Things You Can't do in Sunny Los Angeles

Our weekend plans have been booked ever since we bought our Hakkoda monthly pass. We dedicated the next 5 weekends to ski, ski, ski. However, bright and early Saturday morning, a blizzard covers Tohoku. It lasts from late Friday night to most of the day on Saturday morning. It leaves Tohoku with a tall layer of powder snow, great if you are 10 minutes from the mountain, painful if you are two hours away. The ski day was shot, but not all was hopeless. Ron, our friends Adam and I went to the nearby soccer field that was covered with untouched snow and made snowmen---Calvin and Hobbes style.





On Sunday, it was a clear, bright day. Unfortunately our friend Adam got sick so it was another day away from Hakkoda. Ron and I weren't going to let it get in our way so we made a car trip to our neighboring mountain. However, there was a large amount of traffic to get there because of our city's Snow Festival. So we sidetracked and went to a less crowded ski resort. Two quick runs and we were back on the road to find the festival. We walked around and enjoyed the ice sculptures. It was really sad because there was much less ice and sculptures than the year before. There were even patches of grass in some areas. Global warming! Ron and I left with a couple samples of festival food, but our fun was not over. Since we were in the area, we also went to the Handmade Village, Ron had been there with my family, but I was at work at the time. So Ron showed me how to make my own senbei and we watched old men made iron pots and slurped tea while eating sesame and red bean dangos. We made it home and treated ourselves to our homemade okonomiyaki.

I think that this weekend was the best example of lemons becoming lemonade. Make no mistake though, next week is definitely Hakkoda.