Japan - December 2016

December has been a very busy month. December has been a very long month. And quite frankly, I am very glad that December is nearly over. That's not to say that it's been a bad month, quite the opposite; but it has certainly been full on and tiring and I am very much looking forward to a more chilled out couple of months coming up. We've both now got into the swing of things in terms of work. Danny is really enjoying teaching and has taught lots of people, at lots of different skill levels and I feel like I've settled in nicely to a new nursery routine and met some really lovely children. It's pretty awesome to spend your days watching Disney movies and chucking kids into waist deep powder, making snowballs and sledging down a hill AND getting paid for it. I can't complain on that front, but I am definitely looking forward to having a few more days off this coming month and working on my snowboarding a lot more.

Speaking of which, this is definitely the season where I have enjoyed snowboarding the most. I haven't managed to do a huge amount just yet, but the times where I have gone out have been brilliant. The snow here is so nice and soft, even if it's not a powder day; no ice and rock solid moguls to have to manoeuvre. I've been over to Hirafu a couple of times to meet up with my friend Zoe, who I met last season in France, and it's really nice to go snowboarding with someone who is around my level who I can just cruise about with and have fun. Today we went off and did a few tree runs for the first time which was such a laugh. The first run I dug the nose of my board in within the first 5 metres and it took me about 10 minutes to get back up with the snow at thigh height. I managed to get myself into some pretty uncomfortable and weird looking positions trying to get back on my feet again - needless to say, it was a lesson well learnt and I did not fall again on any of the later runs. It's such fun snowboarding in powder, it feels like you're floating on a little cloud, I cannot wait to practise more and be able to explore some more difficult terrain.

A really nice thing about our jobs here is that Danny and I work pretty much the same hours, meaning that we get every evening off together. We've managed to get out night riding a couple of times which is really good fun. I never made it out to the night riding in Courchevel as I was always working, so I'm really glad we have the chance to do it every night if we wanted to here; it's a really big perk to working in this resort - no matter what hours of the day we work, if we have the energy we can always get at least 3 hours riding in everyday. We've been night riding in Annupuri which is the mountain next to Niseko Village and has really nice green runs all lit up with flood lights, it's so cruisey and chilled - just what you need after a day at work to wind down. On Thursday we did a few night runs in Hirafu too before meeting up with friends to go to the open mic night at Half Note. We have some really talented colleagues who sang and played the guitar and were really bloody good! It was nice to get out of the staff accommodation/work resort and hang out.

We've been pretty boring this month in terms of going out in the evenings socialising as we have yet to be paid yet and drinks are so damn expensive. Danny and I did go out for a lovely meal in Hirafu to a place called Bigfoot. They are well known around here for amazing burgers and we were not disappointed! I had the "Mac Daddy" which was a beef burger, with pulled beef short rib, mac and cheese and bbq sauce in a bun, topped with a spicy chicken wing and some fries. Basically all my favourite things when it comes to food, on one plate. I was loving every second! Danny had the "British Meat Orgy" which consisted of a beef burger, sausage patty, maple bacon, a hash brown, cheese and HP sauce. It all sounds very 'unjapanese' I know - but the canteen food that we eat on a daily basis is completely Japanese, so it's really nice to get some slightly more Western food every once in a while. And beef. Oh my goodness, it was so good to eat beef. It doesn't really seem to appear, ever in the canteen and is super pricey in the supermarket so it was a really big treat for us! Bigfoot do lots of staff lunch specials at discounted prices so I think we will definitely be making a return trip the next time we get a day off on a riding break in Hirafu.

We have done a couple of cooking nights this month too. A lady I work with in daycare, Yuki, organised a group to get together to make gyozas, which are Japanese dumplings. We had to mix together pork, spring onions, cabbage, sesame oil, soy sauce and a couple of other bits and bobs which i cannot remember for the life of me; put a handful of the mix in the dumpling skin which was bought from the supermarket and then pinch the sides together to form neat and tidy little folds. Of they weren't all neat and tidy, in fact most of them were not neat and tidy, but they held together and once they were fried off and steamed they tasted bloody delicious! It was such a great evening. We drank, chatted, ate a ridiculous amount of food and decided that it was such a brilliant night that we had to do it again. Soon. So the next week we had another cookery class with even more people. This time we made Takoyaki, which are essentially octopus dumplings and Okonomiyaki which is a type of Japanese pancake of the savoury kind. As a somewhat picky water, I was very impressed at myself for trying both of these delicacies. I'm not the biggest fan of fish, so these were not my kind of thing at all, but it was cool to see how they were made and at least be able to try them.

