Starting school again is such a mind boggling affair, when I first started off with the orientation, I had this sinking feeling and I was wondering if I had made the right decision to pursue this course. But ever since the course started 2 weeks back, its been a joy and a privilege to study the word of God with like minded people. In fact, I have been very humbled by the hearts of my fellow classmates. The Singaporeans are mostly very bilingual able to handle the scriptures in both English and Mandarin, and that has become a great motivation and inspiration to me, to know the word of God well, in both English and mandarin. At the same time, i have also come to realise how much of God's love i want to gain, and how i ought to obey him in all I do.
Lastly, as i did my QT today, I was reminded of how God has dealt with me,
Oh, give me back my joy again;
You have broken me—now let me rejoice.
Don’t keep looking at my sins. Remove the stain of my guilt (Psalm 51:8-9).
And was reminded on how we have to let our brokenness deal with us.
ok gotta run for classes, will be back soon.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Japan trip cont'd
I decided to carry on, while I still had inspiration...
on the third Morning, I awoke at 4:50am Japan to find the sun already up and shining, in my silly state, i decided to go out for a walk, whilst my dear family was still snoring and snoozing away. It was actually quite cold, and wanted to walk somewhere to perhaps find a nice warm coffee, unfortunately, the japanese were not as insane as I was, and at 5am, nothing was open yet, and the myth that the Japanese sold all things in vending machines did not hold through in our area, there were no warm drinks in the vending machines, believe me I checked! .. but it was a nice walk I walked and I walked, and after 2 hours, managed to get to Otaru, this 2 hour walk would have been a 6 min train ride. But it was a nice walk, just the Lord and I, and some reflections along the way. Saw a church too, it was actually a Sunday morning, and we were wondering if we could find a church to worship in.
Here's some evidence of the time and the temperature.. =P I think I was just wearing a pullover .. =P heh
What a lovely morning it was, by the time I finished the walk it was around 7am, decided to take the train back and head over back to the room. and from there, we went to Sapporo for more sightseeing, it was nice just walking ard town. Oh I must add that we also went to a Chocolate factory area, which was very very nice, the buildings were v. castle like, and Elijah enjoyed the flowers a lot and the space as well. He was running around in the gardens and having lots of fun. It was a joy to see him enjoy himself.
we also went up to Mt Moiwa, which was supposed to have fantastic views of the city of Sapporo, however, just getting to the place was an adventure in itself, the ropeway ( we would call it cablecar) was on top of some very high up place, and pushing a pram and carrying a bag, wasn't the easiest of tasks, and what's more, when we reached the place to get the tickets, we realised we still had to climb up these ardous flight of steps that seemed to go on forever, there was no elevator (pronounced quite triumphantly by the ticket counter girl, who looked on pitilessly at us, as if we should have known better than to bring a little baby with us up to this mt Moiwa). Well, after all the climbing, and the close to death/exhaustion episode, it was a little better after, admittedly the views were beautiful and very very majestic. Again, just reminding us of how great a God we served, both a creator and our saviour.. =) However, the decor a little lacking, a little more development would have been welcome, it would have been a wonderful place to have a nice warm cafe, overlooking the views of the city, but alas, nothing of that sort existed or looked like it would existing, it was a bare roof, overlooking the view, and below that, was a musty tourist souvenir shop, selling souvenirs that tourists (ie, us ) did not feel any faint sense of attraction toward. But well, it was a nice warm shop, which a welcome from the blasting winds on the roof above. Note the attires that we were in.
on the third Morning, I awoke at 4:50am Japan to find the sun already up and shining, in my silly state, i decided to go out for a walk, whilst my dear family was still snoring and snoozing away. It was actually quite cold, and wanted to walk somewhere to perhaps find a nice warm coffee, unfortunately, the japanese were not as insane as I was, and at 5am, nothing was open yet, and the myth that the Japanese sold all things in vending machines did not hold through in our area, there were no warm drinks in the vending machines, believe me I checked! .. but it was a nice walk I walked and I walked, and after 2 hours, managed to get to Otaru, this 2 hour walk would have been a 6 min train ride. But it was a nice walk, just the Lord and I, and some reflections along the way. Saw a church too, it was actually a Sunday morning, and we were wondering if we could find a church to worship in.
