The Final Christmas Celebration

The stockings were hung....

carols all sung.

The presents were stacked under the tree...


for all eyes to see.

And as always, the joy of the Lord filled the air
wiping away all doubt and care.

For this day was the last lonely Christmas
for the Appelgate team to take bliss.

Presents were unwrapped
although the joy never untapped.

The candy lay about the floor
with all the tummies oh-so-sore.




For the parents had sent in the mail
packages of love and candy without fail.

The previous day was just as joyous
with lots of fun and not so much fuss.

The hot spring was comfortable
while the train staff dressed up merriable.

Songs were all sung with cheer

With friends so close and dear.

And what would a Japanese Christmas be

without a lovely cake to see!

On Christmas night all merriment was had

with friends all around to make us glad.

The food and fixin's were oh so wonderful

talkin' and laughin' never a moment too dull.

Although turkey was out of the question....

A glazed ham would do for din-din.

And to finish off the Christmas joy

was free coffee from Mister Donut, oh boy!

Nativity Play

Here is the celebrated Nativity play we promised!!!!

Hope you enjoy this version.......

Best Christmas Party Yet

Today was our best and final English Club Christmas party! It was full of non-stop laughter, joking, and fun times!

We started the party off with a cookie decorating contest, in which each student was able to choose and decorate 3 cookies any way they like. Here is a sampling of some of the finished products (the one in the center of the tray took FIRST place actually!)

Afterwards the students finished decorating the rest of the Christmas cookies.. and last year they made us matching "boy and girl" cookies, well this year on their attempt, they accidentally gave Angie a giant eye, so she figured she should probably make her eye the same so they didn't feel too bad about making her look like "EYE-gore!"

We also had a fashion design contest, in which the students were given 2 rolls of wrapping paper (we should be specific- Japanese rolls of wrapping paper, which means only about 3 feet of wrapping paper/roll) and could make any fashion they wanted.. here were the final designs from the left- the "the Tin-Man," "Santa-Pebbles," and "the Parisian-Christmas Queen!" In case your all dying to know, the Tin-Man won!!!

We played many other games, ate tons of delicious food, did a White-Elephant gift exchange, and laughed a lot! Best of all, we did a nativity play, complete with costumes and everything, but you will have to wait for us to upload and edit the video before we put it up on here! Hopefully we'll get to it this week, since our vacation starts on Wednesday!!!

103... Do we have to go?

Today we had one of those days in which we had to ask ourselves, "Why are we leaving?" and we also remembered, "Oh yeah, this is why God has brought us here!" It was one of those days that makes us super excited and joyous but also makes our hearts break as we think of the impending good-bye.

Sometime last month, one of our English Club students asked us if the students could have one of the English Clubs in December to do something for English Club. Of course we said "Yes!" excited that they were wanting to plan and run an English Club. Up until a week ago we had no idea that they were actually up to something quite suspicious. After seeing them come in and out of the teacher's room numerous times a day to discuss things with the Japanese teacher whose the head of English Club and having them dodge us in the hall with things hid behind their backs, we realized, "Oh, maybe they're doing something special for us." But of course, we had no idea what this would entail.

As we entered the English Club room today they informed us that we-Travis and Angie- would be partaking in some special games:

The first game: Taboo, in which the first round we could only say 1 word to describe our word, and the second round we could only do gestures. Sounds easy enough, right?! That's what we thought, until for the "one-word" round they had their own names, Mickey, and other famous characters, and then for the gesture round they had things like, shrimp, Snoopy, Obama, and compass! Yeah, they definitely made it harder on us than we ever do on them! But, we all had great laughs as Angie tried to act like a shrimp and Travis frantically crawled around on the ground like Snoopy!

The second game: Treasure Hunt, of course also had a twist. To get our clues we had to partake in mini-challenges or answer a question about English Club; for example, "Where was the first English Club party held?" or "Whose speech title was, 'Studying Abroad?'" We had untli 4:30 to find 9 clues, and we made it back at 4:26- just in time!

Our last hint for the Treasure Hunt led us to unlock the English Club room, where we were surprised with confetti, poppers, baked goodies, and shouts of "Congratulations!" That's when the party took on a more serious tone and the tears started coming. Each of the students went around and shared their favorite memory or experience about English Club and gave us a "good-bye/thank you" present, including a memory book with each of their pictures and a letter.

