Now that it is Wenesday and I have gotten a pile of extra sleep, I am feeling much better. The ugliness of Monday was probably about 50% actual problems and 50% sleep, sun and boyfriend deprivation. Anyhow... things were much sunnier (literally and figuratively) yesterday. Thanks for the warm fuzzies... (although I still don't know what I think about Grandma & Grandpa's fuzzy kisses?).

In my crabby haze I forgot to mention the highlights of my weekend: I survived another ski trip! I really enjoyed some new confidence gained by skiing alongside someone who spends more time wiped out than me (thanks to Tom)! We took two cars up to Hakuba, the region that hosted the Olympic skiing in '98, with 6 people (Jaclyn, Tom and I in our car singing Japanese kids songs and Danielle, Sara, & Fernanda in Danielle's car probably acting more a bit more sane but who really knows). Once we got into the building at the bottom of the hill the other ladies decided to take advantage of Danielle's expert-ness and give snowboarding a shot. After a full weekend of falling on my face the last time.... I really wanted to stick with skiing to see if all the falling had paid off. Snow was falling from the start of the day and it was really beautiful. I bought some ski goggles to keep the snow out of my face (learned from the foggy sunglasses of last trip). After a couple of runs down the lowest green slope, Tom and I decided to try out the top of the mountain. We wished the snowboarders luck and headed to the gondola, already drenched from the falling snow.

Unlike at Nozawa, the top of the mountain actually had some green runs, but they were pretty uninteresting and very poorly marked. We eventually discovered that there were no green runs that went to the west side of the bottom of the mountain... where we were meeting for lunch. Our only choices were red for the top half and at this point the snow was coming down even harder. I was really nervous about going down because we were esentially in a cloud. It was impossible to see the skiiers in front of you, much less where the run was going. Scary stuff, but you all know that when this girl gets hungry... nothing stands in the way! I may have to revise that, actually, because it took us forever to get down. Due to the horrible lack of signs, we kept going down the wrong way. This was pretty scary since it was possible to end on runs described by using shapes like diamonds instead of my comfy color system. We were very very careful, and Tom was thoughtful enough to slow our descent by falling every 50 feet or so. It was deja vu and I was oh so happy to wait for him to get straightened out since I was amazingly staying upright! It took forever to get down the mountain, but once we did I was thrilled to look back and say I'd come down the entire mountain in one shot and on 75% red runs. I rock!

Lunch was great even though it wasn't great food. We were hungry enough that anything would have tasted gourmet. The snowboarders were moaning and decided that though they had all made progress (i.e. could stand up on their boards long enough to go somewhere...) they needed to stop and find an onsen. I really wanted to keep skiing because of my success higher on the mountain. We let the group head home in Danielle's car and Tom & I stayed, planning to ski for a couple more hours. Unfortunately, we forgot to consult the weather gods. While we were eating, the lovely snow had turned to rain. It was awful, awful weather. After two runs down the easy hill, Tom admitted that he really wanted to leave (he had a cold, which I suppose is a good excuse) and since he was the last non-me standing member of our group... I had to throw in the towel. I was really dissappointed... but the weather did stink and I would not be able to forgive myself had he gotten super sick so I could pad my skiing ego. It was very lovely to walk to my car, get in, turn on the engine & heater, and drive straight home instead of having to find and wait for the appropriate buses and trains.

So that was my Saturday. On Sunday, we challenged ourselves by fixing my shoji screens. In my two upstairs rooms (my bedroom and TV room) I have traditional wooden screens instead of drapes. The wood part is a grid then the squares are filled with white Japanese paper. They looked like hell... all full of holes and discolored because of humidity and such. We had to take the old paper (and the glue used to hold it to the wood frame) off, lay down tape on the frame (much easier then glue, I decided), then gracefully lay the paper on top of the tape, being carefull to pull it tight so it wouldn't pucker. It was tricky but we were fairly successful, I think. We finished 5 of the 6 that needed to be re-done (only 2 didn't need to be touched) and put them back in the windows. They look terrific!! Maybe I will leave the sixth so Mom & Dad can appreciate the "before" look.

Tonight is soba & shodo night. Jaclyn and I established this routine back in September and it still works very well for us. Nagano is known for yummy soba noodles (buckwheat, I think) and one of the only good restaurants in our village happens to be a soba/tempura restaurant on the way to our Shodo teacher's house. Perfect! My stomach is already growling.