A complete lapse in the month of May? Terrible. I can only blame my anxiety at being less than thirty-one days away from the big two eight, which has now come and gone without so much as a stroke, heart attack, or broken hip. Suck it, AARP, apparently I ain't goin' down without a fight. All in all, my first Japanese birthday was dandy. The highlight was, naturally, the evening of foolishness.

Relevant aside. I bought a mama-chari last week. It's a style of bike that, were you to be anything other than an old woman, and were you to be riding one anywhere in America where you could be seen by another person, that person would yell "nice fucking bike, dork!" and throw something at you. But Sapporoites are mad for them. This actually makes sense: the city is almost completely hill-free, the sidewalks are really wide (this may be by bike-friendly design), and they're incredibly cheap. Mine was 4000 yen (about $40). I have no idea how I lived without one for so long. The 10-minute deathmarch to the subway station is now a 2-minute joyride. The grossly overpriced 240 yen subway ride to Susukino (debauchery/bar district), a 20-minute jaunt. This thing pays for itself!

Anyway. Rode beloved mama-chari into town and proceeded to do a three-hour nomihoudai (all-you-can-drink) with most of The [snow]Boardo Crew (present: Tim Laura Myles Naomi Ben. absent: Merek Mark Paul. All lovely people whom I really ought to have pictures of.) and a few other folks. The bar gave me a free wacky birthday sundae, which contained everything from corn flakes to ice cream cones (not making this up). Good times. After the kegs ran dry, we headed home. Being semi-drunk and generally uncoordinated, I managed to get into a mama-chari accident with Ben in the middle of the street. Fortunately, booze + the general ridiculousness of the situation overrided the pain of the newly exposed flesh on my hands and knee. I was laughing so hard I didn't notice the passers-by on the street who stopped to gawk and yell "nice fucking bike, dork!" at me in Japanese.

What else? The snowboarding season finally came to an end in early May. We spent most of Golden Week (week in which four national holidays occur) at the nearest resort trying to hurt ourselves. I actually managed to get better! I can now do the following incredible things: a 180 (if I'm going slowly on a gentle slope), the world's lamest grab for roughly 0.2 seconds, and I can ride the funbox (a box 10+ feet in length and about 1.5 feet wide topped with something easy to slide a board on that looks like plexiglass). Budding filmmaker Tim has video of these incredibly lame achievements and is in the process of editing them into a video featuring The Boardo Crew, to which you will all be subjected at some point.

What else? I went on a fieldtrip with the first-years today! We went to a park, cooked, then came home. (The second-years and third-years take longer trips which involve one or three nights, respectively, on the road.) It was actually pretty fun and I took some pics.

After arriving at the park.

Decending to the site of pickinick madness. A sea of blue athletic uniforms!

Now that's a fire! Fans are an integral part of the Japanese grilling experience, and these kids seem to know what they're doing.

Apparently soda cans are excellent rice-cooking vessels.

Let's enjoy cooking!

Let's enjoy eating!

Let's enjoy banner! It says: "First-year slogan: eternal friendship, sun [clan/family]. Slogans are huge in Japanese schools. Every class has one, every grade has one, and I believe every school has one as well. Coming up with a slogan is just one of the countless "group unity" activities kids have to do at school, presumably intended to bolster the group-before-the-individual ethic that pervades Japanese life.

Happy Belated birthday Brian!! Good to hear that you are well!
Val

hey brian.. you forgot to mention the best part of your mama-chari, the basket! cuuuuute!

Happy Belated Birthday, Little Bri!
How can you be 28 when you were just 4???
Coreen