Needless to say, this was one of our best experiences in Japan, not because of some cultural experience or some awesome sight-seeing place, but because of the love that we felt from our students. Times like this remind us why God sent us here and shows the work that He has done through us here. We know that God has reached each one of those students and each student has grown because of it, and we are excited to see how much more God has in store for them in the future.. . even if we aren't here to witness it first hand.

Last Year of Santa-san!

Last Saturday was a sad day for Travis as he was "Santa-san" (a.ka. Santa Claus, though Japanese people don't realize that Claus is Santa's last name, so it's just 'Santa-san') for the last time ever in his life! Seeing how it was his last year, he went out with a bang, and wrote an extra long script in Japanse and dazzled the students in his red costume and big belly!

And of course he wasn't the only thing that wowed the crowds...the local elementary school unicylcing team was quite spectacular as well. Unicycle is a very common elementary school sport here in Japan, and is something that is always quite surprising and intriguing to us whenever we watch them!! We hope you enjoy it the same. Here is a small clip to demonstrate their mad-unicycling skills!

Twilight Re-Dubbed!

On Tuesday we had an outing with two of our students. Twilight Eclipse FINALLY came to Japan after releasing in the rest of the world 6 months ago!! So the big fans from our English Club were dying to see it. The picture below represents the love each as for the opposing boys.



Because the enthusiasum was high, we bought our tickets early at a discount. So we bought the tickets without realizing that the only theater showing the movie in the area was dubbing it in Japanese! We were in quite a pickle, should we watch a movie we will hardly understand??? Or, just let those two go alone to enjoy it?? We finally decided that we would go. Even if we couldn't understand it at least we could hang out with our students...

...but then...an idea...what if we download the audio for the movie and put it on our mp3 player...yes that would work, we thought. But instead of just the audio we ended up with the entire movie (oops! we will buy the real one--promise!). So yes indeed, while at the theater, we watched the screen and listened to the mp3 player, which was playing the movie at the same time--in English!! A double dub!!! and it mostly worked! At times it felt we could really hear the words come from the screen but other times we would know what would be said before they actually said it...or catch it a little late...all in all, it worked and we were satisfied!

A Good day!

Thanksgiving and more...

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!! Hope everyone is enjoying the festivities at home cause we sure are here!

This year at Thanksgiving we had a few special guests with us. Some of our friends came to the feast just like the Native Americans did so many years ago to help people they knew very little of. And a challenge it was for the students who had to participate in activities to test if all their years of English training is paying off, which, to our joy, it has!

After feasting and playing a few games our special guests left, but we continued the festivities with watching "This is America: Charlie Brown, The Mayflower Voyage" and quiz, a Pilgrim simulation, skits, and picitonary.

In the Pilgrim simulation, the students had to hunt (shoot a plastic toy crossbow at paper cut-out birds) and fish (use a magnet fishing rod to catch magnet paper fish) for their food. It was a game of mostly luck but fun none the less.

For the skits the students had to work out a conflict they were given about a foreign looking person in some difficult situation. Basically, we remember all the times we wished someone had helped us in some difficult situation and wrote them down and had the students reinact them. This was prep work for future interactions they will have using English to help foreigners.

We also had a "Thankful Tree" as you can see in the picture below the tree is full of things we are all thankful for including family, friends, good students, good teachers, Jesus, and...rock bands.

Last of all, after the Thanksgiving party we were invited by 2 of our students to join them in watching the newest Harry Potter movie. So we rushed out the door, ran (literally) to the station, took the $1 bus, ran (yes, again) to the cinema to make sure we got our seats. Although we really enjoyed talking and hanging out with our students we were rather dissatisfied by the movie as it didn't line up much with the book...

One more thing, last week at English club we had the students make commericials. Sounds easy yeah, but not with nonsense items such as a squeaky hammer, peace-hand stick, and huge bowtie. We had such a laugh we thought y'all'd enjoy it too! (sorry, you'll have to turn your screen on its side or just turn your head!)

