More excerpts from my emails in japan:

Do you ever have one of those kinds of weeks at work? You know the kind I mean, right? When they change the schedule on you twice without mentioning it. When you get told you are showing too much skin at your new school (only when you are bowing apparently and the back of your shirt rides up a centimetre). Then, after you finish off that granola bar that was your breakfast, you get told not to let the students see you eating during break (I forgot granola bars are grouped with candy here and candy is a no-no for the kids). But most of all, the one that made you wince then and laugh now, you mistakenly called the other teacher in your classroom a "little pig" in Japanese (who knew switching two little vowels would make such a difference to a name)? Never happened to you? I have to say life here is always interesting. You are missing out.

Steph (my sister) arrived the day I returned to Japan and after a relaxing two weeks in Australia, it was a hectic two weeks in Japan. We visited Kyoto's temples, climbed through Buddha's nostril in Nara, celebrated New Year’s at the grand shrine in Ise surrounded by throngs of prayer seekers bbq-ing mochi (pounded rice) and drinking sake. We saw the beach in Tokyo, some Japanese Elvis impersonators and a rare appearance of the Emperor at his palace (he's only visible twice per year). We also spent 4 days in the Japanese Alps snowboarding and just chilling out after our hectic Honshu tour. On our way back from snowboarding, after some misdirection and snowchain problems, we saw the famous Japanese snow monkeys in Nagano-ken. They are the highest altitude monkeys in the world. They survive life in the snow by keeping warm in natural hot springs. After a half hour hike through ankle deep snow down a switchback mountain trail, these soggy creatures sitting in their pools preening eachother and racing down the snowy hills were an unforgettable sight.

Most weekends in January and February involved snow and snowboarding in fact. I was able to spend 11 days on the mountain this year. I think this is quite an accomplishment for someone who lives 5 hours from the nearest one. I managed to visit five different ski fields this year and even did some off-piste snowboarding. It was amazing. As far as other sports go, I am still doing aikido every monday and I play basketball or soccer occasionally. I played in the annoyingly named "Cutie Cup" soccer tournament in January and the "Pretty Cup" last weekend. In June, it is back up to Nagano for my 4th and last ALT soccer tournament here in Japan.