Adrift in Japan

Greetings from Sahoro

We've had about 5 days of skiing on decent snow. No powder but still fun. Check ot the photos in themoblog. Stay tuned for more about Club Med Sahoro when we return to our regularly scheduled programming. (from my cellphone)

Club Med Sahoro

We're off to spend a week with my parents skiing at the Club Med in Sahoro. We'll be thinking of you as we swish-swish down the powdery slopes and relax with friends and relatives. Moblog posts may be forthcoming.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Yeah, we know, we know, we've been slacking on the updates.

Had a great time skiing -- although we didn't ski that much. There was a snow storm and so much wind the gondola closed... so much blowing snow, it was one of the worst white outs I've ever driven in (although technically, I wasn't driving). The onsen was cute; we were the only gaijin, but (surprise!) we managed to run in to people we actually know while we were there! Now for a trip to Tomakomanai to see them.

Otherwise... keeping busy here, a little Japanese studying and lots of work for Matt, a little Japanese studying and lots of puttering for me, including knitting, drawing, and cooking. I've made some small inroads into Japanese cooking, mostly me reading the cookbook recipes and then playing it by ear to see what we get. So far, so good.

Happy Year of the Monkey to everyone, and don't forget to wear something new today as a token of good fortune. And don't clean your home for the next 2 weeks. Wouldn't want to sweep all that good fortune out the door!

Xmas Round Up

We're back from our trip to the US - one week in Michigan with Matt's side, followed by one week in Wisconsin with my side of the family. A good time was had by all, including tasty food running the gamut from traditional Ukrainian Christmas fare to homecooked Chinese food and, oh yes, that sinful almond toffee my mom has taken to buying for everyone for Christmas. Not that I didn't like the panattone bread she gives away - but this toffee is the best ever.

Christmas primarily centered around things we can use while we're here - such as slippers to keep our feet warm, and DVDs (the Indiana Jones box set) to entertain us. Among other things, I got the Wacom Intuous2 graphic tablet off of my wishlist (which, by the way, I already love, despite being a pretty poor artist), and Matt got some great headphones from Bose. You know the ones -- those noise-cancelling headphones that make you envy people wearing them on airplanes listening to their music or to blissful nothingness while you deal with engine whine and the cry of that baby three seats over. They're Grrreat!

Matt also got a pile of games for his GBA, including Lord of the Rings, Prince of Persia, a compilation of old arcade games and Final Fantasy Tactics. Now in the gameboy: Mario & Luigi superstar saga. One plus for this game is that it can save gameplay for more than one user, so Matt and I are playing it at the same time and saving separately. Fun and interesting, it's one of the few games of this time to hold my interest this far. I'm several hours into it with a lot further to go. And as much as I like it, I might have to put it on hold... I can't wait to try Final Fantasy Tactics. As a long time viewer of others playing all kinds of titles in the Final Fantasy series, I'm finally ready to tackle it on my own. Here's hoping there's a lot of training in the game.

I also received several Japanese cookbooks and bought one myself. We're planning to take a lot more care to learn Japanese cooking over the next few months. Stay tuned for reviews of the cookbooks. On deck: Japanese Homestyle Cooking by Tokiko Suzuki, Japanese Cooking the traditions, techniques, ingredients and recipes by Emi Kazuko, and Bento Boxes: Japanese Cooking on the Go by Naomi Kijima.

This weekend Matt's planned a surprise trip for us which he just told me about yesterday. We're heading out to Niseko to a small onsen for relaxation and hopefully at least one day of skiing. Hopefully jetlag will be under control and ski conditions will be good (they should be; it was just snowing this morning). Stay tuned for moblog photos!