Mar
31
2008
--

The Last Snowboarding Trip

Having to delve ever deeper into the bowels of Hokkaido in search of boardable snow, last weekend saw me driving back to Nayoro and Piyashiri Ski Resort for what is almost certainly the last time I shall be snowboarding for the foreseeable future. On the plus side, I drove a different route this time, coming inland from Hamatonbetsu instead of heading South from Wakkanai, and it ended up being a much faster trip, with me making it there in just over 2 hours.

The snowboarding was, to be honest, less than awesome, as the powder is by now long-gone, with only the icy surface of the slope remaining, which in turn transformed into slush by midday. This meant that falling hurt. A lot. Also the table, rails and generally FUN trick things on the slope were removed, most probably to prevent plucky yet woefully-naive snowboarders like me from breaking our necks on the icy ice shelf of hard crystalline iceness. Nonetheless, I enjoyed just going out one last time, and it was certainly far from miserable. The ice also meant that one went a helluva lot faster than normal, so it was enjoyable regardless.

In the evening I went bar-hopping with Shelly, one of the resident Nayoro ALT’s, who in turn was hunting a particular Japanese guy she has her eye on. In the last bar we went to (‘Soul’ I believe) I met a remarkable gentlemen who turned out to be a warrant officer in the JGSDF (Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force, or ‘Army’ to the rest of the world). A warrant officer being effectively the highest rank an NCO can get short of being offered a commission. Anyway, it turned out this fellow had been to Mozambique and SA back in the day on various peacekeeping capacities, and as an added bonus was also quite fluent in English. Me being the warmonger I am, we became instant friends and thus chatted along happily for several hours about all things martial and militant.

Sunday saw a monstrous hangover and drive home, and then blissful sleep.

The past couple of weeks has seen the so-called ‘spring shuffle’ in the office and schools around Japan. Anyone wishing to transfer out of Sarufutsu or their current place of employment can apply and be relocated somewhere else in Hokkaido (or Japan maybe?). What this means is a ridiculous amount of time spent at farewell ceremonies, farewell parties, and farewell speeches. Just go already damnit!

Of course now is the time all the NEW replacements come in, so that means an equal amount of welcoming ceremonies, speeches and parties. At least now I’m officially not going to be the new guy any more. So while gaijin, and thus perpetually an object of constant attention and befuddlement, I at least will not be the rookie anymore.

On that note, I also received a shiny new contract paper from the mayor (contracts run from april to april, so my JET contract and village contract are different pieces of paper) today, April Fool’s day. I don’t think anyone here would appreciate the humour in this!

Written by admin in: Things Japanese |

Powered by WordPress. Theme: TheBuckmaker