Sapporo

Well, although we had been joking about not being able to get home all day on Sunday, we never really believed that we would be stranded. That is exactly what happened though. We got on the bus and it moved so slowly through the snowed under streets, and arrived at the airport a couple of hours later. We struggled over the sheer ice outside the entrance and eventually got all our stuff up the escalators.

When we got inside we could see lots of delays on the boards and braced ourselves for a good long wait. As we got closer we could see suspicious yellow kanji flashing next to our flight number, and we couldn't believe it when it switched to English and said "cancelled". Not delayed, cancelled! There had already been lots of flights cancelled that morning, so there were thousands of people around the airport, and we joined a queue which never moved for information. After a couple of hours (while Kumi, who had organised the whole trip and felt personally responsible for the weather, was on the phone to the travel agent) we had been talking to other people around us. One woman said she had been issued with standby ticket number 1470 and they were just calling 99. She had been told the earliest she could probably get on a flight was Tuesday. A little while after that an announcement came over the tannoy that they had stopped issuing standby tickets for the day. The worst part is that in Hokkaido, all standby tickets are scrapped and reissued at midnight, in case people have found other ways to travel (or something equally baffling), so even if we could get them (25 of them!) we would still have to hang around for the reissue later on that night.

At some point, the decision was made to forget the idea of stand-by tickets and just book our place on a Tuesday morning flight, since that was the earliest we were looking at anyway. The travel agent negotiated for us to stay at a Sheraton hotel for a reduced rate for 2 nights, so at least we didn't have to hang around the airport. Now we just had to get out of the airport!

We lugged all our bags down a stationary escalator, wondering why it had stopped until we got on and realised just how many people were trying to leave. It would have been a pile up! We queued along a huge corridor with thousands of people, and when the train came there was a mad rush to get on. There were 3 small children with us whose parents decided that the train would be too traumatic late at night with so many people, and they went back to get a taxi to the hotel. We were wedged into various corners all along the train, and it crept along at a walking pace because of the weather, but eventually we got to the hotel at 10.30pm, much better than we had expected. When we got there we rang to see how the families were getting on - they were still about 20th in line and didn't make it to the hotel until after midnight. Every way of leaving the airport was jammed, and we saw on the news afterwards that over 2500 people slept in Sapporo airport on Sunday night.

A wedding Kimono in the hotel
The view from the breakfast room

As we had been so lucky in getting out and getting a hotel, we felt able to relax a little the next day. Some of the group decided to have another day skiing, and went to a ski resort about an hour away on the bus early the next morning. We didn't do that as we were running out of money (2 extra nights in a Sheraton hotel that we didn't expect), and we also had to think about school the next day even if we weren't going to be there. Among the group there were three laptops, and we connected in the rooms as everyone had to email work in for their classes. 7 people came to us, and since we only started at 11pm, it was a late night. Most people were reasonably quick, just sending enough to occupy. Our increasingly self-centred friend Mary however, decided she would send through everything, including the worksheets to be printed and photocopied, just as if she were there to teach the class! She just happened to have them all with her on her clip drive, which she promptly lost just as she was getting onto the computer (last, fortunately for everyone else). After a lengthy search which turned our room upside down, she sat down to send her work at 12.45am. By 2.45 she was just about finishing up, and we were falling asleep and hinting at her to bog off. She said she was done so I stood up to turn off the computer - only to find she had plugged in her camera to download some photos onto it, because she was having trouble saving them at home and the memory card was full! If I had had the slightest bit of energy left I may have killed her, but I was half asleep and just stood there with my mouth open.

Will, Pippa, Tomoko, Thomas, Benedetta, Aja, me and Graham
Will and Pippa at lunch

The next day we sleepily decided that as we had some time in a new city we should really go and see it, so we went the the beer museum.

The Sapporo Beer Museum

We wondered around in the snow and had a fantastic lunch - Gengis Khan lamb barbecue. We were also hoping to see some snow sculptures, as Sapporo hosts a huge ice festival every February. It was no good though, they had all been taken away.

