!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's been a while...

February was thunderously great! It was all about snow, skiing, friends and family. Of course the most eventful part was my mom's and Aunt Susie's visit. It was great all around, and it was a great time to be here as there was lots going on with the snow festival. I saw things I've always wanted to see, and much of what we saw was as new to me as it was to them.

The only downfall was we had a lot of rain, but just one snowfall - blah!

Won't go into all the details but just tell some of the cool stuff we did...


Mom came in Thursday, and Friday night we went to the opening of the Tokamachi Snow Festival, walked around in the snow, drinking sake and eating weird things on sticks. Susie came in the train Saturday and we checked out all the incredible snow sculptures and shows, then the big show Saturday night (not bad, podunk town!) The part my mom loved best was driving to the little community areas where old folks sat around gleaming at their sculptures, handing out free mountain food and sake, being more outgoing than usual and displaying that local Japanese charm and hospitality. Sunday involved more of that, then taking an afternoon trip to see the monkeys in Nagano! So many crazy monkeys! Monday was a really cool craft museum in town I've never seen, and we got a private tour of a kimono factory and my mom saw all the cool weaving/craft stuff she wanted to. Monday night we stayed in a cool mountain ryokan in Shiozawa, ate some real ryokan food and onsened until we couldn't think straight. Susie left Tuesday and my mom and I got Yuko and went and did a crafts workshop and made some Japanese indigo fabric things. Wednesday we payed a visit to some schools and then went to Matsunoyama for some more onsen (by now we had onsened in 4 different places)! Thursday we went skiing in Nozawa but were hit by some strange conditions, but we onsened in town and enjoyed that little haven. Friday was "bring mom to school" day, and I brought her to Minami where we did some team-teaching together and ate with the kids. Friday night was dinner at Yuko's, and Saturday was another day skiing, and into the night also at Ishiuchi Maruyama. Hit Mion onsen on the way home and had a good lunch the next day on the way to bringing mom to the train station for her trip back to the airport! Yoshi! Good stuff!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pictures on the way!

I feel like using a lot of exclamation marks!!!

I think it's because I've been signing my students' yearbooks all day! I have to say stuff in simple English like 'You are a crazy boy' and 'Thanks for trying to speak English!'

Graduation is Monday. Should be fun!