Japan Week 25

January 18-24, 2010

The week started our rough, as Eric had to get up Monday morning and head to work after such a long journey home. I was exhausted and slept so much of my days away. I have also been busy because I started a class online through ASU to keep me busy, and it's working! I appologize for the extreme delay in posting about Thailand.

Wednesday night we had our monthly Ekaiwa English club. Many of our members drive a long distance and with the roads being so unpredictable right now we only had 3 people join us. It was fun like always though! Our friend Yuki brought us a huge supply of new movies, I would guess probably 200, so now we have lots to choose from! We were quite excited!

Thursday and Friday Eric went skiing all day, which I am sure he would have enjoyed more if he was not sick, the high school took a field trip both days to teach the students to ski. Thursday was an especially long day because after skiing Eric had to come home and get ready to go to a funeral for the spouse of a co-worker. We skipped tutoring because we were both not feeling well and Eric was exhausted and had to get up and ski Friday morning.

Saturday we decided not to set an alarm, and slept til 1pm, when we woke up it was clear Eric needed to see a doctor so we drove to Hirosaki to go to the clinic where they speak a little English. After listening to his lungs they did a chest x-ray, which came back mediocure. Then they did a blood test to confirm that he doesn't have H1N1 flu since it still going around here, which came back negative thank goodness. Then they gave him an IV, which I am 99% possitive was antibiotics, whatever it was I am glad they gave it to him because 1/3 of the way through the drip Eric said he could breathe better already. They also sent him home with 2 pills and some cough powder. Unfortunately the cough medicine in Japan is basically a ground up pill that you just have to swallow. I personally don't understand the logic behind having a person suffering from a cough swallow powder, but it seems to be helping so I guess I shouldn't speculate. They say Eric has acute bronchitis.

We had plans to go to Gennevieves house for dinner on Saturday with a small group of friends, Eric stayed home to rest and I went by myself. I picked up our tutor Toshiya and his friend on the way. Genny made delicious spaghetti, salad and garlic cheese bread! It was all very delicious. It was good to see our friends again, I missed them very much, many of them were gone from Christmas until the time we got back so it had been nearly a month since I had seen them. On the drive home after I dropped of Toshiya I saw a very large black bear on the highway, he was standing in the opposite lane and he was up on his hind legs looking up into the trees... I was rather frightened and quite thankful that he was interested in whatever was up there enough that he didn't bother me. When I got home and told Eric about it he posed a very good question... shouldn't he have been sleeping! It's the middle of winter!

On Sunday we slept really late again, almost until noon. In the afternoon we went to Goshogowara to the travel agency to book train tickets to go to Hokkaido (the northern island). We have tried to go several other times but it never worked out and now we are finally going!! The Sapporo Yuki Matsuri festival is the first weekend and February and we are going! I have been wanting to go since long before we left for Japan, it is famous for it's huge ice sculptures! I am so thankful that we get to go, even though it's going to be a quick trip! I will be sure to post lots of pictures!

This is what is looks like in our neighborhood at least a few days a week:
And when the snow stops falling, I see my neighbors often because we all shovel snow together during the day... some people even shovel off their roofs! (Which I don't get because the winds are strong enough that it usually blows it off)