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When we visited Tokyo four years ago, we got about 1.5 days for a “furlough” from our 2-week mission work. Samantha and I spent that time in Tokyo visiting some of the most famous areas of the city such as Shibuya (the “Times Square” of Tokyo) and Asakusa (famous shrine, marketplace, and pagoda).
For this trip, [...]

Every two years my advisor attends the International Symposium on Flexible Automation (ISFA) Conference, and was able to take one student with her this year. She invited me to go with her and to present a portion of my masters thesis research at the conference.

This conference is held every 2 years and alternates between Japan and [...]

Sunday morning, we were blessed with the privilege of worshipping with the believers at the Taga church in Hitachi-Taga. This was the church we worked with through our LST experience four years ago. So many familiar faces, so many familiar sights and sounds. It was very much like coming home again. I was asked to [...]

I wanted to take a moment out of our vacation to briefly mention the McLains. Mike McLain and Tomoko Sato are Christian missionaries that live in the Ibaraki prefecture of Japan (where Hitachi is located). We met them four years ago when we did our short LST mission trip, but we didn’t really get the [...]

For dinner on Saturday the McLains took us to a “fast food” sushi restaurant. We called it the conveyor restaurant because the sushi comes to your table on a conveyor belt! You can pick from what you see going around or you can place a special order for more unique sushi or sashimi (raw fish [...]

On Saturday I had the opportunity to learn Ikebana, the Japanese art of floral arranging. This is way more than just putting flowers into a vase! There are detailed patterns of varying skill level, each one adding complexity. This is an old art form that dates back to the 1400s.
Tomoko has been going to a [...]

Saturday morning Ryan and I split up–he with Mike and daughter Erika, and me with Tomoko and daughters Ana and Kiara. We each did some sight-seeing on our own and met back up after lunch.
Before we left the house in the morning, we heard a loud speaker announcement outside the house. Think elections are obnoxious [...]