Snow and a friend

Tonight I stopped to turn this scene into an Instagram master piece (meaning a photo that I feel no pressure to make absolutely perfect).

As I finished posting it, two random shadows walked up and I discovered that one of them is one of the ladies from choir. When we got to the place where our paths should have split ways, she invited me into her house to meet her husband and grandkids (who are my students). It was so much fun chatting with them and getting to learn a bit more about this lovely lady who I chat with in choir.

I'm thankful for things like snow that slow me down and put me in the path of friends.

ナイトdeライト

This weekend my church hosted a band for a concert on Friday night. I decided to go and I’m glad I did.

The band was ナイトdeライト (nighto de raito = light in the night). They were a lot of fun to watch and it was a lot of fun to listen to them along with a bunch of the people from church.

Here is their YouTube video:

Meeting a Creeper

Tonight I was walking around to find something for dinner. As is always the case, when I am by myself and have too many choices, I just can't make a choice, and then I get hungrier and, in the winter, colder until I just pick something.

As I was walking around looking at my map and trying to see what was recommended via Foursquare all while cursing Apple Maps, I heard "大丈夫？" (Are you ok?).

I said yes, and expected the guy to keep moving when he didn't my sense of hmmm went up.

He said somethings and said his age then asked are you the same age? No.

How old are you? 27.

Did you go swimming tonight? No.

I'm sitting here thinking this is an odd question and can't figure out what's up with this strange guy as he continues to talk to me, asking the same thing a couple more times and then I realize that my hair is wet and it's freezing out - 0C/32F.

Are you wearing a swimsuit? (he looks me up and down) No.

Why is your hair wet? Onsen (Japanese bath).

Do you have long hair? Kind-of.

How long? I gesture that's about shoulder length.

At this point he reaches out to touch my hair and I lean away.

He finally seems to get the fact that I don't really want to talk, gives me a high five and walks away.

Even though I pay attention to what's around me, I rarely meet creepers. Usually when people walk up and want to have long-ish conversations with me at random times, it's to practice their English or talk to a random foreigner. This guy didn't even seem to notice I was a foreigner - the conversation was entirely in Japanese and I don't think he asked me once where I was from.

After that I was on high alert for creepers, when a guy followed me down a row of tiny shops, I was wondering what I was going to do if he continued to follow me and turned when I got to the next road. He of course, didn't - I was just a bit paranoid because of my strange encounter a few minutes before.

Eventually I realized how cold my hair actually was and how cold the temperature was and that I needed to make a decision, I landed in a shop I had been in before for the local specialty.

Thanksgiving dinner

Here is my Thanksgiving dinner!

In my opinion, tacos beat turkey any day - including turkey day!

Five years ago

It was at about this time five years ago that I woke up to the phone ringing again and again and again. My foggy Sunday morning brain realized that no one calls so many times at 6 am unless there is a problem. My mind immediately flashed to my mom a mind sisters - it was my dad calling.

When I finally made my slow morning brain work to answer the phone, I got my mom. She didn't want to be in charge of telling me the news, so she passed me off to dad.

That's when I got the news - Cara and the other girls were in a car accident. I expected my dad's next words to be that they were fine, that I would see Cara and the brand new glasses she was so excited about on Friday night very soon.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the news dad had for me. The girls had been in an accident on the split section of 99W when someone driving the wrong way hit them. Cara died on impact. Arianne, Kim and Faven are alive, but hurting.

Five years ago. I still can't believe that my friend whom I had been friends with since kindergarten, with whom I had giggled about boys and gone to summer camp with is gone.

We were practically sisters growing up - complete with the arguments. Out families did practically everything together - from Girl Scouts, to sports, to lazy summer days off.

I struggle with what to say. I don't want to forget Cara or the times that we had together. I was thinking today about how easy it is to forget the names of people that we did something with after the fact, merely because we don't see them everyday. I don't want to forget.

Mom and Em visit Hokkaido–highlights

Our first few days were spent in Sapporo, being tourists.







We went for a Hokkaido specialty, Soup Curry. They had fun butchering the shop’s name and calling it Sewage, the real name was Suage (Sue-ah-gay).



Then we took the lift to the top of Mt. Moiwa to see Sapporo’s famous night view.





Our next adventure was to Sapporo’s Olympic Ski Jump and accompanying museum. Sapporo held the Olympics in 1972.



We got to try the electronic version of the ski jump.



And how they train speed skaters.


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And even the figure skating trial!



Em made an excellent ski jumper.



We also parked my car in the giant car elevator thing.



We visited my lake.



We ate Furano melon with ice cream – yum!



Got to try Japanese fireworks.



And visit the bread shop.



We went and saw the lavender fields.







In a failed attempt to find an onsen, squatty potties were tried as well as bathroom slippers.



Those were just a few of the fun things we did for the week they visited Hokkaido. Tokyo coming soon! 

update

In an effort to help a friend do her NaNoWriMo, I agreed to be interviewed about my travels. To prepare, I did a quick preview of my blog over the last year to try to remember any random stories I had that I could share which would be helpful in the interview. Because of this, I realized I need to blog more, I really enjoyed all the memories it brought up.

Here is the book I'm trying to read in Japanese. My students recommended it from the school library.

So, over the next couple of weeks I'll be doing some catch up of blogging I had intended to do a few months ago. Enjoy!