked the artist for an autograph.

.......But why ghosts? Oh well. :)

Tomorrow's post will focus on Wednesday, since Tuesday was all about preparing for BEK. Nothing really important there.
*cat, princess, delicious, do you like that/this?