This weekend marked the near-end of my Christmas present-buying adventures. Since I stepped foot on Japanese soil, I have been searching diligently for the perfect gifts for my friends and family (maybe even you!) Not being able to find gifts for my brother Chris and my father (men are extremely hard to buy for here...everything's cute), Tammy and I planned to go to Koriyama and embark on an all-day shopping trip. Since she's not going home for Christmas, she needs to send a box ASAP, and I just plain like shopping, so we got our Saturday 8 or 9ish K run over with early, and we headed off to Koriyama on the train at 11:40. When I say "headed" I mean more literally sprinted, because we finished eating lunch (and when I say eating, I mean inhaling) at exactly 11:35, and we don't live next to the train station. So, not wanting to wait another hour for the next train to come, and having decided somewhat foolishly on wooden sandals earlier for footwear, I ended up removing the cumbersome shoes and darting past some very confused Japanese people out for their morning walk in order to reach the station in time to buy tickets for me and Tammy, who was also wearing open-backed shoes. She didn't taker hers off, though...oh, well, I guess Japense people think I'm weird anyway. I can blame almost anything on being a stupid American = ). Anyway, we reached Koriyama a little after noon, and went strolling through the streets searching for a store to buy souveniers and omiage for our loved ones. This may sound easy, but it's not. Just a reminder, we can't read. Oh, and we can't ask for directions. Oh, and everything is crowded together and all looks the same. So, on any given day we could come across a gem of a store and find all sorts of stuff, but more than likely we end up leaving most stores, disillusioned by the fact that the cute jeans in the corner over there are $135 or something of that sort. It's definitely a challenge, but on Saturday, thankfully, there were a few "Eureka!" moements, and my Christmas shopping mission is almost complete. Tammy and I can't take all the credit, though. My co-teacher at Segawa offered, so kindly, to meet us there (she lives in a different city) and show us around. This proved very helpful because she, being Japanese, can read Japanese. Imagine that. Needless to say, she was a life-saver, and it was also a great time getting to know her and spend non-school time together. Tamaki-sensei (my co-teacher at Segawa) had to leave at 6:00 to catch a bus to another city, so Tammy and Lis (added to our group in the afternoon) and I walked around, sucked in by the 100 yen shop. 100 yen is roughly equal to one dollar, and let me tell you, these shops are NOTHING like our dollar stores at home. Just to prove this, here are some things I have purchased at stores of this type: dishes (nice ones), oatmeal, batteries, makeup, candles, corn starch, a laundry basket, sharp, sturdy knives, really cute hair clips, picture frames, wrapping paper, and on and on....just name it, I bet it's available there (yes, even alarm clocks). But anyway, we got sucked in, until eventually, worn out, we decided to go to a cafe-type place we had heard about called "God's Party." (Don't ask me why it's called this, probably for the same reason the trashcan in my bathroom says "for every bland new day"...) Anyway, we were prepared to kick our feet up in this, as we'd heard, "westernish" place. Unfortunately, we didn't have much time for the feet up-kicking, because we couldn't find the place right away, and by the time we'd ordered and such, it was 8:30. As far as we knew, the last train left at 8:45, so as soon as I realized the time, I felt a slight sense of panic, shared this panic with the other two, and we booked it outa there. Fortunately, we reached the train in time to find seats and relax for about 3 minutes before we jolted into motion. If any of you know me even somewhat well, you know that I can't go more than 10 minutes after buying something without pulling it out to look at it again. During this particular train ride, this usually annoying habit turned out to be rather, well, life-saving. About 15 minutes into the ride I began to get antsy (though Lis was so patiently showing me her knitting at the time...), and decided to get out some of the presents I'd bought to look at them. But, I decided that it would be more fun to look at the little pictures we had all taken together earlier in a little photo box machine thing (very, very popular here). I remembered that I had put them in a little pocket of my purse, so I reached into my other honkin' bag to pull out my little purse, and discovered....you guessed it, my purse wasn't there. I figured I had just set it next to me after buying my ticket, but then I remembered that in order to pay me back for purchasing hers to Koriyama, Tammy had bought my ticket home. I had no doubts. I knew my purse and its precious contents were still at the cafe. Let me explain. By "precious contents" I mean about the equivalent of $200, my alien registration card, my passport, and well, anything else doesn't really matter. The point was, if it was gone, I was sunk. It just so happned that when I realized this (the whole process was about 10 seconds), we were sitting in Miharu station, the 2nd of 3 stops before Funehiki. The other girls were like "what should we do?" and without thinking, I said, "Get off the train!" Trains only come once every hour or so, but because the timing was right, we only had to wait about 45 seconds after hopping off the train to Funehiki before hopping onto the one back to Koriyama. I can't say that I wasn't nervous, but I wasn't panicing. I knew the situation was out of my control, and while we were on the train, we stopped for a few minutes to pray. I always feel better after that... We reached Koriyama around 9:05 (by this time, we realized there IS a train after 8:45 to Funehiki, and we didn't have to rush in the first place, which would have avoided the whole situation...) The difficulty came when we went to hand our tickets in. I whispered to the girls "turn it upside down!", but apparently they didn't hear me, because as we were passing through, the ticket guy stopped us with a weird, confused expression on his face. He couldn't figure out why we were coming in to Koriyama with a ticket that said we just left Koriyama. After about 5 minutes of gesturing, whipping out the 5 Japanese words that I know, and making use of Tammy's electronic dictionary, we communicated my dilema and were off to find the purse. We had no trouble finding the place this time around, in fact, we made record time, even with my blistered feet from my (again, foolish) wooden sandals. We charged into the cafe, and Lis, without thinking, went straight to the table where we had been sitting, which was now occupied by new (Japanese) customers, and without even a "sumimasen" (excuse me), reached under the chair I had been sitting in to pull out, yes, my purse. The expression, though, on the lady's face who was sitting in the chair, was priceless. So much for our attempts at politeness. I guess there are exceptions. Anyway, as we were walking out, I heard the unmistakable melody of U2's famous hit "I still haven't found what I'm looking for" being blared over the radio. Though I was amused at the irony, I was thankful it didn't apply to me, for I soon discovered that nothing had even been stirred from my purse. If I ever wonder whether God is looking out for me, I need only to think of my passport/train adventures. Yes, it's plural, for this is not the only time I left my passport somewhere stupid. When I was in Victory Falls, I actually left my passport ON the train, and only remembered it just before the cleaning lady got to our car (after the car was "cleaned" I'm sure such a valuable item would not have remained untouched). Trains and passports....what a random combination by which to remember God's faithfulness... I had planned to make this short, but alas, I am a blab. But, to leave you with I have a quote by none other than my dear friend Tammy: "Patty, are you SURE you don't want the octapus balls?" I leave the context of this one to your imagination...