nothing to prove

tomato face

It seems that yet another month has passed and again I am struggling to have money going into the next pay period. All the excitement of traveling and snowboarding always seems to get the best of me. However, today is pay day so I really don't have to worry much about it anymore. It would be nice to not have to worry about finances so much but I doubt that day is coming anytime in the near future.

The past weekend was fairly laid back. Last week there seemed to be an over abundance of foreigners walking around, and by over abundant I mean two others besides me. Needless to say I got to talking to both of them, Brian and Seth, and they are around thirty years old and married to Japanese women. Other than not having a ton in common with them besides living in Japan they are really cool laid back guys. In fact, I got to have dinner with Brian and his wife Hitomi at their place on Friday. They are really close to my apartment, about a five to ten minute walk, so it is nice to know there are others close by. We had shabu shabu, beer, cake, and some green tea while watching the Olympics and just getting to know each other. They have a baby on the way so hopefully we will still be able to get together every once and a while.


Since the following day we were going snowboarding I picked up Melissa from the nearest train station and found out she had been drinking with Kate since five that afternoon. McDonald's was the next stop for me since I hadn't eaten dinner yet but attached to the McDonald's is a 24 hour grocery store. It was there that Melissa managed to find a bottle of Franzia, that stuff that is supposed to come in a box. Once we got back to my place we cracked it open to the "taste the wine not the cork" insignia on the cap and more craziness resulted.


Sunday morning we went snowboarding, for the fifth time this season, at a place called Muikamachi Minami. It was cheaper than some of the larger ski resorts but it was also a bit smaller. The size turned out to be fine and it meant that I got challenge myself a bit more with difficult runs and jumps. I went with Melissa and Phil this time around but we ended up parting ways for the morning since we are all at different places in terms of ability.



After meeting up for lunch, Melissa and I stuck together to take on the more difficult runs and get some action shots in. This proved more challenging than in the morning since we were both getting worn out. Snowboarding is a workout! In the morning I had managed to land quite a few jumps but by the afternoon I wasn't having as much luck. Don't worry, I still had a blast and didn't break anything. However, it turns out that when you have gorgeous weather you can also get sunburned and have awesome goggle marks all week at school. Anyway, later that night we picked up Kate for some dinner at Komadori and then headed to the Iwamuro onsen for some relaxation. Snowboarding, ramen and the onsen never seem to get old.

posted by Aaron @ 5:20 PM