Easter Enlightenment

Hello, dear friends.

As you can tell, I'm back-blogging a bit. I just returned from my Golden Week vacation to Hiroshima, but I'm going to save that post for a little while. I had wanted to post an Easter update before I took off, but as you can imagine, things got busy, as they always do before a big trip, and I just didn't have the time. So, here's a little recap about the second half of April and about Easter in Japan.

Sarah and I had a plan a few weeks ago to pack a great picnic lunch for the Three Arrows baseball game and spend our Saturday afternoon at the ball park. Well, we did, but it might've been my last trip to Tsu Stadium. The other team outscored us 12-1 in the first two innings alone, and the scored ended up 19-1. I have no problem admitting that, in this situation, I might be a fair-weather fan. But our picnic was delicious: sandwiches, Sarah's becoming-famous homemade potato salad, chips, fruit, and beer. Still a great way to spend a Saturday, but 19-1? Really?

19-1

...but chceck out this lunch.

Unfortunately, all of the Holy Week services were at 7pm, which is when I teach, so I was only able to go to Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday masses. The church was packed on Easter, though. Afterward, they had a big picnic sort of gathering outside, which was cool, but I didn't stick around for too long. Sarah and I had made plans to head to Toba to visit the Mikimoto Pearl Island for Easter. It's about an hour-long train ride from Tsu, and some of you may know that the Mikimoto pearls are the most famous in the world. It was in Toba that Kokichi Mikimoto was the first in the world to successfully culture pearls, and they've been doing it there since 1893. We toured a the museum, walked around the island, and watched the traditional women  divers - Ama - dive for oysters. Now, the Ama aren't actually used for real anymore, as they have machines that now take care of that, but they still perform for tourists. It's actually a little strange, but very interesting to learn about the history of the pearls.

Mikimoto

My Easter meal. Not gonna lie...it was less than stellar. What we learned: if you're the only customers in the restaurant at lunch time, it might not be the best place to eat.

There was NO ONE there. Sarah and I couldn't get over that. The lady working there who took this for us literally had nothing else to do.

This is the 60th anniversary year, I guess!

We got to try on this crown! I believe it had 700+ pearls on it.

The Liberty Bell made out of pearls? How random is that?

The Ama

Diving for oysters

And YES, we went shopping. I bought far too many gifts for both myself and others, but the great thing about Toba is that I can buy real Mikimoto pearls without shelling out thousands of dollars to do so. Of course the super expensive pearls are available there, but Sarah and I stuck to the souvenir shop ones - authentic, but low-quality. Hey - they're still pearls!

Easter proved to be a very interesting topic for my classes. Many of my students were confused about why we dye Easter eggs and who exactly the Easter bunny is. We had a special Easter lesson for the elementary students during which we colored eggs and had an Easter egg hunt. I also had some interesting conversations with my students about Jesus' resurrection. One of my students wondered why Christians believe that Jesus was raised to "new life" when "new life" (reincarnation) is not a Christian idea at all. To hear their understanding of Jesus' resurrection, especially through the use of simple Englsh for such a complex idea, was fascinating. I had a lot of fun talking to them about some of these ideas, and it definitely offered me a totally new perspective on the Easter celebration.

We also enjoyed a visit from Sarah's sister last week. Lindsey arrived in Tsu on the Monday after Easter and stayed until the past Monday. She and Sarah did some sightseeing, and she also visited Sarah's classes. It was fun to meet her and have a visitor in our little corner of the world, but watching Sarah and Lindsey interact made me miss my sisters! But we had a great time, and it's always good to have a little reminder of home.

I hope you enjoyed this little look back at Easter. Stay tuned for the vacation update!

Happy May!