food disaster and other events

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yakisoba

i cooked the main dish for our lunch today

when aoki sensei arrived in NPO hotel a few minutes after i arrived, he excitedly announced that i, yes i, me, myself, would be cooking yakisoba. (what?!!!) oh well, yes i know yakisoba, it is like yakitori. (that comment was uttered under a delirious situation.) of course, i have to impress them that i am not only good in eating, but in cooking as well. (oh mom, please help me!) under his guidance, sweat and all (hehe), i managed to do well until i placed the soba into the mixture. i thought of how good the relationship was among the soba because they were sticking to one another. they were just sticking and refused to glide, soften, like the way i saw them in "real life". some were formed like balls, others like a group of telephone wires, the likes. i had to use a wooden laddle to mix them until the soba were refined, broken, cut into pieces. oh my! some were cooked, some were not, some were halfcooked. oh well, i served them anyway, and sprinkled nori all over. it looked delicious. it really LOOKED delicious, until i actually placed a chopstick-full into my mouth. that was it, i waved my white flag and said sorry for messing up. i could not eat the soba except the meat and the vegetables. then aoki sensei told me it was his mistake, he forgot to tell me that i needed to boil the soba first. oh well... he and sekiya san had to eat them all, which they did. thank you.
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goldfish in a pond


while aoki sensei prepared the dessert and sekiya san washed the strawberries, i consoled myself by looking at the pond with lots of gold fish in it. in my mind i was imagining this goldfish being grilled or barbecued. i'm sure it would have tasted better for a lunch.
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playtime


the kids came after we ate our lunch. i ended up watching them play gundam in the playstation. there is a special girl named mahu-chan, 14 years old, who is so makulit. she could not get the vibes of the others because she has a world of her own. there is also another kid named taira-kun, who kept on walking here and there, and teasing and testing mahu-chan's patience until world war III broke out. atsuya-kun didnt mind the commotion, he just played his gundam while kohei-kun kept on 'cheering', referring to the enemy as "mahu san hahahaha dead! dead! hahahah" hayy buhay... bagan marisyo man la.
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this is a store, even if it is not


sekiya san drove me back home. while waiting for the green light, i saw this building and wondered if this is a house, a store, or an office. only if i could read the sign. i don't know why this got my curiousity. and i hate it for wondering this way. what is it to me, anyway? green light, please, green light.
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nin-gyou


when i arrived in my room, i immediately took this japanese doll from my bag, and had it posed in my table for its first pictorial. i bought this today in a flea market in iuj, costing me 800yen. nice omiyage (present) for my family.

nice day...

all about tooth and toothache

prayer partners and friends,

i'm out here in NPO "hotel". after our bible study last night in shiozawa, we decided that i should spend my night here because my tooth, which could not wait until july, was having a tooth day. that means i have a terrible toothache. my sensei called immediately a dentist for appointment, and had me scheduled today at 9:30, too early for them to fetch me at iuj. so after our discussion last night, we went back to iuj to get my things, shirts and all, then back to the hotel. of course, i was smiling. aside from sleeping again in my old baby crib, that would also mean -smile smile smile- eating superb japanese food, and, fyi, it's home cooked.

i was hesitant though to visit a dentist at this time. first, the expenses. consultation alone is already 2000 yen (1thou pesos), much more the treatment. the assurance of my sensei that he would pay did not help me ease up my concern of shelling out more than 1 month of my salary back home, and, second, to think in 1 month time i'm already home. but pray still i did, because my tooth is really having its day. and it is showing no sign of slowing down.

the dentist clinic is located far from my place, though we have one near iuj. but this dentist is the father of the little boy i play with almost every saturday. so the connection helped a lot in my decision to go. truth to tell, i was praying that he would do it for free. no harm in praying anyway. (in times like this, i could no longer afford for any extra expenses. im going home soon, and that means financial insecurity now.)