Christmas itself was very uneventful. It's not really a big deal over here, they definitely do not celebrate it to the extent that we do in England. There aren't really any decorations and no such thing as a Christmas dinner. I've been told that a lot of people in Japan get KFC for their Christmas meal, which sounds pretty good to me, but I ended up finishing my 8-5 shift at work and then had a bowl of ramen at the canteen and went back to our room to skype home. I always find it a bit tough around Christmas time, being away from home so this year I just chatted to my family and didn't really make a big deal of it - I know I will be there with them next year for the first time in 4 years, so I will look forward to that! We did have a good night on Christmas Eve, which I guess was our night for celebrating. We met up with friends and had a few glasses of wine and went to the local bar at the Niseko Village resort; it was lots of fun and nice to let our hair down and forget about the busyness that is Christmas in a ski resort!

As for right now, it is 6pm on NYE and I was lucky enough to have today off of work. I had a lie in until 8am (and yes that TOTALLY counts as a lie in when you live with 40 other people who get up at 6am!) and got the bus over to Hirafu to meet Zoe and Matt for a day of snowboarding. I was so excited to have a whole day to be out on my board and we were so blessed with a sunny day, with no wind so every single chairlift was open and we were able to really explore. Zoe and I went and had lunch at a bar called Tamashii, where of course I got a burger - not as good as Bigfoot but I still savoured every single bite. Zoe had the most delicious cocktail too which had a base of plum wine and then loads of other delicious bits in it too, I have no idea what; but what I do know is that when I get paid it is the first place I am going for happy hour cocktails! But it's now 6.10 and I'm laying here in my pyjamas writing this when I really should be making some sort of attempt to get myself organised for this evening. I am meeting a friend for a couple of wines, before heading up to the same bar that we went to on Christmas Eve. Everyone from the company we work out will be there, so it should be a really fun night - I'm sure there will be a few sore heads at the morning meeting tomorrow! I hope that everyone has had a really lovely Christmas and will enjoy the New Year celebrations as much as we plan to - lets see what 2017 has in store for us...

Mt Yotei at sunset.

Hot drinks from a vending machine. Magic.

Snowboarding selfies.

Overpriced wine and a good book in the Hilton on my afternoon off.

Gyoza making.

A morning on the slopes with my friend Zoe who I met in France last winter.

Mt Yotei on a bluebird day.

The group at gyoza making night.

Christmas Eve celebrations with our friends Lucy and Dave.

My Christmas Dinner - a delicious bowl of ramen.

The beautiful morning view I get everyday on the walk up to work.

Takoyaki making.

The perks of living in the middle of nowhere - the unobstructed sunset views.

Danny's first ever business card.

Night riding in Hirafu.

Those beautiful morning views at work.

Red and green should never be seen...

Fresh faced early morning, ready for a day of snowboarding!

My first attempt at going through the trees.

The final sunset of 2016, as seen from the comfort of my bed.

Japan - November 2016

I feel like it has been so long since I have sat down in front of a computer and written anything other than coursework. In fact it's been well over a year since I have done so and I'm quite excited at the prospect of getting this blog up and running again for our time in Japan. I chose not to blog whilst we were in France because I worked a lot and snowboarded in my free time and that was it, there wasn't much to tell. This time round it could end up being exactly the same, I really couldn't say at this point. But what I aim to do is to pop up a post on here once a month for all of you, friends and family, back home to see what we are up to and also to be a nice memory for Danny and I to look back on. I love so much looking through my posts from Canada, so hopefully this will be a similar kind of thing and something for us all to enjoy; time will tell.

First of all, the journey from little old Oundle to Japan. It was quite something. For a start it was the longest journey that I have ever taken and it certainly felt that way too. We weren't taking any chances after we missed our flight to France last season, so we decided to go and stay at an airport down at Heathrow to eliminate another similar disaster from occurring. I was extremely grateful to have Danny to get all our luggage, not only on a train from Peterborough to London but through the London Underground, on a busy, 'Winter Wonderland' tourist filled Sunday, with major delays on the Piccadilly Line and people who cannot bare to wait two minutes for the next train to arrive. Lets just say we were very grateful once we reached Heathrow and could escape the sweatiness into fresh, clean air. Once at the hotel we shared some food and wine and relaxed by watching David Attenborough's 'Planet Earth 2' whilst trying to not feel too anxious about the adventure that was to come.

Five am rocked around way too quickly for my liking and up and out were onto the bus taking the 10 minute journey to Terminal 4 for the first leg of our journey: London Heathrow to Abu Dhabi. A seven hour flight with Etihad with a pretty quick two hour changeover; as long as the first flight wasn't delayed we would be fine. To my surprise the airlines food was pretty tasty, we managed to bag extra legroom seats and the film selection awesome - so that was me happy and entertained and before I knew it we were landing in the UAE. Straight through security no issues and in the gate waiting for the next leg of our flight within half an hour, it all seemed to be going a bit too well. So journey number two: Abu Dhabi to Tokyo. Now the food on this flight was insane, Danny was in his element! Full Japanese a la carte with beer and wine - what's not to like!?! But this journey was ten hours and we knew we had to sleep to feel remotely human when we arrived. Me, being the sloth like creature that I am, managed to sleep absolutely fine for a good seven hours of the journey - Danny, not so much. But we arrived safe and sound. On collection of our baggage we were informed that there had been an earthquake in Fukushimi which is North of Tokyo, but still a lot further South than we were heading. However, Tokyo was on tsunami alert which at the time we thought was going to affect our flight up North to Sapporo - as it was, again all went well and we were in the air and landed again on time to meet up with everyone in the airport ready to get to the resort. Almost 34 hours door to door, I think it's fair to say that we were pretty darn happy to be in a room with a bed and a pillow and heating.

