April 23rd 2014 by: the White White White One

The other day Gary was asked by an elderly gentleman if he was married to the white woman. Gary said, "yes" and then the gentleman said," but... the white,white, white one?" I have spent most of the last 30 years living as the racial minority so I'm used to sticking out but this one REALLY made me laugh! In all fairness, despite my honorary membership in Hispanic society, my outside is quite white. One time I was talking to a lady in Panama and her toddler was fascinated with with my feet. I was wearing sandals and I don't think the little guy had ever seen feet quite as white as mine before.  He finally couldn't help himself and had to bend down and start poking the tops of my feet... to see if they were real I guess!  I confess, one thing I like about my visits home to Wisconsin is that I blend in! LOL!  Sometimes I feel like a big glowing alien!
                                                                         

Last week was kept very busy with preparations for the Easter service at church. We were going to have a potluck afterward and we needed to find at least one table for food serving. Fortunately, we found one at a local store around the corner from the church. It was the last table they had left and it was 50% off! The guy from the shop was even nice enough to carry it to the church for us!  I forgot to take pictures before we all ate, but here is a picture of the aftermath! We had fried chicken and potato salad, filipino menudo, and a delicious strawberry cheesecake!

And a good time was had by all! Mitos won the drawing for the Easter flowers!

The week before Easter we were surprised with a visitor from a church of ours in Zambia! She brought a colleague along as well. After church we all went out for lunch!

Today, since Gary had a meet up for coffee with a couple of men, I decided to take a walk and try to figure out our good camera. I always use our old camera, but since we have the church started it's time I figure out the good one we bought before we came to Japan. I went walking all over and ended up far away! I took over 100 pictures and practiced with far away and up close. Here's some pics from my wandering around! First, lots of flowers!

                                              This one is like a blooming rose tree of some type.

And then some houses... this one was covered in ivy.

                                             
                                       I wonder how many apartments in that building?

                                         
                            And with 'telezoom' we see the Japanese Mini-van! I've seen a parent with as many as                                        three children on the bike with them!
                                                                             

                                                                   
                                                                 Corner house

                                                          A blue western style house

I noticed this neighborhood had some really tall trees which I'm not used to seeing outside of parks. It was nice.

                   
        I peeked over the tall wall of a Convent to see what was on the other side... no nuns here!

I saw ONE sign in English... guess we know who they think are the culprits of not picking up after their dogs!

I saw this little shrine right on a busy street, looked out of place a midst all the other buildings.

I tested out the telephoto setting on these schoolboys. I was far away and it turned out pretty good.

So there you have my wanderings and camera practice for today! After I walked all the way home I discovered my library books were due today so I had to go back out again and bike over to the library! I am very sore and tired tonight...I'm such an old white,white,white lady!