nothing to prove

to be or nabe

This weekend was filled with plenty of good times and catching up. It was the first time that I got to see Melissa and Kate since we have all been home. As you can see, we wasted no time in getting back into our normal ridiculousness. Friday we were all at Kate's place to have nabe, which is maybe best described as a Japanese crockpot of meat and vegetables in a broth. Thankfully some of Kate and Melissa's Japanese friends had come over to make it, which was very nice of them to do. There was so much food that even I couldn't finish it. Plus we got to get back into drinking Japanese beer, which by the way is a lot stronger than American beer, so much so that I was buzzed after a few tall cans. It was great to make some new friends and catch up with the old ones.



The next day Melissa and I got up early to head 2 hours south, almost into Nagano, for snowboarding. After all the rain that we had encountered on the way down we were almost positive that it would be a bad day for boarding. Low and behold there was no rain all morning and perfect weather for snowboarding, warm and clear skies. It was a welcome surprise that it was easier for me to snowboard despite it only being my second time every boarding and it had been about a month since last time I tried. We were having so much fun that there was even time for pseudo graduation picture on the slopes. Sadly the afternoon was quite rainy and we ended up stopping a couple hours shy of what we had initially planned. Not to worry though, we headed back to Maki to indulge in the onsen at Iwamuro and grab some misochyashu (miso flavored soup with slices of pork) ramen with beer at Komadori, which is famous in these parts. It was great to put back on the weight we had lost while on the mountain. I have absoulutely no regrets about that one though!



Sadly it is Sunday and I have to work again tomorrow. Being lazy was definitely the theme today but seeing as I barely got 8 hours of sleep before I went back to work after traveling last week, I felt like I deserved a day of rest. Hopefully this week will go by fairly quickly because I am heading back down to Shiozawa next week to hang out with my homestay and do some more snowboarding. Eat, drink, and snowboard... the only things to do in Niigata during the winter.

posted by Aaron @ 9:10 PM