Back in the warmth of Tokushima (weekly digest)

Well today has been quite so far as I had a cancelled first lesson.

Nagano was great, despite the fact I had tonsillitis and only managed to board for half a day.

We left on Thursday night and I got nicely merry on the bus, played some cards with Beej, Craig and Jody and managed to snag a sweet spot on the comfy sleeping area. Also partied with a group of teachers from Kawashima High School, who all adore Chanda (well the blokes do) one of Chanda's JTE's on the other hand.....

The convo went like this:

Craig: Which school do you guy's work at?
JTE: Kawashima Koko
Craig: Ah Kawashima, who's your ALT?
JTE: Er... (looks to another teacher, who is not a JTE)
Other Teacher: Chanda
JTE: Yes, it's Chanda

Oh how we laughed......

We got into Nagano just after 7am, and had enough time to get changed and get up to the slopes.

Hired all my stuff and then spent 30 minutes falling on my arse trying to go 50 meters along a flat part of snow (the reason it took so long as I kept moving ever towards the right where there was a drop onto a red run) but after that I kinda started to get the hang of boarding again. It became much easier once I started having a problem with my pants coming down and I wasn't overconcentrating on where to distribute my weight.

So I was getting better and did a full run, with sharp corners (even took two without having to crash and restart). Then just as I could see the gondola finish line, I took a spill, a girl behind me did the same and the rear of my board got jammed in the snow sending my left leg up in the air with the nose of the board and all that weight twisted my knee. No more boarding for me.

So I managed 2 1/2 hours before this happened. But not to be disheartened I headed down the mountain and went into this German theamed bar, which had BitBurger Pills in bottles and a really nice pasta too, which made up for it.

From there I went into the main cafeteria area where Nagano FM were broadcasting and got to see some live free styling (see picture above, well try and see, its off my phone which is shit at taking photos). Met up with everyone else and had a couple of beers, whilst they were their 1st or 2nd I was onto my 7th so as you can imagine the rest of the night was downhill. I was the last ALT to go to bed however so I rule!

Next morning tonsillitis was in full effect, plus a nasty hangover so thanks to the knee I just slept on the back of Niki-sensei's bus while everyone else had another morning on the slopes. The Kawashima-sensei's were all very kind and made sure I was ok and by the time we'd gone to the onsen I was feeling much better. At the onsen some of the chaps were doing Samurai diving, which goes as follows:

1. Get into the outside hot spring
2. Get out and run up a virgin snowy embankment and dive in
3. Run back down (or roll down) and get back in the hot spring.

With the sickness, I wisely decided to avoid it!

We got back to Tokushima at 1am on the Sunday and I was home by 3am (which is good for a Saturday night). Next day we had a couple of hours rehearsal at Jane's school for the musical.

The rest of the week has been quite. Eric came over on Monday night to pick up his newly formatted laptop and I cooked some Salmon Arribiata.

Yesterday I had another musical rehearsal in Ikeda (we did our dance routine like 10 times).

And today I'm going to see a lecture at Karen's school in Wakimachi from some English dude who is cycling around the world. Gonna be out tonight with the Hadaka Matsuri (Naked Man Festival) boys and girls in Waki and then heading up to Okayama tomorrow for all the fun!