Snow & Yosakoi-ing

It's been nearly a year since we came to Sasebo and we hadn't ONCE experienced snow. The folks here say that it's rare for it to snow here -even tho it gets so darn cold! But lo and behold, on Daniel's birthday, it snowed! I know he was pretty amused, but I was absolutely thrilled!

We had already decided a few days before that we were going to drive over to Fukuoka on his birthday to check out what is said to be the biggest (and quite possibly, the only) snowboarding store in Kyushu. The journey was definitely not what was expected. With the light, gentle snow sparingly trickling down in Sasebo, we thought the drive would be worry-free. But BOY did we worry! As we drove further away from Sasebo and closer to Fukuoka (upper Kyushu), the snow fall grew heavier and the flakes got BIGGER! So we took a break at a rest stop to stretch out and frolic (okay, maybe the frolicking part was just ME.) Till that point, I had been driving and it was time to switch. Despite the worrisome snow falling on us on the road, it was beautiful! The hills alongside the highway had snow-tipped pine trees. But when we finally got there, we forgot about the scenery and were stoked to git'ta shoppin'! The store is called Power's Surf and Snowboarding and once we walked in, we were in awe... this place had everything!

But then we looked at the price tags :\

Yikes. Sooooo expensive.

They even had some Hawaii brands! -which was weird.. but of course they were like 3x the normal price. And so after browsing the shop for about 20 minutes with our mouths open, we decided to leave empty-handed. Since Power's was in a big shopping mall, we took it upon ourselves to explore a bit. Even after all of that tho, we still left empty-handed. *sigh* oh well! And so we labeled the day as a good "sightseeing" adventure.

Feeling rather unfulfilled, the minute we got home, we hopped on the computer and ordered complete snowboard sets from http://www.the-house.com/

Then the weekend after, we went snowboarding in Tenzan. It's a ski/snowboard run about an hour-and-a-half from Sasebo (damn, why does everything have to be so far away?) My friend Sarah took us there -she's CRAZY about snowboarding. She often jokes that if her BF of two+ years made her choose between him and snowboarding, she'd just tell him "K' Bye." She laughs when she says this, but then she says in a slightly more serious tone, "But he knows better than to make me choose..."

Anywho, snowboarding was the best! The last time we snowboarded mustve been like 5 years ago.. and it was only for a week in Whistler!

So anywho, at Tenzan, I was worried that I wouldve forgot how to board, but yay for me, I still remembered! Even odder, I think I had better control than when I was in Whistler! How can this be? Now I absolutely can't WAIT for our snowboarding gear! I think it's going to arrive next week! *crossing fingers*

And while we're on the subject of "New & Fun Things" I also joined a Yosakoi team! It's crazy how I ended up joining too. Remember that bar I talked about a while back -Yakkyugushi? I think this was my pre-blog days. Anywho, there are a couple of really sweet girls who work there and since we go there every so often, we made friends with not only the owner, but them too :) One day, we asked the girls what they like to do in Sasebo in their spare time, and while others said tennis, shopping or whatever, one girl Mami (24 years old) said Yosakoi.

I didn't even know what Yosakoi was at the time (this was pre-tokyo) and I couldnt really understand the concept. But then I guess while we were in Harajuku, watching the Super Yosakoi, Daniel remembered me saying "Woooow, that looks like so much fun! I want to do that!" So then, a couple months later, when we went back to our favorite bar, a drunken Daniel asked Mami if her team would be open to new members, not only that, a gaijin (foreigner) member -How embarrassing! Anywho, Mami asked me to make sure I was interested -which I totally was! and she said she would ask her team. The following week, I found myself surrounded by local japanese people -dancing! And I'm their first gaijin member! The team, Ikiijyu, doesn't have a video on youtube so here's one that I thought looked most similar to their style:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvHVAbwQEHc

Everyone is good fun... and I am getting PLANNY practice in speaking japanese!

ps. Sorry there's no pictures in this blog but I hope it was still worth the read!