Poppin' the cherry...

Haha, the title is not what it seems.....Today I celebrated my 1st framed photo. Yah that's it. Nothing exciting. It was a picture I took over by Rokkasho and it's a picture I'm really stoked on. I was lucky. It was just one of those pictures where everything worked out perfectly and I just happen to be at the right place at the right time...with my camera of course. Since I have my own printer, I do my own prints and I printed it on my printer's largest size, A4 and it looked amazing. The next step was to find a frame at Kitamura Camera. Once I inserted the picture in the frame...I was so happy and stoked on how it turned out.

It is hanging in my office building where I work also known as the Tohoku Town Community Center. I'm debating on whether or not I want to hang more up....I think I just might and see what happens.

March 30th ..... Ajigasawa 1st Annual Slopestyle Jam

Rise and shine! After a few hours of shut eye, we woke up and got ready for a day at Ajigasawa ski resort. Toshi came over and picked us up and we headed off for the mountain. I was definitely looking forward to today because it was the first ever Ajigasawa Slopestyle Jam 2008 and all the park riders from near and far came out to play. Of course, I would be there...camera in hand taking pictures.

The event layout was very chill. People riding what ever they wanted with a judge at each position recording score and in the end, the riders with the highest total score would enter the final. Last 4 men and women standing would rock out in the grand finale in classic slopestyle fashion....one complete run to decide it all. No 2nd heat, no redos......winner takes all. Exciting!!

It was nice to see a high level of competitors throwing down at slopestyle in Aomori. Thanks to the NaturaRhythm crew for holding such a well organized event and keeping the park in top form. You guys rock!

March 29th: Iwate Night Snowboarding Jam Session

Saturday...the weekend has come and the bad new is.........no waves! So what does this mean? Another weekend at the mountains, but this weekend turned into something really cool and definitely on my "awesome" and "different" kind of weekend adventure.

I got a phone call from one of my snowboard buddies (now also a surfing hommie as well) and he invited me to go adventure down to Iwate prefecture with him and his buddies for a little snow jam session. Since I haven't seen him for a while and Hakkoda spring snow isn't that much fun, I figured doing something new could be what i needed. The event didn't start until 4:20pm so I slept in, gathered my things and headed off to meet Kenichi in Hirosaki around noon. Once everyone arrived, we made our way to Shizukuishi ski grounds which is about a 2.5 hour trip from Hirosaki.

The car ride was goofy and fun, but a little cramped because fitting 5 people and all their snow gear can take up a lot of wasted space. When we finally arrived we changed into our gear and immediately got down to business. After an hour of session'in the box, car jib, and barrels...the night lights came on and the event was in full affect. There was a local DJ playing old school cuts, food and of course beer. The event ended with a raffle and everyone came home with something. The grand prize was a 156cm GRAY snowboard. I really would have loved that! We decided to leave about 11pm and returned to Kenichi's house around 1:30am and it was time for bed.

March 22nd: Mizuhami Elem Graduation

Lucky for me, this year I was able to attend 2 graduation ceremonies because more often than not, school related ceremonies in Japan are all usually on the same day. I don't know if it really means much to the kids for me to show up in a suit and attend their graduation, but to me...teaching a class with 10 kids for almost 2 years and knowing after they graduate, I would probably never going to see them again.......... To me it meant a lot.

Mizuhami is the newest school in the Tohoku and was built in 2001. There at a total of 62 kids here and 12 of them were graduating this day. What I will remember most about this school years from now is that this was the best singing school of all Tohoku. Not just by a little but by a landslide. Every school visit, they would practice singing before for recess for 15 minutes. After practice they could go and play. They took it seriously because during the town singing demonstration, they had these special choir uniforms. The boys tragically had these shorts there were mighty damn short. They didn't even pass half their thighs! Cute looking, but definitely not steezy. It didn't matter though because once they opened their mouthes, perfect harmony and pitch charismatically filled the room. They sang like little angels. It was touching.
Go Mizuhami!

