Japanese Scientists

They've done it again!

Last Day at Koga Nikko

 

One of the best parts of my day at Koga 2nd was walking to and from class because I was always greeted by every student I passed with some high pitched variation of "Oh April! How are you? I'm fine thank you." Only in Japan can you be lionized for having dyed hair and cool jewlery.  

Izuska-sensei

 

Not the best person to teach with, but a great guy. He is an extremely talented photographer and will show me his new picutures and then let me choose my favorite to keep. 

Love letters

 

No, actually I was given one of the best gifts ever from my students, notes expressing their thanks for being their English teacher. Unfortunately, they are all written in Japanese. 

The "Cool" Girls

 

Note the gianormous hairclips worn by the two on the left. These are also popular with boys and make me want to shout, "Take that damn thing out of your hair! Your not tying up a bag of chips for fuksakes!" 

Hai Cheezu!

 
 

 

Note the volunatary segregation. 
If you look closely, me and the sweetie next to me have made a heart with our hands. Damn I'm gonna miss these kids.

Do I have koodies, or what?

 
 

You're Welcome Kids!

 
 

Funada-sensei, me, the Girls

 
 

 
 

 
 

In the Classroom

 
 

Two of my faves

 

I actually didn't teach these girls but they would come talk to me during lunch every single Tuesday, when I was at Nikko. The girl on the left has impeccable style. 

Snow Family

 
 

Snowy Day in Koga

 


It snowed for the first time this year in Koga on Saturday. And it snowed, and it snowed. 

Recipe #4

Spinach, Cheese and Sundried Tomato Pesto Sandwich
Okay, this is another no-brainer, but for the book...
Toast bread
Melt cheese on one piece and spread roasted tomato pesto on the other
Put as much fresh spinach as you'd like between the slices.
Squish together and enjoy!
(note: if you don't have sun dried tomato pesto you could just use sundried tomatos, or make your own pesto with a food processor)

