rebekah

i’ve decided to try packing my own lunches when school reopens this april. i think i enjoy the idea of arranging colourful things into a box more than the idea of packing lunch.

colours have surreptitiously crept into my life-my clothes, the pictures i draw, my thought bubbles, my lunch…i have now even acquired the taste (and liking) for tomato and celery, the ‘natto’ of my childhood. somehow, i have also lost the embarrassment of buying things i like. i mean, i would have never bought something that says ‘Three pigs are dancing in my room. They are very excited’ three years ago. i know i’m a person who is easily influenced by my environment- for better or for worse; though at the same time, i am terribly resistant to change especially when it is forced upon me. somewhere in my mind, i’m wondering how should i decide between the person i can be and the person i fundamentally am. when people say ‘be true to yourself’, i’m not really sure what to think.

but anyway, talking about pigs…

プヒ ❤

this winter, i have collected 10 snowboarding lift passes. it may sound like quite a bit but i have to admit that 2-3 hours is all it takes to tire me out each time. i do enjoy boarding though i’m not particularly crazy about it like some of my friends are. i remember skiing for the first time in my first winter in japan thinking that i could definitely live without this falling all over the snow thing. and I was even more against the idea of having both feet strapped to a board, especially when both of them are left. but when my second winter came, the desire for a shared activity between us meant that falling all over the snow was inevitable, not to mention bruises in places mentionable and unmentionable, a nearly twisted neck, fear, happiness, and finally a sense of achievement that a clumsy person like me could actually snowboard.

this trip to Zao probably marks the end of my snowboarding season. there are still places in this region where the snow remains in board-able condition till late april but spring is definitely here in my little city and i’m going give my board a well-deserved rest and welcome spring. though the flowers are not yet in bloom and the trees are still looking quite sad and twiggy without the green foliage nor snow blankets over them, the blue sky is quite enough to make up for the view. sparrows are chirping outside my apartment, which is all nice and cute until they merrily crap all over the walkway. but in any case, spring is sweet.

we went to zao on the 11th and 12th to snowboard and soak up the hot spring. it just happened that his infrequent 2-day leave coincided with the high school entrance examinations (one of those times when the only person in the entire school with nothing to do is me). we reached Zao at 1-ish after a 3-hour drive to Yamagata prefecture, left all our stuffs at a ryokan and hit the slopes. Zao is huge. it was a little grey and snowy on that day, but still enjoyable. i would say that the snow was in good condition, considering that it is March already. the only complaint was that most of the runs we did were quite short. we definitely did a lot of lift-riding that day. my battery lifespan of 2-3 hours applies even on an unexplored mountain. i’m just grateful that he is always accommodating to me. if he was a board-crazy maniac raring to explore every single nook, corner and lift, i would have been very very miserable.

in Zao, there are monsters. when snow and strong, icy winds crash into big fir trees, strange giant monoliths, known as 樹氷 (juhyou), emerge. we went to see them on the second day, sans board plus good camera in hand. while the wind was insane at the peak, the sky was a pretty shade of blue.

the best time to see the 樹氷 is february and i would imagine that the landscape looked all the stranger then. the reward for having endured a bitterly long and cold february for me came in the form of the snow monsters still looking beautifully intact at this time of the year. with spring setting in, the snow is due to melt away. but even so, the trees at lower altitudes are still looking mighty awesome with green branches sticking out.

you can allow your imagination to run wild looking at these strange giants. for me, they are an army of petrified snow wizards contorting in the effort to break the spell cast on them.

up at the peak, everybody was trying hard not to get blown over by wind, but we all managed happy smiles and poses for the camera. because it was that beautiful.

and if possible, i would be back next season, riding amidst the snow monsters.