Benedetta, Thomas, Pippa, Aja, Will, Graham, Tomoko

Cool round moss. Very old

In the evening we felt we had to try some seafood (Hokkaido is famous for shellfish) so we found a map and navigated our way to the most amazing little fresh fish restaurant. It was izakaya style, sitting in the floor without shoes, and we ate king crab, scallops, prawns, loads of sashimi, grilled salmon and even tried whale! I quite liked the taste, but knowing what it was I found myself wanting to swallow really fast and not think about it. It was Baird's beaked whale, which is supposed to be not endangered by the level of hunting, but I still felt really uncomfortable.

Aja with cheese and beer. She's so happy
My weird orange drink and the even weirder beer crackers it came with

We had to leave early the next day to get the train back to the airport, and we checked in and went through security only to find we were delayed again! It is a short flight and we were only delayed by an hour, so fortunately we were on our way soon. We went straight to school from the airport, as we all felt so guilty for having to have our lessons covered by other people for 2 days. I was there just in time for a double period. The kids were quite excited to have so many of their teachers off stranded somewhere! One girl asked me if I had had any sleep, as I had "huge bags" under my eyes. Thanks a lot! We went straight home, and started unpacking and washing, and more importantly, getting into some very welcome clean clothes. An early night for me I think!

The things people do when they have had a drink. Anpanman is a Japanese cartoon character

Thomas in a 'beer can'

Snow

It is that time of year again - we are in Hokkaido with a big group of friends (ever expanding too, there are 25 of us this year!) for the big ski trip. I can't believe it has been a whole year since we went to Rusutsu, but time flies when you're having fun. This year we have come to a place called Niseko Hirafu, and it is great. As there are so many of us, we are in girls and boys rooms rather than couples, so Will gets a well deserved rest from my snoring! Unfortunately thought that means the group of girls I am with have to put up with it.

We flew up on Thursday very early, and got a coach to our hotel which is lovely. The lifts are about a 100m walk across a car park, and we went night skiing last night. I have never tried that before, it was so pretty and really peaceful. On the first afternoon I went out with Will just to find a couple of green runs and get our confidence up. The colour coding of the runs works a little differently here from in Europe. There is no blue, just green, red and black. At first we thought that meant they were just broader descriptions, but here in Niseko the greens are quite steep, which was a bit of a shock to the system. I was ok after a few minutes but Will seemed really timid and wouldn't get any speed up. I waited for him, and we had a look at his skis - and found that the bindings were too loose. His feet moved around easily, and when he lifted one leg, the ski came off! We picked our way down slowly and called it a day. Fortunately it was easy to fix for Friday, as that was the day we had a full day included in the package and we wanted to make the most of it.
A promising start
We got up and headed high on the mountain. We found some good runs and had a great time exploring, although the visibility was poor. We kept hoping it would clear but it lingered all morning. When we got back to our side of the mountain it was like E.T was going to emerge from the mist at any time, with odd lights shining from poles and echoing announcements in Japanese coming from all directions. We decided to go back in for a break and some lunch. It extended into a whole afternoons relax, which I think we needed. We went out again at about 5.50 for some night skiing. I had never done that before, it was very peaceful and a bit eerie on the lifts, but actually a bit easier than it had been in the day, as we stayed at the base of the mountain and the lights shone at such low angles that you could see all the bumps. It was lovely. I really wanted to go a bit higher up, but the fog hadn't lifted from the afternoon so we didn't risk it.
Pippa and Aja about to set off
Most of our group are snowboarders, and we had never tried it, so on Saturday we hired a snowboard and boots for the morning and went off to try to learn. We couldn't get in for a lesson which was a shame, but Kate was with us and even thought she is only really a beginner herself, she could tell us enough to get us going and give us pointers as we went along. We stuck to the "family course" right at the bottom near the hotel, which the night before had taken about 2 minutes on the skis. Half an hour and many bruises later, we got to the lift at the bottom and decided to go for a hot chocolate to recover. We got the hang of stopping and doing a kind of falling leaf type movement, and Kate was impressed at how we picked it up, but there was still horrible visibility and snow blowing in from all sides so we couldn't see well. When we got to the cafe and took off our gear, everything was caked in compacted snow and soaking wet. We went out for another go, but because we were so wet our goggles steamed up straight away and we could see even less! We had one more run (and a lot more falls) and went back to the hotel.