The Haul Back Lift

After Christmas I departed for a three-day trip to Fernie, Canada, which turned out to be much more of a hike than I originally thought. From Kansas City (where I was Christmasing) I backtracked to Dallas, then flew to Calgary, waited in the airport for 3 hours, and then took a 4 hour shuttle to Fernie. I left at 7 am and arrived at 10 pm, if that makes things clearer. But the journey was well worth it. Fernie was a beautiful, quaint little ski town, population 5,000. After being there only three days I started to recognize people and was having chats with them in the street.
The first day I went snowboarding with my friend I had gone to visit. This was my first time snowboarding and I sucked. My friend, Dave, was supposed to teach me, but he turned out to be more of the quiet, figure-it-out-yourself (while-I-laugh-as-you-fall-on-your-ass) type teacher. But by the end of the day I was linking turns. Feeling a little overly confident I decided to visit Dave at work (he works at one of the lifts) my second day. At the rental shop I chatted with the stoner guy who was outfitting me and asked him how to get to the Haul Back Lift.
"Yeah, yeah", he told me. "It's easy. Just go to the Elk lift and once you get off go left, then right, then take the Bear lift and then go right, right, right and you'll hit it. No worries-ay."
“Okay,” I said, only slightly confused. "The Elk to the Bear, then right?"
"Yep, as right as you can go-ay."
"It's only my second day boarding. Think I'll be okay?"
"Yeah! It's a piece of cake-ay," he responded. (I was soon to learn he clearly eats different cake than I do; I prefer chocolate with chocolate frosting, whereas his tastes must lie along the lines of crap flavored filled with marbles and topped with razor blade shavings.)
So off I went on the Elk Lift. My partner on the lift happened to be a chatty, slightly boastful older man who quickly informed me he knew the mountain well and would be more than happy to accompany me on my trek to Haul Back Lift. I warned him it was only my second day, and as such I wouldn't be able to keep up with him and his specially made racing skis, but he assured me he had all day and would appreciate the company. (I hope he knows Santa doesn't look very favorably on big fat liars).
Together we made it to the Bear Lift and shortly after we got off that lift we came across a steep incline. This was my first steep incline (I much prefer the gradual fall of the bunny slopes), so I took it slowly. I was feeling quite pleased once I made it down until I realized my guide had vanished! (I actually ran into the bastard later, and he was all like, "Yeah, I'm so sorry I left you-hay. You were slower than I thought-hay. But guess what happened to me-hay? I collided with this huge fat man and broke my specially made racing skis-hay." "Hay, hay to you! That's karma for you, bitch!" I yelled (in my head)).
Now on my own, I traveled back to the board shop in my mind. The crack head, I mean, rental guy's words still echoed in my head, "Right, right, right...ay". So off I went to the right. It seemed easy enough at first. Then I came across two paths. One went left (no) and one went right (right). So I went right. But this path quickly became an uphill one so I took off my board as had the other boarders in front of me and proceeded to lug my board uphill for 25 minutes.
"There better be a damn good run at the end of this," I grumbled. (To which an ominously little voice replied, “Be careful what you wish for...”)
Once I finally reached the top of the hill I was a little surprised to see that all the other boarders had already descended. I strapped myself in and followed what I assumed to be their path. The going was a bit more difficult, but as I had now been boarding for 1.25 days I was up for the challenge. The fact that I was all alone on this path didn't hit me until I reached a cliff ledge, with a lone tree growing out of it, and on that lone tree was a little sign with a black diamond painted on it, and the little sign pointed down, as in, down a Roadrunner-Wylie E. Coyote completely vertical drop...you know the one where Wylie is chasing the Roadrunner, and the Roadrunner stops on a dime right at the edge of the cliff but the slower-to-respond Wylie keeps going, and actually proceeds horizontally through the air until he realizes what's happened and then all the sudden succumbs to gravity's cruel force with a puff of animated air.
“Shit,” I said. “Shit, shit, shit. Holy shit. Fuck. Mother fucker. Holyshitmother fucker.”
Whatever am I going to do? I not so amusedly mused. Walk the fuck back up the mountain I decided. So I took off my board and started to cry when my leg sunk above my knee in snow.
Okay, Plan A is out I realized. So I was forced to enact Plan B: Eat the frozen chocolate bar in my pocket while sitting on my ass in futile wait of a rescuer. While waiting I surveyed my surroundings. Lots of snow. Some cute little signs warning of avalanche danger and reminding me that I was in NO SKI PATROL territory.
Sometime after I finished my Mars Bar two skiers eventually zoomed by.
“Stop! Stop!” I yelled.
Luckily, one of them stopped. I explained my situation to him and he wholeheartedly agreed that I should not be where I was.
“So, what’s the easiest way down the mountain?” I implored.
“You’re lookin’ at it-ay.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. Do you know how to slide horizontally on your board-ay?”
Weakly, “Yeah.”
“Well, I suggest you slide. Good luck. You’ll be fine-ay.”
Actually, that bit of human encouragement helped tremendously. Once I saw them go over the cliff I realized that it wasn’t the end of the world, and that inch by painful inch (punctuated by the more than occasional ass-over-heels roll) I too could make it down the mountain.
About 20 minutes later I was picked up by Ski Patrol. Apparently the skiers had reported me. By now an old pro at the sliding technique I thought, What the hell? I could use the company. And then once again that ominously little voice reminded me, Be careful what you wish for…(I mean seriously, by now you would think that little voice would have realized I was a bit hard of hearing and could benefit from a loudspeaker or at least the use of an Outside Voice.) So 10 minutes later, another Ski Patrol dude showed up. They were polite enough, but I wasn’t really looking to show up at Dave’s lift with two Ski Patrol guys in tow. No, no, what I really wanted was to show up with the Ski Patrol Force and have a snowmobile waiting from me at the lift. Yep, yep. That would definitely be impressive. Once I found out there actually would be a snowmobile waiting for me at the lift I tried to persuade the Ski Patrol guys that that was unnecessary, but I guess they thought I was just being modest.
So two hours or so later I finally made it down the Black Snake Ridge by way of the Black Diamond Run, Redtree, and to the mythical Haul Back Lift. I waved when I saw Dave, and so did the Ski Patrol dudes, and then I tried to pretend the snowmobile waiting for me was invisible. That turned out to be really difficult when the driver came over to me and Dave and asked if I was the girl that got stuck up on Redtree.
But hey, how many people can say they went down a black diamond their second day boarding? I bet not many.