Sunday adventures

Wow I am a tired American in Japan. I came back to the lab to do a couple more recordings but I think I may need to finish that line of thought tomorrow morning. I was blazing awake at 4:30 am this morning, I don't know why. I can't figure out my circadian rhythms over here, they're very random.

I made it to church today and had so much fun! First I stood in the entrance next to a big basket of green slippers and wondered what the best way was to try and get someone's attention so I could figure out exactly what the protocol was there... but eventually a little old man came out and started asking me questions in Japanese. Hmmm. I asked if he could understand English and he asked me to wait a moment and ran into the church somewhere to return with a lady who spoke some English. She gave me a pair of slippers and lead me to a little room for English Bible study! A Japanese guy was the study leader, a Gunma University graduate who now teaches English somewhere near here and has been to CA. There was also a nice American girl there who has lived in Japan with her husband for 3 years, but she didn't stay long as she will be having a baby in a week or less and went home early. She looked a little uncomfortable! I was late as things actually started at 9:30, so barely finished introductions before heading upstairs for the Japanese church service. Ha! So cool! An older fellow with great English and a great voice to match sat next to me and updated me on the happenings throughout the service. It was a mental workout trying to pick out words, but they were in the book of John and the pastor said "ai" a lot which means "love," so I think I got the general idea. My homework will be to figure out the Lord's prayer in Japanese. Usually with my dictionary I can get one verse translated in about an hour. Slow-going, hehe. The hymns were fun as at least I can read music and follow the hiragana. Somewhere near the end my translator told me they were asking about first-time visitors and he told me to stand up and please introduce myself. Ha! The Japanese intro comes in handy once again. The really interesting thing is that at least 4 of the people who came up to me afterwards have been to Michigan (the total church size was maybe...40?)! It seems that the reaction to my line of work is a world-wide thing. It is weird to be studying fruit flies, I know. I had lunch with them afterwards (curry rice! Love it!) and had to laugh when they told me they thought many Americans today do not believe in God, and I said it is true that there are many who do not, or who believe there is no God... to which the response was "Hmmmm...foolishness!" I do love my scientist friends, but I must concur!

After church I did some more exploring in Maebashi and found some amazing waterfalls and equally amazing lizards that I was afraid to try to pick up because they look way too much like snakes. There were at least 100 people hanging around the waterfalls and lots of cute little kids playing in them -- I took lots of pictures but can't upload them yet. Somehow I need to get this camera unloaded onto a CD, hopefully next week I can borrow a new computer for a while. I talked to a very nice old man who was out for a walk and came over to practice his English. He told me all about the Lake of Happiness that is shaped like Gunma prefecture (which is shaped like a crane), and then showed me a WWII monument up on top of a hill. He told me I need to visit some large monument in Takasaki can be climbed for a great view of Mount Konnen (I think), so I will have to check that out. Takasaki is pretty close to here, maybe 25 minutes by train. My explorations today took me pretty far from home so I was glad for roadsigns with "ma" and "big school" kanji on them so I could find my way back. I found some more shrines and temples en route and wondered again about the religions here that everyone seems to know about but noone really knows what they mean. The man in the park said that people pray sometimes at these places, but religion is not a part of their everyday life. I guess that is true for many people no matter the religion or lack thereof -- God is indeed a distant entity unless the entirety of the story can be grasped. Why is this not the goal of every person?

I crashed when I got home and missed a great sumo tournament on T.V. I had a weird dream that I went to Niigata and Atsuko showed me a pool into which she periodically dumped mattresses to honor her brother. I woke up trying to help her throw a large mattress in the water. Goooooo figure. This is why I study neuroscience.

Better hit the hay. I have medium-high hopes for success with drug experiments tomorrow. I had no trouble with recordings this weekend, just a couple of floating preparations again. EJPs look odd in 0.5 mM calcium, but as usual Dr. Kuromi said "maybe it's okay!" so therefore maybe it's okay, hehe.

Happy birthday to my mom! -- And apologies for a midnight phone-call to my sister. I am terrible at time conversion.