Starbucks and a Stolen Bike

Last Monday morning we jumped on out rusty old bikes and squeaked and rattled our way over to the train station. We had the day off from teaching in observance of a national holiday and so we headed to Kagoshima. It is a port city of about five-hundred thousand people and it has a Starbucks. This trip was a big deal for a few reasons. The first being that though Kagoshima is only about a forty minute train ride, it costs about $30 round-trip for the two of us. Second, we have friends there who speak English. It is unexpectedly refreshing to form a sentence with no thought to the number of syllables you can use in each word. The city has a Starbucks; but I think I said that already. In the States they serve over-priced coffee drinks. In Japan they serve over-priced coffee drinks. But in Japan it felt like a little piece of home. And unlike Japanese deserts it was full of delicious sugar.

Our friends in Kagoshima, Gerry and Naphi, are teaching English in the SDA Language School and are from India. Obviously, they both speak fluent English. I learned that almost everyone in India is the same. That is one of the few good things left behind from the British colonization. People in many countries are proficient with computers. However, in India people are not only proficient with computers but also English. This is why many times when you get technical support for your computer over the phone, you will hear an Indian accent. Not only are Gerry and Naphi a ton of fun, but they make excellent Indian food. Imagine that. They made us lunch at their apartment and it felt like we were eating at an expensive Indian restaurant except for the price. Our Friend Kazuki joined us as we ended lunch and finished off the food. The poor guy was sweating. The Japanese are not known for their tolerance of spicy food. He smiled, wiped the sweat from his face and made hand gestures of fire blasting from his mouth.

As we walked down a street in Kagoshima later that day we passed a little cafe stuck between an ancient Shinto Shrine and a five hundred year-old fortress. I glanced through the window as we passed by and locked eyes with a guy who was as pasty white as me. He came walking out with a smile and introduced himself. In fairly good English he told me that he is from France and is working in the little cafe just because we wanted to. His name is (I'm not even going to try to spell it right. Here's the phonetic version.) Bernwa. Most any other place in the world we wouldn't have even noticed each other; but here, so far from either of our homes, we were instant friends.

Sumira, another of our Japanese friends, joined us that evening and we put off heading back home by wandering around the mall which is attached to the train station and eating in a restaurant that is basically the Japanese equivalent of a Perkins.

When we got back to the train station in Hayato we found that someone had stolen one of our bikes. Oh well. The weather was wonderful so I pushed my old bike along the dark streets of Hayato and enjoyed the walk with Mary Ellen.

We lost our bike but we can't lose the great day we had. Jesus said that if we are smart we will invest in things that can't be stolen: realationships with Him and people. Someone stole our bike, but no one can take the great day we had with our friends.

The person who stole our bike was in for a nice surprise, the brakes don't work very well. Hope karma didn't catch up with him too fast:)