Chiaki's Visit from Japan

My friend Chiaki just came to stay with me for a few days. She was the foreign exchange student from Japan when I was a senior in high school. We were really good friends. She would come over every weekend. It was so good to see her again! I was so excited when she emailed me and told me that she was coming to visit.

My parents came over Sunday for dinner to see Chiaki. They have been really excited to see her too. It was just like no time had passed.

Chiaki taught us how to make origami cranes. This is Chiaki and me with the first few cranes we made. She brought a lot of origami paper and a book that teaches origami for me from Japan. The crane is not one that is in the book so I had to practice a lot so that I wouldn't forget how to do it.


After I had gotten the hang of the cranes, we decided to try making a cat. Chiaki didn't know how to make it so we had to learn from the book. My mom and Chris made them with us, too. Chiaki and I are holding our own cranes but my mom is actually holding Chris'. Hers was quite sad looking so she didn't want to take credit for it. Chris' was probably the best out of all of ours. You can see my mom's in my right hand. We all had a good laugh watching her try to make it and then an even better one when we saw what the finished product looked like!! She laughed, too. Don't worry. :-)


Oh! This is four cranes made from one piece of paper. They are all connected in the middle. Chiaki says it is my homework. I will have to get started on that one...


Monday we got all bundled up and went out to the Frankenmuth River Place. We went to a lot of the little shops there and Chiaki got some neat souvenirs. It was so cold, though!! She froze. Not that I didn't, but I am just more used to it than she is. We went and tried to do the maze of mirrors. We successfully found the beginning twice! We never did find the end. Chiaki got bored so we decided to move on. We then headed back to Saginaw and I showed her SVSU. Before she saw it she said that she wanted to walk through the buildings. Then she saw how big it was and decided against it, so we just drove around the outside. It was warmer that way anyway.


I then took Chiaki to church and showed her where I go to church now. She used to go to my church in high school so I wanted to show her where I go now that I live in Saginaw. Chiaki had a lot of fun in the nursery! She claims to be serious all the time, but I think you can see that that couldn't be farther from the truth!!


Before she left my house today, I wanted to get some more pictures of the two of us. This is just more proof that she is NOT serious like she claims! :-) We had a really good time! I am so glad that she got to come and visit!