aoki sensei took time from his work, and brought me to the clinic. when we arrived there, the dentist was polite enough to welcome us. he was unusually alone, had no staff so he apologized for messing up in filling up info sheets of whatever kind. he's not used doing it. he was alone and no staff because today is a holiday for his clinic, so his secretary is on holiday. and the dentist was kind enough to open the clinic for me! when i wrote my name on the sheet, the dentist made mention like: "ah boris san, itsumo kohei..." i understood it as kohei, his only son, always talks about me. that made me smile. at least i know i have touched one soul while i lost my way in this land of the rising sun.

my tooth was x-rayed. my, i was thinking again of the cost. i was feeling sorry for my father for that means the little amount- and i mean a litlte amount- i spared for him would be spent for this tooth. i joked to aoki sensei before i went to the xray room if i should smile while the dentist took a "picture" of my tooth. that eased my burden.

in our broken language, the dentist made me understand the situation, and the things to be done. and that means more than one visit. and that means more than 2000 yen, consultation alone. my tooth needs root canal something (i dont know the exact term), and replacing the tooth crown with a metal something. since we dont have enough time (be home in july), so he will only treat my tooth by cleaning it, injecting something, and what more. in 3 weeks, 1 visit per week.

and so in 1 hour i was done, just for today`s visit. another one next week which he told me would take more than 1 hour. he gave me medicine as pain reliever, no too cold too hot drinks, and i should use only the other side of my teeth for eating.

the bill shows a 2,867 yen amount (and this is only the beginning), insurance already considered. i shelled out 3,000 yen. the moment i placed the yen bills into the tray, the dentist took it, and gave it back to me, smiling and saying something i only understood one word, and it was a name: kohei. whatever that meant, i suddenly realized that the dentist was no longer a dentist to me, i saw him now as the father of kohei who looks up to me as his big friend. and kohei's father's name is nakajima san.

"a man reaps what he sows." a bible verse (galatians 6:7) i will never forget. thanks to my God who made all things possible.

in christ,
boris

(thanks to nakajima san. thanks also to my church in urasa who started it all for me. then to aoki sensei who broadened my japan experience.)

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post note:


kohei kun and his butteflies (with s KL, with s) in his house

after lunch, sekiya san took me back to urasa church because sato sensei and i planned to distribute tracts in muikamachi. while i was walking from house to house in muika, i saw kohei kun walking from school to his home. he was surprised to see me and he brought me to his house. he refused to let me go without me having a coffee for a few minutes. i said yes, and i was glad i said so. this time, i went inside their house, really a big house, very modern the interior. i gave one tract to his mother, who seemed to understand what i was doing. (btw, this morning i was in their clinic, adjacent to where they live.) though surprised to see me back, his mother was happy to see me with her son from school and gave me a warm accommodation. it must have been very lonely for the boy to live in a big house alone. nakajima san joined us after a while. kohei showed me his butterfly collections, one from malaysia (the name was morpho something, a big butterfly, royal blue in color) and the ones he's holding (in the picture) are from the philippines. (his mother's father went to the philippines way back.) i promised kohei if he goes to the philippines, the only thing that we do is to catch butterflies and beetles (another of his favorites). [to KL: if kohei will go there next year, as a sidetrip, i will catch too my own 'butterfly'. but whether kohei will go there or not, i will still catch my own butterfly.]

i have a very wonderful day. God is good. i'm glad Jesus paid all my shortcomings in life.

boredom breaker

i got a good audience tonight, and a good laugh. imagine the pencil sticking to my hand. could david copperfield do that? i learned the trick when i was still in my elementary. and i got to do it again during my master's. it happened during coffee break. the lecture in my international comparative management class bored some of us. so while we were in the corridor having our time out, i got to perform this pen-sticking-to-my-hand in a group of captured audience. it amazed me to know that it amazed them. of course, i didn't tell them my secret. i wonder if one of them tonight would dream of doing it on his own. gambatte!

portrait

faces of friends, captured by my olympus camedia. from top, reading direction: kohei, japan; yoshiko san, japan; daniel (asrul in real life), malaysia; leah, philippines; channa, cambodia; binh, vietnam; unur, mongolia; hau, vietnam; mirzo, tajikistan.