Sunday, January 23, 2011

Wow its been a really busy couple of weeks since I got back from Hokkaido. Business trips and long hours... starting a New Year is sometimes no fun. But at least tonight I can relax on a Sunday night and get ready for the new week ahead.

Nagoya has been a little cold. My heater broke and I have been a few days without one. But finally had a new one installed yesterday. My house is much much better.

Andy gave me these pics from the New Years I thought I would share.





Andy was able to go down to Obihiro for a few days and visit his grandmother and grandfather. Of coarse any visit requires a game of tennis. Here he is with his grandmother he hasn`t met in a while.



Here is a good picture he took while we were skiing. The view was beautiful and the skiing was excellent. We went skiing I think about 5 or 6 times while we were in Hokkaido. The other days we played some tennis in Sapporo.



Coming home a nice pic of Mt. Fuji....

Friday, January 07, 2011

ohhhh back from the snow paradise...

I was in Hokkaido for the winter holidays. I got back and I am dead tired. But had a great time. Went skiing / snowboarding 5 times and played tennis 5 times. So it was a very active holiday for me. I was able to relieve a lot of stress. But my body is sore... its been a long time since I was so active everyday. Basically in the day was hard play and at night was good food and movies. A great holiday and I was able to meet some friends and have some great conversation. Just loved it!! I will post some pics.

So while I was there I watched the american music awards one night. Wow I must say Pink was awesome. She is really good and I really liked her performance. I have found it on youtube and attached below. Its really good.



She rocks!!! Here she is at the Grammys... (Not the best quality but you can see... I think the best performance at the Grammys in a long long time...)




So I would say there was a lot of great music in 2010.. loved Eminem and Train too! But fell in love with Pink again...... She always kills me...

Enjoyed a ton of good food in Hokkaido. It was funny as I arrived at Chitosei I was getting my luggage and 2 police officers came and grabbed me. They took me over to a corner and started asking all kinds of questions. Where I am from, and why I am in Hokkaido, and asked for my passport. Well I got upset at them and told them I live in Nagoya but also live in Hokkaido at times and I went to University in Hokkaido and have family there. They were really embarrassed. They thought I was someone else and I guess they were looking for a gaijin from AU. I must have looked like him a little. They had a picture. So they thought I was him and I guess bringing drugs or something in the country. Anyway they really apologized to me and I told them to take care and don`t catch a cold because Hokkaido needs good healthy cops. It was kind of funny. At first I was upset but then I cooled down... they were young cops anyway. Nice guys and I asked to see their badges again and told them they looked good. They seemed proud of their badges and told me that Hokkaido copied the same shape of badges as the New York police department. I thought that was funny... I guess its something to be proud of...

So anyway I guess thats my 2010. Great year for many things and a tough year for other things. I completely lost some loved ones this past year and thats always tough. But hopefully 2011 will be at least as good as 2010 and even better.