Wandering around.

Today I wandered around in Matsumoto like a lost puppy.  I woke up and left the apartment at about 9:20AM and decided to try to find a church.  They were doing construction around the apartment so the road was blocked off and the construction guy said something I didn't understand so I just said ok and walked off.

 I went to the church and a nice person pointed out the English translations they had available for the sermon.  The sermon was different.  Only wafers and not wine and you bow instead of shaking hands or hugging when it's time to greet your neighbors.  And of course, it was all in Japanese.  After the service I wandered around and found other churches of mysterious type that were marked on the map since there was no English translation under their signs.

  Then I went and bought a book, and then I went to a bakery and bought some bread.  Japanese sweets are nice, they are not excessively sweet.  I think it will be a while before I go into a shop again because I do not like feeling like I am doing things horribly wrong and hate being a bother to the cashiers since I don't understand anything.  I can just keep going to the grocery store.  They ask the same question every time so I know what they want even if I don't understand them.  They always ask if you want a bag and I just say yes and then go to the little tables and put my things in the bags.

I tried to go back after this but saw the construction workers were there still and didn't know if I was allowed to go back so I wandered off towards the mountains and got lost for a while.  I ended up at a park that was the opposite direction I had started out walking towards but didn't know which direction I was looking at the park from on the map. So I just kept walking away from mountains until I hit a big enough road that it had a sign saying the castle was in a certain direction and I followed that until I saw the sign for the mall which is next to my house.  Then I went back and the construction guy was like yes yes you can come in.  And I sat under my Kotatsu and ate my bread and pastry thing I had bought at the store.  Guess I was worried for nothing.

I feel sad thinking of the Earthquake.  Thankfully I was not involved for the most part.  There was certainly shaking where I am.  I thought I was getting dizzy at first since it seemed like the room was spinning but even after I sat down and put my head on the table the door was still moving back and forth so I realized it was an Earthquake and not me getting sick.  It came again at 4am and woke me up and I remember thinking I was glad there was nothing to fall on me since everything in Japan is on the floor before falling asleep.  It wasn't strong enough to knock anything over or off tables though.  The good thing about being surrounded by cold snowy Mountains on all sides means there isn't much fear of tsunamis.