This has been a pretty awful week. I got into my first accident on Tuesday. I am fine, so don't start to worry before you hear what happened. I was crossing the street on my bike, and being in a bit of a hurry to get back to school on time from my lunch break, I went into the street when the cross walk sign was flashing, which I knew meant it would turn red while I was in the intersection. This always leaves you plenty of time to finish crossing... well, normally. The cars started zipping around the corner making a left hand turn (in the US that would be a right hand turn, you can do it on a red light). One car stopped for me and a second car next to him didn't. I slammed on my breaks but still crashed into the forward side of the car. I fell off and laid there in the street for a minute (and this is the part that really makes me mad) the idiot drove off without checking to see if I was ok. It was completely his fault because I was in the cross walk and he was turning on a red light. But he drove off. I was stunned and just stood on the sidewalk for a minute while a bunch of Japanese people stared and tried to talk to me. My mind wasn't comprehending Japanese though so I just walked away. My bike is a little bent, but physically I am perfectly fine. It really scared me though. It's a good thing I wasn't hurt or I would have to pay for it and not get compensated by the guys insurance. That is the end of my little story.

Photos from Japan

The locker room of the Washington Hotel Gym in Fukui shall from this moment forth be known as the "Talk to the naked Gaijin in super-speed Japanese Room".

Monday, while sitting in the sauna relaxing, an older Japanese lady started a conversation with me. Generally I like to practice my Japanese, so I don't mind too much. I understood most of the conversation, until it turned into a rant about different -bens (dialects) and how I used Tokyo-ben, and I probably couldn't understand Fukui-ben. She then demonstrated this by using 5 minutes of Fukui-ben to which I smiled and tried to think of a good excuse to escape the heat of the sauna and the onslaught of Japanese.

Today was even funnier though. I was sitting on my little pink plastic stool showering (it is the Japanese way of showering, crouch on a stool in a room full of other people crouching on stools and try not to slip off) and a woman asked (in Japanese) if I was a Gainjin (foreigner). I gave her this look of "What are you talking about? You don't honestly think I'm Japanese?" She then said "You aren't Japanese" which really seemed redundant to me, so I just nodded my head. She asked where I was from, then asked if I was married. The fact that I am not married must have been significant because it inspired another rant. But the strangest thing was that she had a friend sitting on a little blue plastic stool on the other side of me, and a friend sitting in the bath behind us. The three of them started having a loud conversation about... you guessed it: ME! I don't know excactly what they were saying, but I caught the word America every once in awhile.

I love talking to people in Japanese, its a challenge, and a rare opportunity to practice my Japanese. Most people want to practice their English on me. However what I fail to understand is why no one initiates conversations with my when I am dressed. I will exercising, changing, doing my hair, sitting in a massage chair and no one says a word to me. But the second I am not wearing clothes and showering all of the little old ladies flock to me and start talking. It's a good thing I'm not shy, or I would be afraid of that locker room.........

An IM conversation I had with Aaron (almost verbatim):

Me: Is there a haunted mountain near you?
Me: One of the parents I teach said that there is some famous haunted mountain Aomori close to where you live. I can't remember the name now, but she said people contact the dead and stuff. It's supposed to be scary.
Aaron: yup, it's about 45 minutes driving. It:s called Osorezan. Literally, "Mount Dread." It's kinda freaky.
Me: have you been?
Aaron: yeah, went once. they have oracles there that talk in tounges
Me: yeah? cool! but in Japanese tounges??@freaky.
Aaron: yeah, well, its apparently gibberish and the dead will only communicate in tsugaru-ben
Me: what if the dead were from kansai and only speak kansai-ben? does that mean they can't communicate with the living?
Aaron: well, apparently they learn tsugaru-ben. i mean, i guess you have a lot of spare time when you are dead.

So I finally decided to go skiing by myself. I kept waiting for someone to have a day off with me, but it wasn't going to happen. I couldn't have picked a more perfect day though. I caught a bus at 7:50 in the morning and it took about an hour to get to the resort called Katsuyama Ski-Jam. There was a heavy fog in Fukui as we left but by the time we arrived the fog had burned off and just left whisps around the base of the mountains. It took us through a beautiful view of the snow covered mountains, and I was surprised how much snow there was--easily 8 feet in places. Glad I don't live up there, I would really have trouble riding my bike. I was afraid I would have trouble renting equipment, but I was once again pleasantly surprised-- there was man at the rental place that spoke perfect English (he had studied in Vancouver and really could have been American or Canadian his accent was so perfect). Once I got onto the mountain the snow was good, there weren't many people because it was a Friday (no lines!!!!) and the weather was perfect. I think that is the first day in Japan I have seen where there was no rain, snow, hail or clouds. Amazing! The resort was really big too, it has lifts on the front and back of one mountain and the front of a second mountain with a lodge at the base of the second mountain so you don't have to go back to the first one at lunch. The top of the second mountain was the highest point around and gave a beautiful view in all directions of snow-capped mountains. Japan's geology is quite different from America's because it is so new. There are areas that appear almost flat, and then suddenly dramatic mountains rise up. Not quite as dramatic as South Africa, but close. A wonderfully perfect day (except for the sunburn-- ha ha ha).

Friday night a group of us ("us" being defined as crazy gaijin foreigners) went to play in the snow on the river banks around midnight. The snow had finally let up (by "let up" I mean it was no longer a complete whiteout) and we decided to brave the cold. It was amazingly beautiful-- looked like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting, only in Japan, with crazy people snowboarding down the river banks. I have to say that around 2 in the morning I started to get the hang of snowboarding. And not one of us fell into the river. We added a mohawk to a snow man some children had built, made snow angels, had a snow ball fight and snow ball races (rolled down a hill to see who could go the furthest). I don't think that I have had that much fun playing in the snow since I was 10 years old.

We have a brand new beautiful school that just underwent a renovation and I am responsible (indirectly) of putting the first dent into the walls. Some of my students were playing a game racing across the room to pick up fruit (they are 5 years old) and one of them slipped and banged her head into the wall. I'm almost impressed at the huge dent such a small head was able to put into the wall. The poor girl though, the accident left her with an little red egg on her forehead. Last week one of my students managed to poke her eye with a paper banana (I'm still not exactly sure how she pulled that off). This buildup is leading to something that I considered utterly astonishing. I cut my finger yesterday and asked for a band-aid and was told we don't have any. I asked where the first aid kit was. I was told we don't have one. WE ARE A CHILDREN'S SCHOOL! CHILDREN HURT THEMSELVES ALL THE TIME. YET THERE ARE NO BAND-AIDS. That really does my head in. No one except myself seemed very upset about this.

John and I were curious how Fukui can have a rainy season when all it seems to do is rain (and we aren't in the rainy season yet). So we asked someone who grew up in Fukui, and here is the response: "During the non-rainy season there are maybe 3 days a month when it doesn't rain. During the rainy season it rains every day." I just can't wait. Rain every day! Yeah!

It started snowing again today. There are still school girls walking around in short skirts and bare legs and loads of women in high heels. I don't understand. I get cold just looking at them. You'd think maybe the school uniforms would include pants, or tights or something. Ridiculous.