HOKKAIDO!!!!! 雪祭り 2009! Snow Festival!

This past weekend I flew up to Hokkaido! It's the northern most island of Japan. I went there for the Snow Festival (yuki matsuri) in Sapporo - the capital of Hokkaido. It was really cool! The Sapporo Snow Festival was on my "list of things to do in Japan"... it was a very expensive weekend, but totally worth it and I would go again if I could! Here are tons and tons of pictures from the weekend:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Saturday I went to Otaru with my friend Nia. Otaru is a cute little town in Hokkaido famous for its canal... and other things like glass blowing. The town almost had a European feel to it. Hokkaido isn't too far from Russia... so perhaps there are some Russian influences coming out in the town. Here are pictures from Otaru:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

It was a great weekend : )

I'm glad it's finally February. January was pretty dull, boring, and cold... but most January's are. I think things are starting to pick up again though, which is good. At work yesterday this teacher came up to me and started talking about the Grammy's and music. I didn't even know the Grammy's were yesterday... but I thought it was nice of him to start a conversation with me.

Yesterday I walked into one of my classes and the students were REALLY excited that I was there. It's nice to walk into a classroom and hear students say things like "ah, it's Barbara! Yay! I'm glad." I think it's a good sign... it seems like they enjoy it when I teach them. It's also nice to hear things about how pretty I am on a regular basis. Seriously, they think I'm pretty (because I'm western) and they aren't afraid to let me know. What other job in my life will I have where I'm told nice things about myself on a regular basis and where people get super excited when I walk into the room?... I don't think I'll ever have another job like that.

Today, all afternoon classes were canceled so that the entire school could run a relay race around the school yard because it was a nice day. Random.

Tonight I'm having dinner with the women teachers from the all-boys technical school. Should be fun!