Colors of Fall

Though we've been super busy these last few weeks, we did have some time last weekend to go to the final days of the Fall Festival and enjoy the beautiful fall colors. Maybe we just haven't been home in awhile and can't remember what it's like there, but the colors of the changing leaves in Japan (atleast Hirosaki) are so vibrant and beautiful!

This spot here (with all the red behind us) is our favorite place in the park in the fall. The leaves are so red, it's simply amazing to look at!!

And Iwaki looks just wonderful with the mixture of the colors of the setting sun and leaves.

Also, though nothing to do with the colors of fall, yesterday was a special holiday here in J-pan:

POCKY DAY!!!!! (11/11- 1 looks like a pocky)

.. so of course we had to do some major celebrating by buying some delectable special edition Pocky!

YUM!

The Last Halloween

Well, we had our final To- O Gijuku English Club Halloween party, and at least we can say we went out with a bang! We "bribed" the students into wearing costumes with a bag full of candy-goodies for 1st and 2nd place and a $5 gift card to McDonalds and $5 gift card to Baskin Robbins for the 1st place winner! They must have really wanted those gift cards because everyone turned up in a costume, with many of them being homemade (including a wolf and Disney Halloween Mickey)!! One of our students even made her Halloween costume the night before while listening to Christmas music- now that's the spirit :D




And, we had the traditional game of "Bobbing for Apples" with a twist. Each apple had a challenge on it, and the teams fought for candies!

Of course a Halloween party wouldn't be complete without some scarecrows, so we did a scarecrow relay race with a student from each team as the scarecrow! We have to admit that they were some rather stylish scarecrows!

And, this year we decided to add in a boot stomp contest, as this was one of Angie's favorite activities that she remembers from her childhood days. It was rather chaotic and wild, but definitely a blast! After the boot stomp we had a scary-treasure hunt, in which the students could only use flashlights (the party was at night so most of the lights in the school were off) to find the clues to the final treasure of candy! Our students absolutely hate going through the school at night in fear of the ghost that haunts the school, so of course we made sure to put some of the hints in dark, secluded places! One of the teams had to sing a song to keep their spirits up as they went down the dark stairs to the kendo room for one of their clues.

Finally, to top off the night we did the traditional "pumpkin" carving or as close as you can get to pumpkin carving in Japan. We were very happy to finish our third and final Halloween party with all of our fingers and no loss of blood! We must admit that, although we had a great time at the party, we were rather sad at the same time as we realized this was the last Halloween party we'd get to have with our students. We're on the verge of 150 days (TOMORROW!) and are starting to feel the sadness set in as we come closer to saying goodbye to our students. And actually the day after our Halloween party, we had a speech contest at our school (we've been helping 2 of our students prepare for it over the last 2 weeks), and one of our student's speeches was about how we and his homeroom teacher have influenced his life since he's been at To- O Gijuku, which only made us even sadder to leave. We know we need to make the most of our last 150 days with our students and are looking forward to it!

Annual First and Last Ever English Club Olympics

Today we had the Annual First and Last Ever English Club Olympics!! It was an hour of frenzied battling of English questions, trivia and spelling for Gold and Silver "medals." The day was full of spoils and splendor as the two nations (teams, that is), Japan and America, dueled for the championship of the Annual First and Last Ever English Club Olympics.




Here's a member from the Japan team as he humbly accepts the Gold "medal" in the Basketball Trivia Competition winning the medal with a last minute two-point shot into the trash can. The Basketball Trivia Competition was followed by the Spelling Bee which was then followed by the Baseball Questionaire Competition.




Team USA couldn't hold up to the fierce combat issued out from Team Japan. Here is the US Team in their defeat as they eye the Japanese Team and the championship prize!

So, the Gold "medal" champion was Team Japan pulling out a stunning and overwhelming victory over Team USA. These "Big Leaguers" know how to fight to the finish.

A special Gold "medal" and an "honorary" American one dollar bill was given to the MVP of the Annual First and Last Ever English Club Olympics who managed to sweep the boards earning a total of three "medals": two gold and one silver.

A round of applause for all who fought valiantly in todays Annual First and Last Ever English Club Olympics!!!

Fabulous Fall!

