Well, I have been in Japan the last couple of days hanging out with Mike my brother who has been taking better care of his blog on the subject than I have.

I came two nights ago and we stayed at a hostel, got up the next morning and wandered around Tokyo for a bit. We went to a huge park with several museums and a zoo. We went to art museum and saw Monet's "Water Lillies" which is one of those pieces popular on posters that you can get at Hobby Lobby. It was really cool to see the original. We also rented a swan paddle boat at the park pond and nearly were massacred by ducks and geese and sea gulls when we threw a bit of bread in the water. We had lunch at a little Japanese noodle restaurant, and had to just point at a couple of items in the menu since they didn't have pictures in them. It turned out alright. Then we made our way to ARI and got in, just in time to catch the end of dinner. The guys then proceeded to the guys dorm where we drank a bit of wine, and watched "Jesus Christ Superstar."

Yesterday I worked at ARI with him and it was fun. We took care of chickens, and collected fire wood. Last night a group of us went to a local church for candlelight service, then came back and watched "Love Actually."

We got up this morning and opened presents. Mike got a tarp tent, and I got a certificate for a monster puppet from monsterpuppest.com. We also found chocolate and the traditional set of legos in our stocking, along with a tooth brush and huge peppermint stick all we did was feed the chickens, and then had the rest of the day off. We rode bikes to the store, played ultimate Frisbee, read, played music, and walked to and around town.

We are heading out to north Japan tomorrow to look around and visit a Mennonite ex-pat and his organic farm.

I just wanted to say happy Christ Mass to everyone!!