No, really, it's OK!

Apparently there is some kind of school-lunch party thing next Friday and so one of my teachers just asked me whether I can actually eat sushi or not... I know there are a lot of foreigners who take the raw-fish-thing badly, and it's not like I've eaten sushi or sashimi with them at every single staff party over the past two-and-a-half-years or anything... sigh. Maybe me and my teachers should go on an excursion to Sushi-ko-house in Gosh and they can watch me consume my usual fourteen plates of mushi-ebi, maguro and (possibly the world's best) salmon... of course I would have to eat it with a fork to prevent them from fainting en masse...

My village, with Iwaki behind 

This was the view from just above my house 

The main road below the school and dirty great banks of snow 

The enchanted forest 

A snow-buried... BOAT?!  

Secret road to nowhere in particular 

School at the top of the world (well, almost!) 

Spring came... then went again...

Monday and Tuesday were just gorgeous - it was sunny, it was 8 degrees, the snow was starting to melt. I only had two lessons on Tuesday so used the afternoon to go for a long walk and got some pictures of Iwaki behind the bay and Kitakanegasawa, and also of the route back to school just for the fun of it. This winter has just felt so long, sure it has been fun, but I have been just longing for spring to come. Although the sunny days really impressed on me the speed with which time has passed, which was a little scary, as August draws closer and I am still faffing about trying to decide what to do next year.

Someone from the office came to inspect my (well, actually their) house, decided there was too much snow, and sent round a band of willing locals (not the Ji-ei-tai like in Aomori, sadly!) to prise my house from its ice case before it collapsed... there are pictures below, although "before" is slightly spoiled because the huge lump of snow joining the roof to the pile below had just fallen off... anyway. It was snowing again today slightly and the blue skies have gone... but I guess it's not going to get that bad again, and it was good to have a dress-rehearsal of how utterly balmy it's going to feel once the cold weather breaks for good :D

This morning I had what may turn out to be my last nursery lessons, what with the Gappei and all... we did the Hokey Cokey, bashed animal cards (although please note no actual animals suffered as a result of this activity :P) with an inflatable light-sabre and ran around making animal noises. Leaving those toddlers really will be the end of an era - playing for a living has been one of the unexpectedly brilliant surprises of my Fukaura experience! I taught them how to say "cow", they taught me how to have raucous, uninhibited fun - by no means an equal exchange, but one for which I am infinitely grateful.

Before...

...after... 

And now... for something completely different! I have been meaning to take this picture for ages. Snow on the beach. I guess there's nothing particularly fanscinating about that, but it never occurred to me that you could have snow on sand right by the sea... So this is for nostalgia's sake, just to remind me of the days when I was naive and innocent. Ha.