First, a confession. Well, not so much a confession as an excuse. Everything I own with batteries this week decided it'd had enough of my shit and went on strike. That means my camera died, my iPod repeatedly died, my phone was in a perpetual state of near death, and Panda-tan, my trusty panda-shaped speaker, decided to chuck me the sonic finger and whisper at me for four hours. What this would mean for normal people is that photographic evidence of this week's escapades would be scarce. For me it means I have justification for my few photos.
Also it underscores the reason why I should never buy myself a real-people camera. They are expensive and would be utterly useless to me.
Anyway!
When last we left our trusty Traveler (that's me, by the way... have you been reading the entry headings? Get it? This blog is kinda like a book? Did you notice? Anyway.), she was deathly ill and fading fast. Well, not really. I had a cold and was actually feeling pretty good.
I didn't go to work on Friday. This is partially because I still had a slight fever when I woke up, but mostly because I looked out my window and saw that my car had grown an eight inch snofro overnight and I didn't wanna mess with that craziness. So I emailed my supervisor and went back to sleep. I was kinda sad at that, tho, because that meant I didn't get to see my Oda kids. I love my Oda kids. I have no real reason why, except that maybe they were the first class whose names I all remembered. Of course, there are seven students... But they're awesome! But I stayed in bed and tried to focus on getting better.
Sunday was the closing ceremony for the Oda schools. (T-T) This is slightly misleading in that we still have school for another month. But hey, free food! Seriously, whoever said that there's no such thing as a free lunch has never been a mildly cute foreign girl living in small-town rural Japan. I get free food all the time, and I'd probably get it more if I was a bit more proactive when it came to socializing. Ah well. I went to the ceremony with my other office coworkers, but really there was nothing for me to do (I asked, but every time I even stood up someone very graciously asked me to sit back down and relax, was my cold better now?, I still shouldn't overdo it, and I arrived a bit early as nothing would be happening for another hour or so). The first part of the ceremony was rather boring--speeches, more speeches, and people still talking. A long rattling off of names of teachers and administrators from the past 30 years or so or something.
One of my adorable fifth years gave a speech. He was so bloody cute.
After the speeches we went outside and watched the unveiling of the monuments outside the schools. I thought I had a photo but I guess not. I'll get some eventually. Oku-san, the lady who shares my desk at the middle school, was seated next to me during the speeches and sort of took charge of me throughout the day. "Okay, now that they're done talking--it was really long, wasn't it?--we're going to go outside and look at the monuments. Wait for me at the entrance, okay?" "Okay, now we're going to go to the middle school." "How about we go inside and have lunch now?" "We're at the same table! How about we move these name plates so we sit together?" xD She's really nice. ^-^
I keep finding chocolate shavings all over the place in my apartment. >.<
Lunch was really awesome. The schools provided a lunch spread of sushi, sashimi, some sort of pasta-salad thingy, fruit, chicken, meatballs--it was really good. I even tried some of the raw fish! It was...palatable...
Yeah. Still not on the whole fish thing, but I'll at least give it a shot.
Did I tell you I ate horse the other day? On purpose, even?
I may have been slightly intoxicated at the time.
Slightly.
Lunch cost 2000 yen for guests but was free for the teachers and people who worked the event. Of course, I didn't really do anything. At all. I was effectively a guest, one of the 300 plus. (The population of Oda is 400. Over 300 people came to the closing ceremony.) But I still was counted as a staff member, I suppose, because I didn't have to pay. Which is good now, because I'm slightly broke. Stupid Valentines Day. And planning for Kyoto. Rawr.
The kids had some performances during lunch. The elementary kids did taiko and the middle school kids busted out the band.
My kids know how to do band properly.
Oku-san sat next to me through most of the lunch, but towards the end people started getting up and mingling. Some guy had randomly sat next to me during eating time--he wasn't the teacher assigned to the seat because most of the people at our table were staff and would be too busy to eat and I knew that teacher besides. But he got called away and left. So during the last fifteen minutes or so of the lunch another guy I'd seen around sat down next to me. I saw him quite a few times during the event--he was quite remarkable. He has an afro, for one thing. Well, not really, but he has very curly voluminous hair. And he sat down next to me specifically to talk to me. Which is nothing new, really--practically the only foreigner in town, I'm a decently popular conversation partner for at least five minutes.
He was really nice. ^-^ Maki-san is really interesting, and we have some things in common when it comes to music and movies. And then he asked for my phone number and would it be all right if he asked me out for a drink sometime? xD ^-^
There was a dinner party at the section chief's house. I went but couldn't stay long because I had to drive to Obihiro.
Why? This is why.
What is that, you ask?
That, dear friend, is drift ice! Frozen ocean that you can sail through!
Sunday night I drove to Memuro to stay at Sheri's house, then in the morning, she, Sean and I piled into his car and drove to Abashiri, a coastal town about four hours away, to take a cruise through the drift ice.
We're on a boat!
It was really pretty, but really cold! Sheri and I also got to ride in a raft pulled across the frozen lake by a guy in a snowmobile. Sheri told him to drive fast, so he did a bunch of donuts. ^-^v That was pretty fun.
Photodump!
You can see the path the boat cut. 
We spent the longest time trying to get that bloody flag to fly straight and act right.
That's the ski coat from the suit I spent $250 on but never got to wear because I never went skiing. And my $40 hat. It's lined on the inside to protect my ears.
I really like this photo. Partially because it's turned sideways like that. I'll admit it, I did that on purpose.
My camera interpreted the sun as a black hole.
I don't know why. I just thought it was kinda nifty.
Closeup of the ice.
Closeup of me. My hood was up to keep my hat from flying off.
We were going kinda fast at the time.
After the cruise we went to the drift ice museum. There was a room that actually housed some ice (and some creepy taxidermy animals), and they gave you a damp towel when you went in, right? If you spun it around for a moment, it froze stiff.
Sean, rocking his frozen towel.
Other trip highlights include ice fishing....
And ducks! That you can't really see because my camera doesn't zoom that well.
My narration to this photo (and I have this on video):
"Shouldn't you be somewhere warm?.... Hey, wouldn't it be sad
if this was their warm place?"
Poor ducks.
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