Sounkyou Hyobaku Matsuri

We had a really amazing day last week a few hours from our house.  We started out by taking a huge gondola ride to the peak of a mountain (almost the peak), tried to snowshoe to the top but got freaked out by how steep it was, and then hiked part of the way down.  We had a lot of fun playing in the snow and goofing around.  Next we had found a true double trouble delight.  We found a place that sold a combo platter of a big bowl of ramen and a bowl of curry rice.  We thought that we were going to have to decide between the two but this place had a sweet deal.

Next we went to an onsen and soaked in the natural hot spring baths.  After that we drank a beer while sitting in some kick ass massage chairs and relaxed before we went to see the village made of ice.

The Hyobaku Matsuri (ice village) was amazing and beautiful.  We had a great time going into all of the structures, going down slides, eating festival food, and watching the fireworks.  (I especially enjoyed almost throwing a Japanese guy off the top of a structure after he shoved Christine out of his way and she almost fell)

Enjoy the pics!

Busy Busy

In case you were wondering, my life is no longer the relaxing thing it used to be. I'm not complaining, but just don't want you to think I'm lounging around reading and thinking, and napping anymore. So what happened?

Well, I started teaching 2 english classes, and I'm tutoring two children, one teacher, and one friend privately, I have my day time chat club and a night chat club every other week. I play a crazy-fun game called kinball almost every Friday for a few hours, as well as volleyball. I meet once a week with a woman for help with Japanese. I also occasionally meet with a friend for crafting stuff, or with people from the chat club for traditional Japanese experiences. Thrown into this mix is taping our radio show and taking adventures around Hokkaido. AND, although Don is making a lot of efforts to help out more now, I'm still playing housewife.

Not all of these things are new, but they've slowly been adding up, and I'm really starting to feel it now. Really it's teaching the little kiddies that is the most time-consuming. For them, I have to do a lot more research and make a lot more materials, and it takes a LOT of energy to entertain them. I totally have a new respect for elementary school teachers and anyone that is trying to teach a child to read.

To wrap up this rant, I don't have as much time to myself anymore, but that's probably good. I just have to remember to have fun and enjoy all of the experiences!

Yuki Matsuri (Snow Festival) In Sapporo

Last week we went to the annual snow sculpture festival in Sapporo called Yuki Matsuri.  There were several massive (like 3-40 feet tall!!) sculptures made out of snow and a bunch of 8-10 foot ice sculptures carved out of clear ice.  They have this festival every year in Sapporo and the different sculptures are sponsored by different companies and organizations.  Disney does one every year (this years was a little lame, just Micky and Minny).  The coolest one by far was the one sponsored by the Asahiyama Zoo (its in the other big city in Hokkaido, Asahikawa).  This sculpture had an awesome leopard that looked really scary, a polar bear and two cubs, a huge orangutan, and a bunch of other stuff.  They looked amazing and it was not hard to fantasize about them coming to life and running loose all over the park (I watch too many movies).  We also saw some live music by a corny Japanese boy band.  They did some N’snyce covers and some other lame stuff.  Chrissy loved it though.  They also had a lot of tasty food in an outdoor international food court.  Every country had a booth and a few shared.  Don’t ask me how they go together but Mexico and Greece teamed up together.  I could see Mexico and Spain or something but Greece??

We opened the day by shopping at COSTCO with our buddy Dave and we bought another trunkfull of staple products and some flavors from home: peanut butter, cranberries, pasta, tortilla chips and salsa, a package of hot dogs (you can make fun, its alright), kosher dill pickles, mixed nuts, hash brown patties, granola cereal, beer, and shampoo (smells fruity but don’t eat it).

We ate some great ramen in a place called Ramen Alley- they have a million ramen shops one after the other on either side of a four foot wide alley.  It was tough deciding which one to eat at but we were happy with our choice. 

All in all it was a really fun day.  We walked around a lot in the snow and had a lot of laughs.  Look out for Matsui getting eaten by Godzilla in the slide show- I loved it.

What the hell does Don do all day?

Well, this probably should have been one of my first posts but better late than never.  While Christine’s daily activities have been well documented, what the hell do I do all day?  For starters I teach Tuesday through Friday and sit in the State BOE office all day on Mondays.  The only work that I have on office days is to complete a quick summary of the classes I had the week before.  This takes about twenty minutes and then I have the res t of the day to myself.  They don’t ask me to do a damn thing.  I usually study Japanese and make lesson plans for the week coming up.  The rest of the week I usually hop on the 8:00 bus and go to one of my schools.  The trip takes anywhere from a half hour to three hours depending on where I am going.  If I am going to a school in my town I just ride my bike (even in the snow). 

There are four schools that I go to about once per month, another school that I go to once every two months and then the other 18 schools I only go to three times each the whole year.  For the most part when I get to the school it is a big day for them.  I am like a special guest and they treat me like a celebrity.  They are so thoughtful and kind it can be really overwhelming.  I get all kinds of little gifts from the students and the teachers love to ask me a bunch of questions.  It’s a lot of fun but I always feel like I have to have super high energy for them because they only get to see me a few times so I need to be my absolute best.  It can be tough to get excited sometimes because I usually don’t know where I am going or what I am doing until I get there and even then I don’t really know because some teachers don’t speak any English.  I find that just acting happy and confident goes a long way though. 

I probably have the most fun going to elementary schools.  It doesn’t matter what I say or do, the kids love everything.  They freak out and laugh and scream if I just say hello to them.  They love to play games and try to say words in English.  They are adorable.  I always have fun at elementary schools.

I'll post more later about the middle and high schools.  

To Do. (update)

Well, I'm happy to say that I'm actually accomplishing some of the things on my previously-posted list.

1 - sweater is getting close to finished. I've already attached the sleeves and I'm starting to decrease now up to the collar. Yes RR, this the same sweater you made from purlbee. It's so much more fun to knit this thing when I can actually see it taking shape.

2 - japanese is not one of the things, yet. :)

3 - teaching classes started last week with a group of elementary school students and their tiny little brothers and sisters. It was very cute and I was very nervous. We danced around, sang songs, played games, and no one peed their pants. Success! I even got to use a little rabbit puppet that I named "Judy," after my aunt. My Brooklyn teaching style (mean and scary) wasn't going to work with these little sweethearts, so I thought about how my aunt would teach. She's the nicest and most-patient person I know, and probably the only person I know who would be excited to have a puppet named after them. I'm adding an adult class this week, which should be fun too.

Snow Cave

So when I woke up this morning, the room was much darker than usual, and when I opened the curtains I found out why. The snow on the ground is about half way up the window now, but that's not a new development. The snow sliding off our roof from the heat in the house has stopped falling and is now just curling under into this weird lip thing. Out of the bedroom window (top pics) there are about 4 inches left between the roof snow and the ground snow. In the living room (bottom pics) there is a little more space, but not much. It kind of feels like being inside the mouth of giant whale.

Lost In Translation

Ok, sorry, I had to post this one too. I don't think anyone would buy these leg warmers if they understood what was written on them. But I'm not sure what is worse, the "girlly loose" part, or the fact that they "age flesh."