Week 55 - February 18-24, 2014

Monday we went with the new office couple to Raman after a long day at honbu.  Fukuoka is famous for its Raman.  Elder Koberstein enjoy hot (flavored) Raman.

My Raman was chicken and not hot, but very good.

The Raman place is pictured on the right hand side of this street in the picture above.

Elder Koberstein was able to get his suit dry cleaned after we were asked to stay another week in Fukuoka.  We tried to drop it off Wednesday morning but he was told it would not be done until Friday morning so he decided to have it done in Kumamoto.  While waiting in the car we were parked by a home that had beautiful Fukuoka Swiss Chard like vegetable growing in front of it.  I wonder if this is the variety of vegetable grown only in Fukuoka.  It is a very good spinach like vegetable served with traditional New Year foods, I believe. 

It is time to pack again.  Wednesday was scheduled to be our last day in Fukuoka at honbu but in the morning we were called into to the mission presidents office.  He asked us to stay another week and work with the new office couple.  The new office couple wanted to be out of the hotel so we agreed to move out of the apartment on Thursday morning as scheduled and stay at a hotel until we left for Kumamoto.

This new twist meant we would not have the weekend for washing our cloths in Kumamoto.  Since we were asked to stay in Fukuoka and move out of our apartment, we washed cloths for the coming week after Eikaiwa Wednesday night.  We needed everything dry and ready to pack Thursday morning.  This is one of the two drying racks at the Fukuoka apartment.  The other one is on the balcony.  Both places hold about a load of washing.  Before we moved to Fukuoka I had seen these racks but had not used them.  They actually are quite convenient and fold up out of the way nicely.  Pictured, I am hanging up towels so they will be clean for the new couple moving in.

After moving out of our apartment we went to honbu.  The auditor and the new financial secretary were very glad to see Elder Koberstein.  We worked about an hour and then the auditor offered to take all four of us out to lunch.  We went to Jioza which is a Chinese restaurant.  Pictured is my lunch.  It was delicious.

It is time again to celebrate the festival of the dolls. The ANA Crowne Plaza Hotel that we are staying at has a beautiful collection of dolls on display in the lobby.

We parked the car at honbu and biked to the hotel after work on Friday using our new bike Garmin.  It is amazing the little streets through housing sections of the city that the Gamin took us on, until we came to the main street where the hotel was.  It was a fun 30 minute ride.  Elder Koberstein took me to Tao-li (Chinese) Restaurant here in the Hotel for dinner.  It was a fun seven course meal.  All very tasty and beautifully served.  Pictured is the appetizer of beef, shrimp and calamari we enjoyed.  Missions can be so much fun and quite an adventure at the same time.

Dessert was a light custard and a bean filled mochi ball covered with sesame seeds.  It was delicious.

Saturday we had no laundry to do and no cleaning in the hotel.  It was a beautiful sunny day so we decided to bike to the Genkai-Nada Sea which is part of the Korean Strait between Japan and Korea.  It was about a 24 mile bike ride which included a ferry ride back.  This picture shows the spit we biked out on.  The two large white building in this picture or Marine World Japan and a hotel.

The bike ride was filled with adventures.  Our first was passing the Tochoji Temple.  We walked though the court yard.  It was beautiful.

One wall had many Buddha's in a row.  Each was a different pose and some looked very old.

This was an interesting place where you can see three layers of roads on the right and bridges stretch over the water farther down. the river.

This sign was posted on one of the bridges we road across.  We wonder if the machi is a sister city to Oakland, California as we found firer fighter uniforms from Oakland, California in the fire stations educational museum.

We enjoyed a bike ride through Wonder World.  We were told we could bike on the blue trails.  The exhibits were quite spread out so everyone was renting bikes for the day.

Our goal was to see the Korean Strait so we biked to the look out point.  We saw a beautiful beach with sand but no people.  It was a little cold.

We rode the Ferris Wheel like ride.  This one goes very slow and never stops to load or unload its passengers.

 Seats are enclosed and nice and warm on a cool day.

We found a ferry that was big enough for our bikes and rode on it back to Hakata Port.  We then biked from Hakata to our new home in the ANA Crown Plaza Hotel.  A fun ride on a beautiful day in Japan.

Scripture of the Week

Genesis 9:13-15

I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.

And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:

And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall mo more become a flood to destroy all flesh.