おめでとうございます。- Omedetou Gozaimasu

Term is coming to an end. We have already said goodbye to the third year students and I wish them all the best of luck in their futures. I hope you achieve your goals.

Yesterday I watched the Junior High School students find out if they were accepted to Gotemba Minami. There were all very excited, shouting and hugging each other. Congratulations to everyone who was accepted! Well done. I am very excited to meet them all next term.

Tomorrow (March 17th) is St Patrick's Day, which is like the Irish National day. Usually, we celebrate with family and friends, eat Irish food, listen to traditional music and watch the parades. I am lucky because my mother and aunt are coming to visit so we will celebrate together in Tokyo. There is a parade on 18th March in Harajuku, Omotesando which is the 20th Anniversary of the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Tokyo.

Exploring Gotemba.

Recently I have been trying to get to know more about Gotemba and the different things there are to do in this area. I want to know about this area so if you have any suggestions of places to visit or things to do please let me know. Here is what I have been up too.

Peace Park

The Gotemba Peace Park was one of the main places that I read about before coming to Gotemba. The sculptures there are really pretty and the Buddha at the center is magnificent. It is a nice place to walk around however it was still January when I went so it was very cold. I am looking forward to visiting it in spring when the flowers and trees will be in bloom.

Yeti

I went to the Yeti ski park a few weeks ago. I heard that it wasn’t very big but I am not a good skier so I wanted to practice and for this it was great. I was really nice to ski for the day and it was such a luxury to be able to catch a bus from my city and go skiing. In Ireland we don’t get enough snow and even when we do get some our mountains are not big enough to ski. We usually have to travel to main land Europe, which can be very expensive.

These are my two friends who were snowboarding. I think I want to learn to snowboard next year.

We had the best weather and to ski in front of Fuji-san was lovely.

The views were perfect and we could even see the sea at Suruga Bay.

Komakado Caves

My friend and I went to find the Komakado Caves, which are near Fujioka station. It was a lovely day out and nice to walk around another area. I thought that the caves were very interesting but I they were smaller than what I had expected. I was a bit scared that there might be bats but thankfully we didn't see any! (I only had my iPhone so the picture are not great, sorry)

Yuki-matsuri

This weekend I flew to Sapporo for the Yuki-matsuri festival. It was a great experience and I really enjoyed the trip. The snow sculptures were huge and so interesting. However, I really loved the ice-sculptures because they were so beautiful and detailed.

On the first day we went to Sakaemachi which was near the the snow dome and there were huge snow slides there. Unfortunately the weather started to get really stormy and the slides were closed so we didn't get to go on them. It was very cold and windy. Then we went to Odori Park to see the snow sculptures.

The three sculpture below were part of the international competition, they won first, second and third place.

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After the park we went to the Sapporo Bier Garten for yakiniku, which was called the Genghis Khan meal. I had lamb and vegetables but what made it so delicious was the dipping sauce. When we left it was snowing a lot and we had fun snowball fight with some Japanese people we met. It was really funny.

On the second day we went to find the ice sculptures and this was my favourite part of the festival. The sculptures were amazing!

This little boy was enjoying playing in a car sculpture, he was so cute!

This peacock sculpture was my favourite.

It was very cold so we had to keep stopping to have warm drinks.

Then we went to have Ramen, although I think I ending up having Soba noodles instead. It was tasty though.

On the last day my friend and I decided that we wanted to relax so we caught the bus out of Sapporo to the Jozankei Onsen Resort. Afterwards, back in Sapporo we went out for Curry Soup. A friend had recommended I try this but I wasn't sure I would like it. However I was surprised to find that it was delicious and definitely my favourite meal in Japan.

Skiing in Hakuba, Nagano Prefecture

I had a very exciting weekend this weekend. I went to Hakuba in Nagano to go skiing. I have been skiing once before, in France about 4 years ago but I didn’t take lessons so I wasn’t very good. I was nervous about going again but I decided that I should take lessons this time.

On the first day myself and seven other ALT’s from Shizuoka and Yamanashi prefectures took a lesson together. It went really well and I realise that I remembered a lot from the last time.

There were some tumbles and we stayed to the lower slopes but visibility wasn’t good at the top so we enjoyed our day.

On the second day I only had time to ski in the morning and a friend who is good at skiing said he would take me to the top. I was a little scared because when I went to the top of the mountain in France I lost my confidence and couldn’t ski. However, this was a much better experience, I was able to ski and didn’t crash! It was a great experience and I was so proud I survived at the top, I can’t wait to go again.

Gili Air and Kuta Beach

We then traveled to Gili Air which is a really small island next to Lombok. There are three island next to each other but we just visited Gili Air. The island is so small that you can walk around it in an hour and a half and there is no cars or buses on the island, everyone travel by foot, bike or horse and cart.

My friend and I met another ALT when we arrived.

On the first day we went scuba diving which amazing! I have wanted to go diving for many years but this was the first time I did it. I was a little nervous when we practiced in the pool but when we went to the sea I loved it. The water was a little cloudy but it was great and we got to see lots of fish. My favourite was the blue starfish, I didn’t even know they existed!

The next day we decided to have a relaxing day on the beach because it was so sunny. It was nice to just unwind and read my book, then we went for dinner in the evening.

On the third day I went snorkeling which was brilliant. The corals and the sea life are beautiful on Gili Air and there is so much of it. Later, we walked around the island and visited the village there the watch the sunset for the last time.

The next morning we went to Kuta in Bali for New Year’s Eve. We wanted to go to Kuta beach for the New Year celebrations. After dinner we went to the beach which was packed with people and everyone had fireworks. I have never seen so many fireworks and there was any organisation, people just let them off wherever they felt like it. It was crazy! We got to the beach about 10pm and there was a continuious stream of fireworks until 1am. The video below shows the fireworks at 12am. It was definitely the best New Year.