Osaka!

After a bunch of crazy train connections, we're finally in Osaka! We rode the bullet train to get here and that was an amazing experience. The Japanese countryside was directly outside of our windows, so we got to see the beautiful mountains as we zoomed by.
We're staying at the Ishibashi Seminary with our host Pastor Fuji and some students from the seminary. The seminary is a four-story building, and we stay on the third floor. The bathroom is on the second floor and the shower is on the fourth floor, so we get plenty of walking up and down stairs everyday! Tuesday morning we met with the leaders of the churches we will be serving in, which was a bit intimidating, but also very exciting as we learned all the different things we will be doing throughout the month. By the time the meeting was over we were starving so we decided to eat lunch at a restaurant in town. One of the seminary students, Manabu, was our guide as we walked around the city until we found a place to eat. We ate our lunch at the Beef Bowl, which was interesting since at first all they gave to drink was green tea that nobody except Heather enjoyed! The food was good, too, but it was hard slurping up the noodles with chopsticks!After lunch we followed the course that Manabu had set for us and saw various shops around the town, and by the time we got back to the seminary, we were exhausted.
For supper, Pastor Fuji's wife and mother-in-law prepared us a delicious meal of fried chicken and fried pork, along with rice and some delicious fresh fruit (those were some of the biggest grapes we had ever seen!). Manabu shared his testimony with us after we ate, which was wonderful. He has an amazing story and he has a passion for God.
Today (7/13) is much less busy. We woke up to the sound of lots of thunder and rain this morning. It poured all morning, and then stopped for the afternoon. Today is the first of our free days, so in the morning we had team time and assigned roles for upcoming ministry for various churches. We ate lunch at a Pizza and Pasta restaurant, and it was surprisingly delicious! I was a little skeptical how good it would be, but my bacon alfredo was amazing. I think everyone would agree with me that we could go back to that place again :)
We had a bunch of free time still, so we decided to shop around a bit to work off our meal! We went to all sorts of different stores like fish markets, a sports shop, a technology outlet store, and trendy clothing stores. Right now the girls are relaxing while the boys brave the torrents of rain to buy some ingredients for supper. Tomorrow we leave for Amagasaki Church to begin our first week of ministry.