Our First Visitor

Today we had our first visitor from the US for a grand total of 2 hours! Our friend from our home church was flying through Tokyo on his way back to the US. He had a 5 hour lay over and took the train in from Narita to hang out with us a bit. We met him at Tokyo station and walked to the Imperial Palace. We thought we would walk around but unfortunately it is closed on Mondays and Fridays. Oh well. We then took a cab to Shibuya. Shibuya is known for the big intersection you see on travel channel shows about Japan with what feels like millions of people crossing in all directions at one time. We enjoyed a Baskin Robbins ice cream cone, walked around a bit, and before you knew it, it was time for our friend to catch the Narita Express back to the airport so he would not miss his flight. I do not think his wife at home with three children would be very happy with us if he had missed his flight! It was fun to see a familiar face, even if only for two hours.

We had a pretty scary adventure in our cab ride from the Imperial Palace to Shibuya. Miyako was getting a bit hot in the car so Kan asked the driver to turn the air up a bit for us. The driver realized we were in a bit of a hurry so he decided to take it upon himself to FLY through the lanes of traffic, cutting a very angry man off in the process. At the stop light, the man our cabbie cut off got out of his car, came to the driver side of the cab, and started yelling at our cab driver. He even reached in the cab and turned the car off. In the six months I have been here, I have never once felt a bit scared or nervous, even in the largest city in the world. Today I was a bit nervous. I thought the man was going to take the cab drivers' keys and we were going to be sitting there in the middle of the road. They yelled at each other (I have never seen Japanese people yell) and then went on their way. Our cab driver was driving way too fast. Kan retrieved his name and plans to make a complaint with the company. Never a dull moment huh? We just wanted to give our friend a different experience. Thankfully Miyako handled it just fine as I held on to her for dear life. I was glad to be in the car with both Kan and our friend, thankful that I was not by myself. It just is so uncharacteristic of Japan so it really caught me by surprise.

We did take some pictures today with our first visitor, but they are on Kan's phone. I forgot my camera. :(