Before I say anything else, I want everyone to know that I’m alive and well. The earthquake and tsunami were on the east and I live on the west coast. I didn't even feel the huge quake because the second floor of the elementary school I was in is so sturdy that my class wasn't even interrupted. At most I felt a few aftershocks over the next few days. I am also well of 300km away from the nuclear reactors. I am paying attention to the news and I am stocked up on supplies if something ever does happen in Toyama. I know I can’t make everyone stop worrying but I just want to remind you that the news is focusing on the areas where the disaster was and making it seem like the whole country is that way. I would never downplay the magnitude of this tragedy but I want everyone to realize that nothing about my daily life has changed other than trying to conserve electricity for the rest of the country. Also, all of my friends and people that I know throughout the country are okay. We were all worried about Jenni for a while but she is safely out of Miyagi and back in America for as long as it takes for her area to get cleaned up. All this said, I am most certainly keeping those affected in my thoughts and prayers and I hope that you will too.
Now that that's out of the way, let me get on with trying to catch up on telling you about my life in Japan. The first two weekends in February I went skiing. Despite being on the seafront, Himi is also located near the mountains so we had our choice of places to go. Katie and I went with our Japanese friend Ryuichi to Ushidake, a small ski park less than an hour away. We found out that we actually know the person (Yukio) who ran the restaurant at the top, which was great because he gave us free French fries.
I was a little nervous about the actual skiing because both of them were experienced (Katie at skiing and Ryuichi at snowboarding) but they had offered to teach me so I tagged along. I was lucky in that I didn’t have to rent anything other than ski boots because I borrowed clothes and a pair of short skis from friends around Himi. Short skis are a lot of fun. You don’t use poles and with there being less ski underneath me, there was less for me to trip up on...not to say I didn't spend a good amount of time falling XP
Katie did a great job of teaching me how to ski and by the end of the day I was zipping down the mountain at high speeds (okay that’s a bit of an exaggeration) and ready to go back again. Of course the next day I was amazingly stiff and hardly wanted to leave my apartment but despite that, that night Alex, Joe, and I went out for some okonomiyaki and then to a jazz bar for wine and cheese in honor of Gregory’s 21st birthday, or at least that was my excuse for drinking on a work night :D
After a normal week of work, a larger group of us went skiing again at the same place. This time it was me and Katie again, along with Alex and Joe, as well as Satoru, Eri, and Nabe from Wyatt, and a couple of Eri’s friends. They all knew Yukio as well so we made sure to stop there for lunch (and more free fries and meat buns too this time). I refreshed the basics I had just learned as Katie taught Alex but with a bigger group we didn't make quite as many trips up and down. He still picked up quite a bit and we all had a great time.
