randomly enough

As I was walking down a street in Sendai today, I caught a glimpse of 2 friends not far away. I waited for them and said hi & proceeded to walk along with them to similar placed destinations a fair walk away. It was nice to see Tadamitsu and Francisco, before Christmas when I won't see people for several weeks or months depending! Bumping into them after going to one of my student's gigs & before heading to the art gallery was a nice co-incidence, or 'God-incidence', if you think it's down to Him that i met them.

It's happened so many times since I've lived in Japan that I've lost count how many times it's happened now. And it's always been so worthwhile or nice to know I'm not on my own. The last time it happened was probably after the school football match- I bumped into some friends -other ALTs- one of them hit me on the head with an inflatable pocky* stick (a bit random i know) - it was on pocky day & we went and played pool for a bit...

anyway, i'd better run before i'm late for a scheduled meeting with others for a music practice...

-Just got back from church. After we did the music practice, one of the young people in the office happened to be looking on Google earth. Had fun finding Sandy Ridge, CCC and various schools. It was quite a good resource for internationalisation kind of stuff. Everyone seemed to comment on the trees/ greenery, kind of symmetry of the housing and I remembered about road names- no streets have names here, which often makes it awkward when going somewhere new...

*pocky are long thin biscuits covered in chocolate. They're popular as snacks, especially on 11th Nov (11-11) which is dubbed 'pocky no hi' - pocky day. - Because the date looks like four pocky sticks if you hadn't already guessed! This year, the company celebrated by giving away free large inflatable pocky sticks in Sendai station. Unfortunately I missed out on getting one, but the same can't be said for some of my friends and students!

PS just so you know, it was snowing this morning. I think climate in Japan is funny. The first time it snowed this year was the day I took my JLPT japanese test. Last year, the first day I saw snow in Sendai when I was taking another JLPT test in the same place (Tohoku Uni) on the same day. Last year, I went to the Miyagi art gallery and it snowed. Today, guess where I went and what the weather was like? just a co-incidence i know!