April Adventures Across Japan Phase 3: Profit!

Aomori Day 3: Hirosaki Hijinx!

'another early morning, but that meant we had lots of time to explore Hirosaki. I really love this city, although I have yet to drive around in it. Perhaps that's why I still love it. Haha. I've been driven around it, but I always take the train out here when I visit. Saves me having to find parking and navigate the helluv narrow streets and lanes that make it up. Some of my favorite JETs live out here, and it's great to hang out with them... but they were all at work, so we were left to our own devices.

Let's try......... SNOWBOARDING!!!

Good evening loyal readers! I hope You're all doing well this evening. I'm doing great for someone who has no hot water. I'm waiting for the official report as to what needs to be fixed (apparently they need to come from the big city to have a look and things before they can fix it), so it could take a month before they get out here... so I get to either use the public bath or go to Christina's (she's a sweetheart who's taken pity on David, Tim and myself). But if that's the worst thing, I'm not doing too badly, grand scheme of things.

Anyway, after my quiet two weeks off, I had a week of work then a long weekend. Yippie! As much fun as it was to relax mostly all on my onesies, I really really really wanted to get out of Shichinohe for the weekend. The lovely Tori answered my call and offered to put me up and teach me how to snowboard! Huzzah! So, it was back to Hirosaki for an action packed weekend. Tori and Kyle were at the tattoo parlour as she was getting more work done on her super-boss arm piece, so I caught a late train down to the city. I made a friend on that train, his name's Ken. He wanted to practice his English, so he started chatting with me. Turns out he likes rock music and used to play in bands when he was in High School, so I told him about Kyle's band playing Saturday night. 

New Year's Day in Hirosaki

Happy New Year!

After grabbing a few hours sleep, Nancy and I met up with Mel and Jeff at the mall hoping to find a promising Good Luck bag... nothing really caught out fancy though... except for an infomercial that was playing where Japanese women rubbed a tool with testical-sized-disco-balls on their faces... from the before and after shots, we guess that it's to move any fat you have in your face around and not a cure for acne, but... we really weren't sure...

The hell?

Christmas in Shichinohe and New Year's Eve in Hirosaki

Had a quiet xmas by myself this year. I enjoyed the most relaxing xmas eve, spent the day watching movies and went out in the evening to Hoshino Resort Aomoriya Onsen Ryokan, Misawa with Chelsea. It was a crisp clear night, the moon was almost full, the stars dotting the sky, and the pool was light up by a nebuta float at the far end with smaller floating candles dotting the black water in front of it. It was a pricey one, 1200￥　but what the heck, it was really really nice and everything was provided, as it was part of a hotel. It was damn near deserted, too. So there I lay, in the warm, dark water, and it was bliss. I miss my family and friends, but moments like that make the separation worth it. Christmas day was spent chilling in my jammies Skyping with anyone and everyone who came online, it was great! In between chats, I watched some very non-Christmassy movies (I dunno what it is about the Swedish version of the Millennium trilogy [Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Girl who Played with Fire, Girl who kicked the Hornets Nest], but the last couple years, that's what I had to watch) including Shaun of the Dead, A Fantastic Fear of Everything, Fright Night (2011), and then made the trek out in the blowy snowy night to the Shimoda mall to catch the late showing of The Hobbit (Japanese subs in 3D).

We call this... the departure point.

Weekend escape to Hirosaki pt1

I got the offer to go on a weekend adventure with some other ALTs this past weekend... And as long as updating by smartphone doesn't make me too angry, I'll bring y'all up to speed!

We set out on our journey Saturday morning and hit up the international festival in Itanyanagi (think micro Folklorama) met a Scottish JET named James. Yay! There was short bread and black tea. I was pleased.