This weekend was another holiday weekend. After a party with Yui and Takashi on Friday night I went to the Tadami snow festival, a two-day event in Bryn's town about 1 hour and a half into the mountains. The snow there is much deeper than Shimogo and it is a really nice town. There were some great snow sculptures, igloos, dancing and fireworks. We spent all of Saturday night in Tadami's great karaoke bar and left with very croaky voices as usual. On Sunday there was a volleyball tournament in the snow (I watched!) then we had a relaxing bath in Tadami's great outdoor onsen called Yurari before heading back.
Monday was spent snowboarding all day, I'm getting better and don't fall over as often. Boarding is great fun and I hope I'll get reasonably good before next year. We warmed up after in Nango's great outdoor onsen called Kirara. By Tuesday morning I felt like I'd had a proper holiday and really struggled to go back to work.
Last week I signed my contract to say that I'll stay in Japan another year, it wasn't a very difficult decision because I've planned on doing that for a while. I've been studying Japanese a lot recently and have noticed some slow progress, I plan on doing an intensive course in Tokyo this August so hopefully after that I'll notice some big improvements.
Snow-shoe volleyball tournament
Fireworks over the snow temple
posted by Matthew Fulford at 2:31 pm
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