$43 Melon

Title says it all. I had the good fortune of tasting one of these magical melons last year, very sweet, very delicious. The Japanese from what I've witnessed are very fruit friendly folks. I've never seen any other dessert in the public schools that wasn't fruit. Sometimes its just a half an orange, apple, kiwi or pear. The kids actually enjoy learning fruit names in English and frequently tell me their favorites. A strong contrast to the chocolate brownies and sugars cookies I was given in school.

Yuki

It snowed (Yuki) in Tokyo this past week, it was interesting to see the effects on daily life.
Besides the change of scenery, the biggest effect was on the roads and sidewalks. There are many small roads in my area, that have remained iced over since the snow. I have yet to see any form of salt (NaCl) used anywhere to melt the ice. I have however seen and participated in the manual breaking and removing of ice from the ground. At one of my elementary schools, the principal all the teachers and myself, spend our free period breaking ice and shoveling it off of the concrete playground (in suits). The ice really makes the morning commute a pain and shows me one area in which Japan lacks a simple, common western solution to a problem (NaCl).

This was too funny for me to not take a picture. The jacket belongs to one of my 5th grade students.

No Show

I am actually at work now, but unfortunately my student hasn't showed up. Luckily, I still get paid. I saw something rare yesterday while eating lunch. I was in a busy cafe and there was a woman sitting at the table next to me. She had dropped some crumbs of bread or something on the floor and she was actually under the table picking them up. Coming from the States, it is rare to see someone pickup their mess from under a fast food or cafe table. Usually whatever someone drops is left on the floor for the staff to clean up. Although, I wouldn't want to shake the womans hand, I did admire her consideration and humility. The new year has started off well, after a long vacation, I am back and working full speed. Unfortunately I have not been able to meet some of my relatives yet, hopefully after this busy month I will have the opportunity. I met a friend from Chicago who was back home for a short while. It was great to see her and we spent the evening relating our experiences as foreigners in another country. Gotta get back to work...

Nagano Ski Trip

I just returned from a ski trip to the mountains of Nagano. I went with some fellow teachers from one of my elementary schools. The teachers were all Japanese and most spoke little English. My Japanese isn't very good so it was challenging communicating! We arrived to find tons of snow waiting and more falling. The parking lot of the hotel looked like it was full of snow monsters. You could barely see any cars under then snow! Please click the photos to view in full.


colleague from the elementary school. On our way up the mountain!


Many lifts staggered up the mountain. Check out the guy who fell in the background and you can see just how deep the snow is!


The scenery was deep and like something out of a dream.

6th grade teacher, about to make a steep run!

My favorite part of the runs was the deep untouched snow. If you fell you were in trouble, but as long as you kept moving it was like floating on clouds...
This is me freaking out before a black diamond run. Once I was on it, I had a blast. My biggest concern once I started down, was an avalanche crashing down. It was a very real possibility with the amount of snow present on the mountain.

Some trees were almost invisible under the snow.

Mental preparation for the next run...

Group photo, it was hard to take any at that altitude. It was extremely cold and the snow never stopped coming down.

About 3/4 up the mountain...
This is the road on our way out. There were entire houses obscured by the snow!

This was by far the best ski trip I have been on. But I realized that I need to make more time to study Japanese, I had trouble understanding a lot of the conversations and expressing my own ideas. Much of the activities we did besides skiing were traditional. We all ate together at specific times. We bathed together in the hot baths. (yes, naked) I love the mountains and these were the most mysterious and beautiful I have seen. Near the top of the mountain, you couldn't see more than 100ft. The Japanese mountains have such a natural and deep beauty that really feels like magic. Happy New Year, to all!