Here's some evidence of the time and the temperature.. =P I think I was just wearing a pullover .. =P heh
What a lovely morning it was, by the time I finished the walk it was around 7am, decided to take the train back and head over back to the room. and from there, we went to Sapporo for more sightseeing, it was nice just walking ard town. Oh I must add that we also went to a Chocolate factory area, which was very very nice, the buildings were v. castle like, and Elijah enjoyed the flowers a lot and the space as well. He was running around in the gardens and having lots of fun. It was a joy to see him enjoy himself.
we also went up to Mt Moiwa, which was supposed to have fantastic views of the city of Sapporo, however, just getting to the place was an adventure in itself, the ropeway ( we would call it cablecar) was on top of some very high up place, and pushing a pram and carrying a bag, wasn't the easiest of tasks, and what's more, when we reached the place to get the tickets, we realised we still had to climb up these ardous flight of steps that seemed to go on forever, there was no elevator (pronounced quite triumphantly by the ticket counter girl, who looked on pitilessly at us, as if we should have known better than to bring a little baby with us up to this mt Moiwa). Well, after all the climbing, and the close to death/exhaustion episode, it was a little better after, admittedly the views were beautiful and very very majestic. Again, just reminding us of how great a God we served, both a creator and our saviour.. =) However, the decor a little lacking, a little more development would have been welcome, it would have been a wonderful place to have a nice warm cafe, overlooking the views of the city, but alas, nothing of that sort existed or looked like it would existing, it was a bare roof, overlooking the view, and below that, was a musty tourist souvenir shop, selling souvenirs that tourists (ie, us ) did not feel any faint sense of attraction toward. But well, it was a nice warm shop, which a welcome from the blasting winds on the roof above. Note the attires that we were in.
Japan Trip Con't
Our next couple of days included walking around in Otaru and Sapporo and viewing the lovely cherry blossoms, we spent the first day in Otaru, going to the all famous 'canal' area as well as tried to check out the car rental service.
it was a nice little town/ city, but mostly due to tourism ( I think), trying to rent a car there was an experience, they couldn't speak English at all, but somehow, through gesturing and some noises, we managed to get our enquiry through, and by God's grace we managed to get the car a couple of days later, it was really quite funny, cos when we went to collect the car 2 days later, they had prepared a nice little document with a questionaire of things they needed to ask us, both in Japanese and English in parallel, so that they could point to the questions and we could point the answers out to them. It showed the extent of their attention to detail. but it was a lovely little town overall and we had a nice little afternoon there.
The next day, we went to Sapporo, a 30 minute train ride away, and went to visit a nice little park where the locals went to see the blossoming cherry blossoms, again a very unique experience, where the whole park was full of very happy boisterous locals, with the charred smoky scent overhanging the park because of the barbeques that were going full force as the everyone was there enjoying their nice grilled lunches with a cold 'sapporo' beer. We of course had none of that, but managed to bring home both nice memories of the afternoon in the park as well as pictures of the cherry blossoms in all their glory. It was a nice reminder of God at work in nature...
Well hopefully more pics to come... getting a little tired...
thanks for reading..
it was a nice little town/ city, but mostly due to tourism ( I think), trying to rent a car there was an experience, they couldn't speak English at all, but somehow, through gesturing and some noises, we managed to get our enquiry through, and by God's grace we managed to get the car a couple of days later, it was really quite funny, cos when we went to collect the car 2 days later, they had prepared a nice little document with a questionaire of things they needed to ask us, both in Japanese and English in parallel, so that they could point to the questions and we could point the answers out to them. It showed the extent of their attention to detail. but it was a lovely little town overall and we had a nice little afternoon there. The next day, we went to Sapporo, a 30 minute train ride away, and went to visit a nice little park where the locals went to see the blossoming cherry blossoms, again a very unique experience, where the whole park was full of very happy boisterous locals, with the charred smoky scent overhanging the park because of the barbeques that were going full force as the everyone was there enjoying their nice grilled lunches with a cold 'sapporo' beer. We of course had none of that, but managed to bring home both nice memories of the afternoon in the park as well as pictures of the cherry blossoms in all their glory. It was a nice reminder of God at work in nature...
Well hopefully more pics to come... getting a little tired...
thanks for reading..
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