Our first full day in Niseko Village was Wednesday 23rd November. Due to jet lag we were up after only about 5 hours sleep (2 for Danny) and went to meet one of the managers, Alex, for a tour around resort. Now our accommodation is a short bus ride away from where we will be working and around a 30 minute walk to the nearest shop; pretty much on a secluded farm with views for miles. Alex showed us around the Hilton Hotel which is where most of the instructors will be based and then through the cute little village of shops and bars and restaurants which just looks like the quaintest little wooden town covered in snow, so beautiful! I saw the little wooden wig wam type building which is the daycare centre I shall be working in and then we went to the staff canteen for lunch. You get A LOT of food for 300 yen. Rice, miso soup; a main which is either a noodle dish such as ramen or udon, a curry, a fish dish or the dish of the day which is called "higawari" and then there is a side salad, bread roll and some kind of sweet treat along with unlimited coffee, green tea and/or water. So just to put that all into perspective, all of that for the equivalent of £2.13 - cheaper than a Tesco meal deal and so much better!

After we had eaten all of that food we got back on the bus and headed into Kutchan which is the nearest sizeable town to Niseko Village. We needed some cardboard boxes for storage, some kitchen utensils and most importantly some food. Because we aren't actually into the season yet the bus schedule is pretty poor which meant that we were going to be stuck in Kutchan for over three hours. We did our food shop first (stupidly) which ended up taking a fair amount of time as we had absolutely no idea what half of the produce was. We played it safe with noodles, bread and eggs, cereal, milk and beer. There was a 100 yen store next to the supermarket as well which we got our homeware stuff from - basically a Japanese Poundland but better because everything is 100 yen which equates to 71p, bargain! We looked round a few very expensive ski/snowboard shops and just wandered around the town until it was time to catch the bus back and get unpacked and into some sort or order at home and before we knew it that was the end of the first day.

On Thursday we had been invited to a Safety Prayer for Niseko Village, which was a traditional Japanese Ceremony that takes place every year with the hope of everyone having a safe season. All of the staff that were in resort, both Japanese and International, attended and we did the best we could do join in with the ceremony - which was entirely in Japanese. It was conducted by a Japanese priest who had traditional Japanese clothing on and the most insane pair of clog type shoes that I think I have ever seen. There was lots of waving around a funny kind of stick, even more clapping and some strange wailing noises but it was definitely something fun and different to be a part of. We then all got to go to the Hilton Hotel buffet and have lunch together which was delicious and plentiful and then back on the bus back to the staff accommodation.

After those first two days I think we both feel like we are spiralling slowly into some kind of mad state of being. Because we don't start work until the 1st of December, and the resort does not open until the 1st of December and we don't get our lift pass until the 1st of December, there is absolutely NOTHING to do. We have watched an unacceptable amount of TV (thank goodness for VPNs and wifi) and I read an entire book in 24 hours ('Small Great Things' by Jodi Picoult, which is such an eye opening and hard hitting read if anyone gets the chance to read it) so we are both itching to start work and get on our snowboards as soon as possible. It will be nice to get into a proper routine too because we still haven't quite got over our jet lag, and a busy day of work will definitely help that all settle into place. So with one day left of "unemployment" still to go I'm in the process of downloading a new book and filling my time with writing this and trying not to miss my home and family and all my lovely toddlers at the nursery too much and remember how much fun we will be having in a few days time. The first month of being in a new place I always find difficult, lots of new faces to meet and a new culture to adapt to, but I think this is going to be a great season and we are going to face lots of challenges and learn new skills; it's going to be good and I hope I can document it well enough on here without boring you all too much. So all my love and I'll leave you with a few pictures from our first week...

My beautiful passport cover as an early Christmas present from Aunty Nathia and Uncle Terry.

Danny looking rather sleepy boarding our flight from Abu Dhabi to Tokyo.

Watching the huge snow flakes falling down from the comfort of our bed.

Danny's very subtle instructor uniform.

The beautiful views at Niseko Village.

Japanese coins.

Danny's delicious Japanese meal on the flight from Abu Dhabi.

So much snow!

My Japanese residence card.

Takoyaki: basically octopus dumplings in sauce and pickled ginger.

A very snowy covered road into Kutchan.

The hi-tech toilets that have heated seats and a little spout to clean your bum. It's interesting...

Staff meals in the canteen. 

First steps in Japan at Tokyo airport.

Taking your shoes off in public toilets and putting on the slippers provided. Again, interesting...

Watching sumo wrestling whilst waiting to board our flight to Sapporo - hopefully get to watch it in person at some point during our travels.