My weekend was really busy — it felt like longer than just one weekend. But it was an awesome weekend. For one, it’s my 1 year anniversary since arriving in Takefu, and the weather and the smells of everything — work, home, the air, etc. — have really been making me feel nostalgic. In addition, this week Hitomi and I will have been together for 6 months, so that’s another happy thought. We didn’t do too much celebration-wise, just eating good food and going on walks… but that was really great.

So on Sunday, my friend (and ex-coworker) Yumi’s gospel choir put on a performance. She gave me 2 tickets too, so Hitomi and I got to go for free. Yay! The performance was in Echizen-Hanando, 1 stop away from Fukui on the JR line, so we decided to take the train and walk rather than drive. As soon as we stepped outside we both looked at the sky and thought, “Ooh! Looks like rain!” But neither of us thought to take an umbrella… which was awesome when we were sitting waiting for the train and suddenly the sky completely opened up on us. It was a superb thunderstorm, my favorite type of weather! The rain was so thick you couldn’t see clearly more than 100 yards. When it started, I could actually see the wall of rain moving from the sky to the earth, and the mountains disappeared from view. So cool!

We arrived at the Echizen-Hanando station with the intention of buying an umbrella at a local convenience store, but upon arrival we saw that Echizen-Hanado is about as urban as anywhere else in Fukui — meaning absolutely not. The map to the church we had was a piece of crap, too, further complicating things. Then I remembered my iPhone in my pocket! It has GPS and maps… so I pulled it out, GPSed our location and mapped out a footpath. It was so much fun! It actually made me want to try geocaching sometime… but yeah, anyway, we made our way through the rain to a tiny little church squeezed in some back alleys.

The concert was fine. Well, it was a gospel concert after all… I’m not exactly a fan of gospel music — or a Christian for that matter — but it was a little nostalgic to hear chuch music again after so many years. It was also interesting to hear it in Japanese (and a little more tolerable too, as I recognized some of the songs in English and remember how absolutely stupid the lyrics can be). Hitomi had never experienced anything like this concert before either, so her reaction was pretty priceless too. All in all it was an interesting concert… although the program book was a little misleading:

I want my massage!

After the concert, Hitomi and I walked around Echizen-Hanando to Bell Shopping Center. I explained Christianity in a nutshell to her on the way, as the concert was her very first experience (hehe how cute). At Bell, we bought bought yukata to use the next week at Fukui’s Pheonix Festival. Actually, her yukata only cost less than 3,500 yen, which is totally amazing for a 5-piece yukata set. She asked me to pick it out too, so hopefully she won’t look bad in it or else I’m to blame. I also got a yukata, but the geta (even the largest size they make) are slightly too small for me, so I have a bad feeling my feet are going to hurt like a monkey…