Happy valentine!

I got nice Belgian chocolate from Maki on valentine's day. Kai got the wrapping paper for the chocolate and seemed to be equally happy for that.

Passed!

Results from the japanese language test I took in december came in the post the other day (JLPT level 3). Even though I passed I must admit that my score was much closer to the cut off limit than to the maximum limit. There is still a long way to go for me to learn japanese well but now there is at least a chance that I can understan Kai the first year he starts talking. Another option is of course that I could try harder to teach him swedish.

Vivaz video

First try to capture Kai on video with the Vivaz mobile phone.

Ski trip without skiing

Yesterday we made an attempt to go skiing just for the day. Up early in the morning and after an hour of picking up members we left west of Tokyo around 6 o'clock in the morning. Massive traffic and at least 3 accidents along the way as we could see made us sit in slow queues all the way and the 2 hour drive turned out to be more than 6 hours.











Pit stop for putting the chains on. In japan around Tokyo it is not common to use winter tyres and if you don't then are are forced to use chains on the car when going into the mountain areas.

It started snowing more and more as we came up the mountains and despite being late I was happy that the conditions must be perfect for good skiing. So I was slightly chocked when we got stuck in another queue just 2 km from the slope and cars started turning around - we were told that the ski lift had been closed due to bad weather. Bad weather? -4 degrees and plenty of snow coming down from the sky! Could it be more perfect!











A bit disappointed we continued to the next bullet on the agenda, food. Initially planned for after skiing we went to this nice soba restaurant when the lift was closed. Beautifully located in a small village in the forest close to the ski area.

In the same area as the reastaurant we went to an onsen to have an outside bath in a hot spring before returning to Tokyo. If the weather was too bad to keep the ski lift running it was ideal for onsen. Nice to be outside in -4 degrees and feel the cold snow land on your head and shoulders when your body is in 40 degrees warm hot spring.

So it turned out a very nice day after all with beautiful winter scenery and great food and onsen. Just a bit sad we couldn't ski when it must have been perfect condition for off pist.

Slippery when wet

Apparently people in Tokyo are not too familiar with snow, or someone in our company is bit over protective, or both. When Tokyo expected a bit of snow fall yesterday we received this email with instructions on how to walk in a safe way when snow has made the street slippery. Cute. And funny. Don't forget to bend your knees! Might turn out to be a good advise for you people living in snowy sweden also.