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Published: March 17th 2008
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Last Wednesday on the way to my taiko practice, my taiko sensei asked if I was busy for the weekend...I did have something planned during the day on Saturday, so I hesitantly said not really, why????
She then told me that there was a trip to Tokoro (eh??? Where's TOKORO???) to learn curling (what's curling???) and go snowmobiling (Yeah!!!). She also said the hotel and bath and bus was included. Ok, sounds like fun I'm thinking, but how much is this gonna break me... so I ask...FREE!!! Yes, that's right, FREE! Everything FREE....
Wow...and then she sais I can bring people. Not just one, or two or three, but 20 or 30 if I can round up that many people in 2 days time...So I made some calls. Sent some emails and managed to come up with a nice group of 10.
We met at Sapporo Stn at 7...some people were late...but fortuantly the bus didn't leave us, er them behind.
The ride to Tokoro was fairly uneventful. Emilio had been out all nite and kept us entertained by sleeping in uncomfortable positions.
We got to Tokoro around noon, had a fabulous bento for lunch and headed to
the curling gym?place? we had a brief lecture/intro to curling. During this time, James, Nick, Randall and Caroline (Team English) of Eastern Hokkaido popped in. They knew we were coming and wanted to hang out or try to get a lesson with us. Unfortuanly the people in charge said NO, but then a lane opened up and they said YES you may indeed stay and play! Yeah!
So we all headed to the ice to learn how to walk, run, slide (fall for some people!) and throw the stone. Our teacher was an adorable, NO REALLY!!! Olympian. She is really close to my age, just one years difference. Anyway, we played the Canuks (Sp?) against the oo-sa (u-sa) and the oo-sa (my team) won! and...yes, I admit it was my stone that got us the winning point, blush, blush!
We quit playing around 4 and the bus took us to our hotel. On the way....we passed the Ohtsuku Sea AND there was drift ice beyond the horizon...
Okay, so I've been trying to see drift ice for 2 years now and had pretty much given up, so this minor sighting was like Christmas and the 4thof July
all rolled into one! I was bouncing off the walls! But the bus just rolled by...and stopped and we went to our hotel dropped our stuff off and raced out to the beach clamboring over the drifts out to a giant mound (iceburg? perhaps) where we climbed up. I don't know what everyone else was doing, but I was pretending to be a Northern Explorer... looking for game to shoot (photograph! not hunt!) and keeping an eye on me maties to make sure none of them took an all too nasty tumble into the icy water.
The group leaders being very Japanese and very cautious were very panicky at the sight of us on the berg and kept yelling for us to get down. So we did very reluctantly...and headed back to the hotel where we killed time until DINNER, which was a feast of seafood, nabe, fried goodness and a mussels. Ok, seafood isn't so much my favorite food, but the nabe, oh yeah, I was in feasting paradise! and the stuff baked in the shell delicimous-O...During dinner one kid picked his nose for like 10 minutes. yeah. no joke.
I haven't talked about the kids! There
were like 6 or 7. From the age of 12 and younger. The 6 yr olds were hilarious, but the 4 yr olds were so cute and pouty...how come kids are cute when they're pouty until they are like 6?
After dinner, I had a bath. then joined the boys for some cards. We played poker and I tried to teach them rummi, gin etc, but they weren't interested. There was some footsy action going on in the other room and most of us were trying to ignore so we wouldn't lose our dinner. You know there are just some things you don't wanna see. Like the kid who was drinking the beer in the hallway. He was like 10! I don't need to see that either!
So we finally went to bed. Everyone sleeping in rooms. That's vague. At least 4 people ended up in rooms they weren't supposed to be in. We played musical beds. Fun, or not really. Mostly not really!
In the a.m. Did a quick breakfast munch then back to Drift ice! The landscape had completely changed! EEEEk so exciting! So I ran around shooting things like a wild Indian until we
had to catch our bus for curling.
We had the same teams but played against different people. Unfortuantly we lost....Then we competed for curling cookies...and we would have won it...but our team strategy as a whole got the last strike wrong so we lost! No cookies! Waaaaahhhh! But then we got consolation cookies and everything was all better! Yeah for team ooo-sa!
So back to the bus for snowmobiling! It was a little warm and the smow was soggy so we only went round once on the snowmobiles, but then they pulled us on the banana boats which was equally as fun! We spent about 40minutes out there in all.
Then it was back to the bus. Not bad for a free weekend!
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