Golden Week

Here in Japan the first week of May has several national holidays in a row and so it is called Golden Week, or GW for short. Of course, all of these people with time off from work causes traffic jams and over-crowded trains!

This year I didn't go anywhere for the whole time but did go somewhere different each day. The first holiday is actually April 29th. This year that was the day of our JBC annual retreat day. People from all of the JBC churches gathered together for a day of worship and fellowship. It was a beautiful day!
Here is Elijah enjoying the day...


Then on Saturday, May 3 I went on a one day walk with Mrs. Shindo, from our English Bible class, and her husband. I agreed to go not really knowing what was going to happen, just that it was going to be a long, one day walk. That was correct, but I didn't realize it was going to be hiking through the mountains! I should have known! There are not 36 kilometers of flat land in this part of Japan. Although it was a long hike it was a lot of fun!
The azaleas were blooming beautifully so here I am on the walking path to the station before the hike...


And, some of the people on the one day walk at the beginning on the flat ground...




Our view from our lunch spot...




Mr. and Mrs. Shindo on the train on the way home...


The next GW adventure was on Monday when Paul Ewing, Mitsuru Higashi and I played background music at a coffee house evening for a fellow mission group. The three of us had never played together before so it was quite an adventure just learning to play together! It was the first time in awhile that I had played for such a long time so I took a break on a song to take a picture...








Tuesday was more music. The band "Audacious" from England is touring Asia and the opening concert was in Nagoya. I went to the concert with a group from Tsu, including Serena...