Most of our falls were just tumbles and because there was so much fresh powder it was a soft landing. We did have one painful fall each thought, and snowboarding uses all different muscles to skiing so we really ached when we were done. Somehow during all this I also managed to get friction burns on the inside of both my knees - I still can't really figure out how that happened, but it must have been when I was crawling around trying to get up each time. I only noticed when I got into the onsen and felt it stinging.

An onsen after a day of skiing is bliss. The one here was just mineralised enough to have a nice smell, and lovely and hot, but outside under a wooden roof, which meant you could sit there in the dusk with snow falling, in a hot steaming bath and unwind. I am going to miss it if I ski anywhere outside of Japan! As the storms got up the snow would blow in and melt on top of the water.

The weather on Saturday kept getting worse and worse, with howling winds and closed lifts. Some of our group had gone to another area and couldn't get back as the lifts closed and the buses stopped. A lucky 4 got the last taxi, and the rest just had to sit it out until the lifts opened enough the get over the top. That was the sheltered side, last night we were talking to a group who had got stuck and had to get a room at our hotel for the night. We were beginning to get worried about the flight back on Sunday.

An ice bar. Literally! This was just Mary in the doorway.
Sunday had a forecast to be better than Saturday, but Saturday's storm overran a little. At breakfast we couldn't see a thing out of the windows. Partly this was because they were half covered with snow that had blown onto them horizontally and frozen, but even past that it was just white fog. We had got up early specially to try and go out as a big group, but the door from the ski store area was snowed shut. Some of the boys went out at 8am to try to find out what was available, but were back by 8.15 as every lift was closed. Buses weren't running, it was still snowing and too windy to be safe. And the Japanese weather forecast is usually so accurate! We were so disappointed. By about 10am the single slow lift on the family course was running, so we decided to try it out. we were back on skis, so it only took 2 minutes to get down, but then as it was the only lift running on the whole mountain, the queue for the lift was 20 minutes and halfway up the slope. We did 2 runs and gave up. With the wind still biting and a massive queue it just didn't seem worth it. After one last onsen we packed everything up and sat in to wait for the bus (4.20pm).
Queue for the lift
We did manage one last venture, down the hill into the town for a pie from an Australian shop for lunch. It was very nice (we don't get pies very often here so lots of people were very excited at the prospect), but not nice enough to walk through that wind! It is now 3pm and we are all sitting around in the lobby waiting to hear if we will be able to get back. So far only one flight has left Sapporo today, so even if the bus can get us to the airport we could have a bit of a wait to get home. And this with 18 ISSH staff here!! I don't want to be the one who makes the call to the headmistress! I am just going to have a hot chocolate and hope for the best.

After Christmas

We got back from Australia to cold Tokyo, a difference of 37 degrees! It was good to be back though, and sleep in our own bed again. even it we were under 2 duvets and a blanket with hot water bottles and thick socks!

School started back, and because of the way the year is arranged, first semester reports were due 2 weeks into the new term. Another thing that happens at the beginning of the year is One World Day. This is a day where all the staff and students wear their national costume (you can wear one from another country if you don't like your own!) and there are acts from different areas by the students and a Parade of Nations. This means representatives from all the countries that students come from walk up onto the stage and greet the audience in their own language. The correct reply is projected onto a display behind them, and the students all chorus it in response. Some are cheesy (Australia - G'day mate), but it is a nice tradition.

