Koho Tadami Diary Entry - February

When I arrived in Tadami, one of the things they asked me to do was write a short article in the town newspaper each month. The newspaper is called the Koho Tadami, and it's a free newspaper that is delivered to every home to let them know what's going on in the town. Apparently my activities are of much interest as I am the only foreigner. I write them in English and one of the teachers translates them for the paper, which is why the English is usually quite simple. I thought I would put the English versions up on this blog so I can keep a permanent record of what I wrote.

Bryn’s Diary Entries – February

Well it’s now February and 2007 seems to be passing just as quickly as 2006 did. I have really enjoyed the start of the year, I hope you have too. I hear this year is a very warm winter and there hasn’t been as much snow as usual. I think I am very lucky to have this warmer weather, but it is still more snow than I have ever seen before. I have been able to go snowboarding many times here. In England we have no mountains and very little snow, so there is nowhere to go snowboarding. I am not very good yet and I fall over a lot but it is very good fun. I feel very lucky to be here in Japan to have opportunities like this. Last week I had a ski day with Meiwa Chu Students. This is something that English schools don’t have but it was great fun. The students were all very good skiers

Although it is sometimes cold, I am really enjoying winter here. In England winters are usually very wet and windy and you can’t do many winter sports. Here there is a lot to do in the winter and the mountains look very beautiful covered in snow. Last weekend I went to the Tadami Snow festival. It was fantastic, the snow carvings were amazing and the fireworks were spectacular. Many other ALTs came to the festival too and we had a great time. I played snow shoe volleyball and also entered the log sawing competition, although I wasn’t very good at either! I also ate some bear soup for the first time which was very tasty.

The photo below is of me and some of my friends enjoying the snow festival!

Start of My Blog

So I moved to the small town of Tadami, which is in the Minamiaizu area of Fukushima Prefecture in Japan, about 6 months ago. I've been meaning to create some sort of website since I got here but I am only just getting round to it. I am still a little undecided whether people who write these blogs are very interesting people with much to tell the world, or very boring people with far too much time on their hands. Perhaps writting my own blog will help me decide. I will hopefully add some stories from my first 6 months here using the emails I have sent, and add some photos and put them all into a chronological order. Then I hope to update this site on a semi-regular basis and use it to keep in contact with people back home and perhaps provide ammusing anecdotes and some information for people to read.

Anyway that is the plan but we will see how it all turns out. Hope all is well,
Bryn