Believe it or not, it was raining all week, until Saturday when it started snowing again.
The snow continues today on Sunday, and hopefully every day after that.
I wanna go snowboarding at Santa Present Park next Saturday night, if possible.
The main reason I often go to Santa Present Park at night is because it is only a 15 minute drive from my house and it is not very crowded at night.
I don't like waiting in lines for any reason, especially ski lifts.
Santa Present Park is a good place for beginning skiers or snowboarders to start learning how to ride on the snow.
There are three different ski lifts there.
The lift in the middle is short and takes you up to less than half way on the hill.
From there, it is a gentle slope down to the bottom of the hill, just perfect for beginners.
In fact, that is where I first learned how to snowboard about 15 years ago.
The photo you can see in today's blog was taken on Saturday at the Taisetsu Arena, which is right next door to my classroom.
I was invited to attend these ice hockey games by one of my architect friends, Mr. N. His youngest son, who is now almost 20 years old was supposed to perform some of his original rap songs after the children's hockey match, and before the start of the professional hockey match.
I have known Mr. N for about 16 years, and remember his youngest son when he was still in kindergarten.
Now, this kid has pink hair, hip hop fashion, and a foul mouth that spews forth all of the dirtiest words in the English Language, but not much else.
It reminds me of a Willie Nelson song that goes something like this; "Momma don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys,..." In this case I would substitute the word "cowboys" for "rappers".
Despite this small disappointment in stunted growth, I'm glad I went because I like to watch ice hockey games live, even though the Taisetsu Areana is ice cold.
Another enjoyable thing about going was that I was able to meet a young Canadian lady, who was brought along by Mr. N's wife.
Mr. N's wife is a school nurse in the Furano area, and the 21 year old Canadian lady is employed as an
Assistant Language Teacher in the same general area.
She has a good sense of humor and was a lot of fun to talk to, especially because we are both native speakers of North American English.
She told me that she had arrived in Hokkaido only about 5 months ago, but that she had been studying the Japanese Language, on her own, since she was about 15 years old!
This surprised me so I asked her if she had been to Japan before when she was in junior high school, on a home stay program or something like that.
She replied that she had just come to Japan this year for the first time, but that she liked to study languages, and that is why she first started learning Japanese about 6 years ago.
I too like learning languages so we had something in common to talk about.
Tomorrow morning, Charlie and I are off to Mebae Kindergarten めばえ幼稚園 to do a special Christmas Songs Show for the kids out there.
Last year I had to do it by myself so this year's show should be a lot more fun for everyone.
The snow continues today on Sunday, and hopefully every day after that.
I wanna go snowboarding at Santa Present Park next Saturday night, if possible.
The main reason I often go to Santa Present Park at night is because it is only a 15 minute drive from my house and it is not very crowded at night.
I don't like waiting in lines for any reason, especially ski lifts.
Santa Present Park is a good place for beginning skiers or snowboarders to start learning how to ride on the snow.
There are three different ski lifts there.
The lift in the middle is short and takes you up to less than half way on the hill.
From there, it is a gentle slope down to the bottom of the hill, just perfect for beginners.
In fact, that is where I first learned how to snowboard about 15 years ago.
The photo you can see in today's blog was taken on Saturday at the Taisetsu Arena, which is right next door to my classroom.
I was invited to attend these ice hockey games by one of my architect friends, Mr. N. His youngest son, who is now almost 20 years old was supposed to perform some of his original rap songs after the children's hockey match, and before the start of the professional hockey match.
I have known Mr. N for about 16 years, and remember his youngest son when he was still in kindergarten.
Now, this kid has pink hair, hip hop fashion, and a foul mouth that spews forth all of the dirtiest words in the English Language, but not much else.
It reminds me of a Willie Nelson song that goes something like this; "Momma don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys,..." In this case I would substitute the word "cowboys" for "rappers".
Despite this small disappointment in stunted growth, I'm glad I went because I like to watch ice hockey games live, even though the Taisetsu Areana is ice cold.
Another enjoyable thing about going was that I was able to meet a young Canadian lady, who was brought along by Mr. N's wife.
Mr. N's wife is a school nurse in the Furano area, and the 21 year old Canadian lady is employed as an
Assistant Language Teacher in the same general area.
She has a good sense of humor and was a lot of fun to talk to, especially because we are both native speakers of North American English.
She told me that she had arrived in Hokkaido only about 5 months ago, but that she had been studying the Japanese Language, on her own, since she was about 15 years old!
This surprised me so I asked her if she had been to Japan before when she was in junior high school, on a home stay program or something like that.
She replied that she had just come to Japan this year for the first time, but that she liked to study languages, and that is why she first started learning Japanese about 6 years ago.
I too like learning languages so we had something in common to talk about.
Tomorrow morning, Charlie and I are off to Mebae Kindergarten めばえ幼稚園 to do a special Christmas Songs Show for the kids out there.
Last year I had to do it by myself so this year's show should be a lot more fun for everyone.
