Japanese Appreciation Day with Nobuko!

This past Sunday was a nice day in Japan. After church service Aaron and I met up with Nobuko. I haven't seen Nobuko in a while and Aaron has never hung out with her before.  It was really nice.

She invited us into her home and gave us a very educational tour of her house.  It was an old house (she said 40 yrs old) and taught us about the design and structure of it.  She explained that it was measured in tatami.  Each tatami was the measurement of the average Japanese person's body length back in the old days.  That's pretty crazy considering the tatami is only about 5 ft long.  She also told us about how they ventilated their houses in the summer.  Nobuko even shared her own family history with us.  Telling us about her husband's father and her own father, showing us their old collections of books they had inherited.  It was really great, like going into a museum but we were learning about Japan AND our friend at the same time.  It was pretty fascinating to learn this from her inside her own home.  Aaron especially loved it.  It made us feel very welcomed and appreciate Japan for its culture.

After drinking green tea and eating dango in Nobuko's old tea room, she drove us over to the Jougi shrine.  Aaron had never been there before (I had been twice before).  It was really nice of her and she really insisted.  It turned out to be a very far drive.  We were afraid of getting stuck in traffic on the way back, it we had a great adventure through the rice fields.

At the gate.

I made a joke on facebook/instagram about this entrance being the gate to hell, since there are demon statues on both sides.  From an outsider's perspective that's definitely what it looks like.  We didn't really care because we were glad to experience Japan outside of the city.

This is what it looked like once past the gate.

Inside there were lots of shrines, buildings, an old tree shrine, lots of gardens, ponds, koi.  It was very serene.  Aaron was mostly impressed by a pagoda that had been built hundreds of years ago without any bolts or nails.

 

Afterwards, we rushed back to Nobuko's home for dinner.  There, Toru (Nobuko's husband) had prepared a wonderful feast.  It included yakitori (which was my favorite), greek salad, potato salad, seared fish, clams, and melon for dessert.  This was Aaron's first homemade Japanese meal in Japan!  He loved it.

Two of their friends were also invited.  Manabu and Yumi Sasaki.  It had been years since I had last seen them and it was really great to finally see them again.  I was excited that Aaron finally got to meet them.  Aaron was very surprised by how energetic and talkative Yumi was, but it was extremely entertaining.  He also seemed to really get along with Manabu.  The men kept trying to get Aaron drunk (at least, that's what I think), but he only had a few drinks since we had Night Service back at the church to attend to.

Here we are with our big meal and the men.  (Manabu and Toru)

We were really sad when we had to leave, but those party people were still at it when Night Service was over!  So, we decide to surprise them and head back.  We stayed pretty late.  Lol.  This was the closest thing I've had to a real party since coming to Japan and it was with a bunch of old people!  But both Aaron and I had a great time and being with them made us really remember how much we love Japan and Japanese people.  We really hope we get to do this again some time soon!