Video: Myoko ski lift

The lounge position.

Student light project

I really enjoy the projects my school's art teacher creates with the students, and so I always go to see the exhibitions the students hold. This month was a light project, and as always there was lots of really beautiful creations. Here are a couple...

Takamori decor

Bridge decor.


Graveyard decor.


Cafe decor.


Tasty decor.

A carpet of white

The drive/parking area outside my house.


View from my front room. There are rice fields under that snow.


Nothing escapes the snow.



Digging out my car in the morning.


On the way to work... notice the droopy trees. This road is lined with them, and after heavy snow they sag right down to the road. Some days it's like driving through a tunnel of leaves. When the snow melts they spring back up again.


Blind curve. Not the place to slide the car.


Orchards in my village.


Icy hands.


My tree at school.


Goodnight.

Myooooookoooooo!

Spider-Ben and Jake lead the way.

The best thing about winter in Japan is the snowboarding. Certainly, sitting at home slowly freezing to death isn't much of an option, making the choice rather easy. This weekend we headed up to my favourite Japanese resort, Myokokogen in Niigata, the prefecture to the north of Nagano. To say they get a lot of snow is an understatement. Most of the roads there are flanked with 12ft drifts of snow, shifted off the road every day by huge snow-eating machines.


Spider-Ben losing momentum.


My boot considers the ride down.

We headed up on Saturday for a two-day trip, staying in Landmark Onsen Cafe, the lovely place we stayed at last year. On our first day of snowboarding the visibility wasn't fantastic but ok to board in. Unfortunately we managed to miss our last shuttle bus back to the cafe. Cold, hungry, alone and scared (slight exaggeration), we sat huddled in a rental shop pondering an hour walk back in a heavy blizzard. Much to my delight and our saviour, my brain wasn't as cold as I thought and was working quite well. I spotted a staff shuttle bus in the carpark outside and went over to him to see where he was going - if we could reduce the distance to our lodgings from within the comfort of a bus it would have been preferable. I explained we missed our last bus and needed walking directions to the cafe and he looked at us if we were crazy. Then we experienced, yet again, the incredible kindness and helpfulness that I love Japan for most: he offered us a lift home with the staff. An hour later we were sat roasting in an onsen, then an hour after that we were filled with ramen and chilling out at our lodgings for the night.


Trees trees trees.


Snowboarder style.

The following day visibility was amazing and we had an amazing time. I managed to master toe-edge (it's been a long wait since last winter) finally, as did Ben, and we snow-surfed that mountain to our hearts content.



The icicle of Damocles: 6ft of impending doom.


I think this shrine is closed for, er, some time.


Digging the car out after a long day of boarding is what I really look forward to.

Winter cometh!

Well, winter has arrived with vengeance, and depending on who I speak to it could be colder or warmer than last year. Not that helpful, really. Regardless, it's damn cold. After three days in a row of finding my shower head cracked, it finally dawned on me to remove it at night and keep it in my bedroom. It quickly solved the problem (I had to repair it three times though), but not the one of the shower itself freezing, unfortunately. Every day I go to it and must "defrost" if carefully before I use it. A burst pipe in a wooden house would be quite inconvenient.


Ajimabashi across the Tenryu river.

My toilet freezes too. And the pipe to my washing machine. I couldn't quite believe it was that cold until I bought a thermometer and realised my bedroom was around -6 degrees every night. Lovely. I had to laugh one morning when I went to the bathroom and found a four-inch icicle hanging out of the tap.




Snow-covered rice fields in my village.

Nevertheless, when it snows it warms everything up, and the snow is, as always, very pretty.

Round 1

Round 1: Ding ding!

The end of January saw Molly's birthday being celebrated up north in Nagano city. After a delightful (tasty) party at a restaurant we continued our evening at Round 1, a large games area. You pay your flat fee at the door and continue through to more games than you can comfortably imagine: arcade games, shooting, archery, golf, tennis, batting cages, curling, bowling, mechanical bulls, rollerskating, mini-scooters, playparks (yes!)... I can't remember the rest! Great fun, and seeing as you've already paid your fee you feel obliged to act like a child for the night.


The Nagano Olympic Building (from Paddy's apartment).

Daikan and Rishun

Daikan

According to a teacher at one of my schools, 19th January was "Daikan," 大寒 ("big cold"), and was supposedly the coldest day of the year. Ten days later and having repaired my cracked shower head no less than three times due to it freezing over night, I'm going to disagree with that speculation. Last years coldest point was early-mid February, and due to this year's winter being far more severe, I'll further speculate that I'm going to find more than just my shower sponge frozen solid in the mornings to come.

Rishun

According to another teacher at a different school, 4th February is "Rishun," 立春 (first day of spring). I can't say I have much faith in this named day either. It is bitterly, bitterly cold in Nagano prefecture at the moment and every night falls very uncomfortably below 0 degrees. For the past two weeks I've been making my breakfast in the kitchen at a balmy -4 degrees, which wakes you up something awful. Amusingly, I wake in the morning to a bedroom temperature of about freezing, maybe a couple of degrees under, scuttle into the kitchen to make breakfast, then scuttle back again, only to find the bedroom temperature rather acceptable in comparison. Small mercies, and all that. It doesn't stop me using my glorious kerosene heater, though.

Climate bubbles & more cake!

On Saturday it snowed. Quite a lot. But not in my village. Not a flake. I crossed Ajimabashi to Iida and everything was white, as though an invisible barrier over the Tenryu river was stopping the snow in it's path. A climate bubble, no less.


The view from Maruyama park. Note the abundance of snow in the foreground and absence of it in the background.

On Sunday it was still snowing (across the river) so I wrapped up warm and headed out to one of my favourite parks in the area, Maruyama 丸山 in Takamori 高森, stopping on the way to buy a really cozy wool hat! I'm wild like that. I sat in the park watching families strap their cute toddlers to sleds and fire them down the hill before pulling out a book and taking some time to avoid this reality for a while. When the chill wind became a bit too bitey for my taste I retreated to the little cafe at the top of the park, where I sat and warmed myself by the stove as I scoffed cake and a Guatemalan coffee. And had another read, of course.






The taste of Guatemala! And other places too!

Fruity bridges In Takamori...

Apples design on bridge


Pear design on bridge


Persimmons design on bridge

Photo Exhibition

Last week the art teacher at my school asked me to submit some artwork for a local exhibition of art teachers' work, which was flattering to say the least. I selected three photos and mounted them in frames, and on Saturday went along to the venue (in the thick snow) to check out the rest of the exhibits. It was smaller than I'd previously thought, but packed with some varied and interesting works from local teachers. I was proud to be a part of it.

Photo's 1 and 2 I mounted in the same frame and called it "Country of contrast." Photo 1 is from the 2010 Nozawaonsen fire festival. Rural Japan is, certainly where I live, very quiet and peaceful, and I was struck at the time by how "violent" the festival entertain was. Looking back at my photos I was reminded of the show and shortlisted the photo from a few others. Photo 2 is from a tea ceremony I went to in Autumn 2009. The sakura in the bottom of the tea cup looked so peaceful and serene, and when combined with the fire festival photo seemed to conjure up a contrasting snapshot of Japanese culture.

"Country of contrast."


Photo 1


Photo 2

Photo 3 is ok a tree that stands next to the swimming pool at my Junior High. I walk past it every day from the carpark to the school building and every day I take a good long look at it. Subsequently I have been taking shots of it in all types of weather and of course the four seasons; I expect I'll be making a photo composition of them sometime this year. This particular shot is from September 2010 I think.

I called it "A safe place."


Photo 3


At the exhibition