Since we don't have a costume for the UK, and no-one really wanted to try and dress as Morris Dancers, we decided to get a group of us together and make costumes. Unfortunately, this coincided with the week the reports were due, so it was a bit of a rush job. Still, a group of 6 of us were Robin Hood, Sheriff of Nottingham, Will Scarlett (more maroon but we tried) and a few Merry Men. We all had tights on and a couple of bows and arrows finished off the look nicely. We got a round of applause in the staff room! Strange though, whenever we asked the kids what they thought we had come as, loads of them said Robin Hood and his 3 Musketeers! Not entirely sure where that came from.

Last Sunday we went to our first Sumo wrestling tournament. There were 12 of us going so we got really good seats and made a day of it. The seats are just little enclosures with 4 cushions inside for you to sit on the ground, and have little bars around the edge so nobady expands over their limited space (the bars all have bottle openers attached to, so you can just sit and drink all day!).

The auditorium has seats on all four sides, with a raised platform in the middle for the bouts. It started off with a display of Taiko drumming, and then the wrestlers were presented to the crowd. When they first come out they have a kind of thick apron on, very ornately embroidered with the details of their sponsors. On of the western men had the EU as his sponsor! (we found out later he was Bulgarian).

The day was divided into 2 competitions, to represent the different leagues of wrestlers. It was a one off charity day tournament, so we got to se the whole thing. When the first group of wrestlers came out and paraded around, we couldn't believe the size of them! Then we realised that this was the lower league - the others were even bigger! We all picked competitors at random and followed where they came, but none of our picks won anything - good job we didn't put any money in! The whole day was won by the No. 1 Wrestler, Asashoryu. He is a Mongolian wrestler who although huge, is solid, and sooo powerful. He won most of his bouts by picking the other guy up and walking to drop him outside the ring. He is often in the news here, so it was really cool to see him fight and win.

I auditioned for the British embassy choir recently, and got in. We are singing an all British programme to celebrate the 150th year of official relations between Britain and Japan. There is one japanese song which we are going to do as an encore, a traditional festival song about cherry blossoms. It is all written in Hiragana. I can read Katakana quite well now, but I still haven't really got the hang of hiragana, so at the moment I am kind of mumbling along to the tune until I can learn it. Still, it could be written in Kanji, then I would be really stuck! Why do they have to have so many alphabets!?

On friday night we had the February show. That is the middle of the year performance by the high school choir, orchestra and lots of smaller groups. A new drama teacher came last year, too late to really be involved, but this year he did loads of lighting and stage management stuff, and the girls had costumes - it was a real extravaganza! I am always so amazed at just how many of the students at this school are really talented. The orchestra only did one piece (and they had only had it since Christmas so they did really well), the Grieg piano concerto. A Grade 10 student played the piano, she is only 15, and she was incredible. I could see some of the younger students from my seat in the orchestra and they were stunned, just sitting open mouthed as they watched her play. And the really amazing thing is that she really doesn't think it's so special to do that. One of the music teachers asked her a few weeks ago if she was planning to study piano at university, and she said "no" as if she had asked the stupidest question in the world! She hasn't even decided if she will keep playing when she leaves school yet. I really hope she does.

A really good thing about the school is the connections people have to bring in outside speakers. In the past few months we have had 3 graduates come back and talk about their careers (a research genetic counsellor, a paediatrician in war zones and a diplomat), and today they Palestinian ambassador came in to give a talk to grade 9. It was the first ambassador's visit I had been free for, so I went along. He is a very interesting man to hear speak, and he answered some very difficult questions from the students. He is pragmatic about things that have happened in the past and hopeful for the future, but at the same time accepting that there is no easy answer and it could take generations to find true peace. It was so different to anything you see in the news, and he has had real experience of negotiations with both sides. One of the students asked him about Hamas in the Gaza strip (where he is from) and he explained the background to their existence, and said he really doesn't see them lasting much longer. He gave so much detail, and made it accessible to the kids too. There are more ambassadors coming through the year, so I hope I will be able to see them too.