Curt's Photography in Museum

Carrie and Kimberly Have a Dual Birthday Party!

Happy Birthday Carrie!

Happy Birthday Kimberly!

The girls. Dancin' Queens!

After 2 hours of all-you-can-drink...we're good at drinkin' like this by now... and we're dancin' on the benches...because we have excellent balance...

Me and the Birthday Gals.

Me and Carrie

Björk Is Still Cool.

She is totally awesome. Her new album will be released May 7th. I'll be at the CD store bright and early to get a first-hand JAPANESE edition!! Back in the day, when I was a hardcore Björk music collector/afficionado, getting a Japanese edition (with bonus tracks) was quite rare...but now I'm right here...willing and waiting to spend my "hard-earned" yen on new tunes!!

Let's Be More Japanesey

Here are some random images from Japan.

Dogs and their owners should always have matching panties.

An enkai (work party) which I attended in December.
Wear your robe, eat raw food, drink 'till you pass out.

Last Day of School

Yesterday was my last day at Shinoro-Nishi Junior High School. It was my base school for one year (but when you subtract the months at visiting schools and holidays, I was there for about 5 months). With Carl's help, I prepared an excellent speech in Japanese to say at the final party. I practiced it, typed it up, and brought the WRONG SPEECH to the party!! I couldn't believe my bad luck.... Oh well, farewell Shinoro-Nishi.

I got these flowers 'cause I was leaving...

and these too...

...and since pictures of flowers are boring, here's a real place (a karaoke joint) called "Poo".

St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day in Sapporo was an event for charity this year. Coordinated by Maeve and Carrie, all the money raised will be donated to an organization building homes for widowed women in India. Good on 'ya Ladies!!

We performed an Irish dance and I had to be a man (all the dancers were girls, so some of us had to use props). I made the hat and beard from construction paper at school.

(from left) Chi-e, Kate, Maki and Katy

Irish Lass/Lad

The mustachio made me do funny things.

Beer + mustashio made me do even funnier things.

AINU-INU

I've named this breed of dog "Ainu-Inu".
It's a Japanese dog specific to Hokkaido island.
The Ainu (eye-e-new) are the native people of Hokkaido and this was their favorite breed.
inu (ee-new) is Japanese for dog.
I really want one of these dogs!!
I'm gonna see if I can bring one back to The States.

Road Trip Leads to Backcountry Adventure

Me with Furano-dake in the background.

Hot, isn't she? A bit puffy perhaps.....?
Oh, and I was chewing gum AND eating snow (at the same time).

My fabulous friendly friends.

Me and Tree.

Yep, that's me.

Such nice girls...
from left: Sherri, Katy (kneeling) and Kate

FREE! WHEE!! YIPPEE!!!

On Friday Katy and I picked-up our FREE rental mini-van in the heart of Sapporo. (The rental car company was giving rental mini-vans to foreigners to survey how we enjoy traveling in Hokkaido.) After some savvy city driving and a last-minute decision to pick up some rental snowshoes we headed out into the country. We picked up Sherri along the way and arrived at our hostel in Furano at 10PM.

Early Saturday morning the Hostel Guy recommended a good place to snowshoe and we headed towards Daisetsu-san National Park (the biggest NP in Japan). Our destination was superb!! Cheap accommodation, a fabulous onsen (now my top-ranking!), good company (many backcountry outdoor enthusiasts), a kitchen and immediate access to the mountains.

We snowshoe'd up to one of the peaks surrounding Tokachi-dake at about 11;30 AM on Saturday. I strapped my board on my back 'cause there's no way I'm walkin' all the way up and not riding down....

On Sunday we decided to do it again but this time each of us carried our boards up (for an all-girl, all-snowboarder backcountry trip!) The weather was beautiful and it had snowed during the night. The snow was the driest snow I've ever seen.

The trip down is always too short! As is the weekend....