Last Saturday we ventured to the top of the Hakkoda Mountains for the last time. Last weekend was the peak for the fall colors so we decided to make our last trek in Japan a memorable one. And it was quite a sight to see. We both agreed it was refreshing to be out of man's creation and into God's creation. We ascended the slopes with the sound of the wind rustling in the multi-colored trees and the smell of the crisp and cool fall, mountain air. This is opposed to the sound of cars zooming, smell of garbage and gas, and the sight of claustrophobic concrete.

Words don't do justice for how great it was to be in the Creation that the Lord breathed into life...

World Wonders

Since the beginning of time, our time in Japan that is, we have witnessed an incredible sight. Every morning for about a year on our walk to the train station, we saw a true rarity--

SHOVEL TRUCK!

This is a jeep with a detachable shovel of various shapes and sizes instead of a spare tire. The uses of this special tool are entirely innumerable. A regular truck is just a worthless pile of metal next to the magnificience of SHOVEL TRUCK. ("it can't be helped" but to write the name in capital letters it is so powerful!) What would a regular truck do if a difficult situation arose? How would a regular truck move a pile of rocks blocking its path? Or how about an avalanche of snow? How would it dig a hole if the need came?

But a time came when we saw SHOVEL TRUCK no more...and many days passed without a sighting...until one day, last Saturday, while riding bikes....





There it was, in all its greatness!! Not the original, but SHOVEL TRUCK nonetheless!! Tucked deep within the gravel side-streets of Hirosaki, it lay waiting...waiting for the time of action...waiting to dig a hole!


But wait, the story is not finished!!

Last night, Tuesday that is, just three short days after our long absences without SHOVEL TRUCK, there upon our walk home from singing our hearts out at karaoke for 4 hours, the beauty, the amazingness, was before us again...this time with twice the greatness. Check it out for yourselves, although the video doesn't do justice, viewers beware, this might knock your socks off.......






We thought this was also a nice picture.

Makin' the Best of the Halfway Point

On Saturday we felt the itch to get out onto the open road, so we decided to make the journey to a small town nearby, Hirakawa, that has a famous house that's Japanese style on the first floor and European style on the second floor. As you can see in the picture, the house is pretty neat. It was built close to 100 years ago probably and is situated in a luscious Japanese-style garden, which is next to a big park/temple ground. On our way to leave, we even got free apples just for being different!! Talk about the advantages of being a foreigner!

Then, on Sunday, we were on the road bright and early at 5:30 to visit America!!! or the closest we can get to America here! We traveled 3 hours by car to go to the American Air Force Base in Misawa for the Misawa Base Air Show. Although we were mostly looking forward to all the American food we knew we'd be able to eat on the base, we were quite surprised to find we were literally blown away by many high-speed, crazy-loud fighter planes!!! Yes, these planes our upside down!!

Anyways, back to the important stuff, the food! There were cakes, turkey legs, steak, cupcakes, pulled pork sandwiches, pizza, chips, pop, and even Starbucks Frappucinos!!! We were also able to leave the area where the show was held to go to 2 of the fast food restaurants (Burger King & Popeyes) and a mini-supermarket! Of course we couldn't buy any food at the supermarket, but we enjoyed some Popeyes chicken for lunch!

After the show we went into Misawa City for some authentic Tex-Mex, which was absolutely AMAZING!!!!

And, today, Thursday, we had no school thanks to the start-of-fall!! Thanks Autumn Equinox! So, to celebrate the coming of fall, we decided to do something that we have dreamed about since our first month in Hirosaki, Japan- eat the "monster parfait" (the name is the literal translation from Japanese, obake parfait, which actually means ghost or monster.. we think monster is more fitting, don't you?!) With 9 of us, us plus 7 of our english club members, we dug right in....

but, if you look closely at the "after-shot" we have an extra addition to our party!!! We realized after about an hour of eating that we were not going to be able to demolish the parfait on our own. We had to call in the reinforcements, so Kevin decided to join us!!! Finally, after much team effort, stomachaches, and some close calls for vomiting, we completed the mission!!! As you can see in the picture, although it was an amazing parfait, we were not very happy leaving with bloated stomachs!

Although it seems like that would be enough excitement for one day, after sitting and watching a movie to let our stomachs settle, we decided we needed to burn some of the sugar out of our bodies, so we set off on another mission- to climb the dog in the dog-park! Mission success, even though Travis busted his knee cap! That's all.