Sunday, February 21, 2010

Winter Sports

I'm not much of a winter person. In fact, I'd say one of the only redeeming qualities of this season is that it's the only time I get to go snowboarding.



And, occasionally, there are pretty trees.



This year has been pretty snowy here in Japan. Much better for enjoying winter sports than last year, but fairly sucky in terms of everyday living :P

So far this year I've managed 7 trips:

1 time to Mary Jane/ Winter Park (Colorado)
1 time to Arkopia (Kuguno)
2 times to Mont Deus (Miya)
1 time to Goryu/ Hakuba 47 (Hakuba, Nagano)
1 time to Sun Alpina Kashimayari (Hakuba, Nagano)
1 time to Takasu Snow Park (Gujo, Gifu)

Hopefully I can squeeze in a couple more before the season ends. If I have to be cold, I should at least be able to enjoy it! ^_^

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

TV

I've been terrible about keeping up with the blog recently >.< I know! I know.

This isn't a huge post of interesting craziness of Japan. Well, maybe a little crazy. I've been watching my tv a bit more recently cause of the Olympics. It's kind of interesting, actually, to watch them here, the focus is entirely on the Japanese athletes. Which makes sense, of course, when you think about where I am.

Anyway, with all this extra tv-watching, I've also seen a lot more Japanese commercials, which never fail to amuse me. They're just so different from American ones! One of my favorite recent ones is this ad for Halls cough drops



And while I'm at it, I'll just go ahead and throw this one for the McDonald's Texas Burger in too. It's part of the new "Big America" marketing campaign, supposedly highlighting cuisines from different parts of the US. This one is, obviously, supposed to represent the Lone Star State... what Footloose has to do with that I'm not quite sure... but you can judge for yourself



The Texas Burger is set to be followed by the Hawaiian Burger, the New York Burger, and the California Burger, sometime this year.

And how about this ad for the Toyota Vitz... using the popular character Rilakkuma (relax bear)... O_o I think the concept is that driving this car is supposed to be relaxing for the harried, over-whelmed Japanese woman in her 20's or 30's... but really all I can think of when I watch it is "awwwwwwwwww!"

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

JLPT 3級

Just a quick shout out to say

I PASSED THE JAPANESE LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY TEST!

Level 3, given December 6, 2009.

My final score was 316/400 for a total of 79% (you need at least 60% to pass).

And I got 100% on the listening section.

Yeay!!! ^_^