As mentioned earlier, this weekend was busy. However, I wanted to post the pictures I took yesterday at Kamihoronai's mini-snow festival organized by the school's parent-teacher association (oddly named the PTA). The aim of the festival was not attendance, but rather an event for the visiting participants in Jica (the organization is an agricultural exchanged program with advanced students staying in a residence in Obihiro). Starting with lunch, until about 3:00 P.M., Kamihoronai organized a series of events like tubing, snowmobiles, building traditional Japanese snow structures and Hot Chocolate. Many of the parents and students of Kamihoronai attended and about twenty guests with Jica participated. I was there, as a representative of Canada, but also to help. I was very surprised with the mature behaviour of my grade five and six girls, of which there are only five students, with their limited English (and debilitating shyness) they were a great asset to have, always helping with the guests, making sure everyone felt welcomed. This left me free to keep the younger kids occupied and help them communicate with the guests. On Friday afternoon, after I left, they kids headed outside to make some amazing snow sculptures outside like Goofy, a red convertible and an elephant slide.
The twenty guests were from all over the world: Indonesia, Vietnam, Senegal, India, Thailand, etc. The general theme should quickly stick out - they all came from basically sub-tropical areas. I do wonder what snowy Tokachi could offer these visitors about agriculture, but they all seemed to hold the organization in high regard. It was very exciting to be part of these visitor's first chance at discovering snow. They were all really bundled up and loved the snowmobiles. The women pictured on the snowmobile was from Yemen and had only arrived two days ago for a two month program in agriculture. (She actually has distant relatives living in Calgary at the moment and dreams of visiting Vancouver; and Howard, pictured pushing me off the edge in the tube, was from Haiti, but got his masters from McGill.) She was a real trooper and I think she looks like a natural on the snowmobile. I felt bad because within five minutes of being outside she stepped in a deep snow bank filling her boots with snow and thus freezing her feet. Our Japanese hosts, always going far beyond the call of duty, quickly produced a new dry pair of boots and more warm socks. I talked for a long time with the man from Jordan, who was well traveled in the Mediterranean area, but was loving his Japanese experience and even the snow. 
It had been years since I have been tubing but I must admit it was a lot of fun. Nothing like moving to Japan to feel popular. When it was my turn to ride the tube all my students wanted to ride with me, sadly, in the end, some were disappointed. As can be seen from the pictures, the weather was perfect, almost no wind and the temperature hovering just above zero. A perfect day to play in the snow.
Kevin was having a very thought provoking day through all this because it was his thirty-second birthday. He commented several times that he never thought that on his thirty-second birthday he would be tubing with people form all over the world in a small town in Japan. That evening, after warming up, Kevin, Jessica, Yuki and several others headed out to Torisei for dinner and then down the street for drinks. The bar was full and it seemed like all the young adults in Shikaoi was there. Very fun.
Soon I will be going to the Pure Malt Center to watch the Men's Hockey Final. It was snowing all afternoon but I just realized it has turned to rain. I'm not sure what it's going to look like tomorrow.
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