March 19th: Kogawara Elem. Graduation

I've been blessed with the opportunity to teach English in Japan for almost 5 years now and over the years the number of students that have had my English class(es) is probably over 10,000. While I was in Hachinohe, I circulated to 48 elementary schools and 4 jr. high schools for 3 wonderful years. Now in Tohoku Town, my rounds consists of only 7 elementary schools for a tour of 2 years.

Over the years, it has been extremely hard to build student/teacher relationships because I would only visit a school once a month. In Tohoku Town, my school visit ratio has increased by 4 times. So now I attend the same school about 4 times a month and that has given me the opportunity to actually get to know some of the student's personality, humor, study habits etc. With that, you grow attached to them and when they graduate, sadly that attachment has to end.

One of my favorite schools is Kogawara Elem. The students there are excellent. They're not shy and reserved like some other schools, but very outgoing and friendly. One of the best classes were the 6th graders. I once had a class with them were I spent the entire period telling them about my trip to Thailand. They were all interested and had lots of questions. Then after the discussion was over, we went into the next room where I had laid my Thai photos out on tables. They walked around saying, "What is this? Whoa look at that! That looks delicious!" It was such a fun day because it wasn't just about teaching English, but about internationalism and sharing a new part of the world to them. Gotta thank Mr. Tsukekawa Sensei for that one.

Anyways, congratulation and 頑張れー！！I won't forget you!

March 15th: Lil' bro's wedding.....tokyo revisited

After back to back SBX events, the next day (March 10th) I packed for a little vacation off to visit Ken and Casey in Nara. Phew! This month has been one of the busiest months of my life. Crazy busy but still a lot of fun. I wanted to travel cheap so I bought Hach-Tokyo shinkansen ticket and then a $40 overnight bus to Nara. I really hate overnight buses though. The cheap ones are so crammed, stuffy, and stinky. I can never get a good night's sleep but saving some money sometimes is worth losing 1 good night of sleep. Especially if you save a few hundred dollars!

This time around, visiting Nara had a special purpose.....Casey was getting married on March 15th!! Casey to me is like a little brother. I've known him since he was about 7 years old. Now he's 25 and getting married. I can't believe how fast time flies and how much life changes. It's always full of surprises. Well, Ken's mom, "Momma Maureen" kindly asked if I could take photos at the wedding. Of course I was more than happy to try my hand at a little wedding photography but noted that I had no real wedding photography experience. She told me there was a packaged "pro photographer" so I didn't have to be the main camera guy. This was a relief because I really didn't want to screw this up.

The wedding was held in Yokohama near the XXXXX station. Of course, I'm a big fan of marriages, but not a huge fan of stereotypical western world Church weddings....especially in Japan. I think the traditional Japanese wedding is a lot more rich in culture and contains more historical relevance to Japanese people. It's not like American couples are gonna go have a Japanese style wedding in America right? That would never happen. I just feel like weddings these days are more for show and all about business.

Regardless of what I have to say, the wedding was beautiful. The weather was right, the people were looking fantastic and everyone was happy. Casey and Chihiro looked awesome. I was so happy for them and sooo stoked I was able to capture a few of their "happiest moments" thus far in life. I wish them the best and all the future happiness they could ever imagine possible.

......love you two.

March 9th, 2008: Moya Hills SBX Competition

The next weekend after Hyakuzawa was the Moya Hills SBX Championship. Back to back race weekends this year and all my friends from Hakkoda entered the race so it was so much fun. This included riders like Brian Y., Mitsuru, Eiko, Kazuo, Ichiko, Takachan, Hiishi, and myself.

Again thanks goes out to Abe-san for putting in hard work and creating a course that was fun and chill. There were two sets of waves.... right at the beginning and right at the end. It seemed that the last 8 wave set took a lot of people out. Fortunately for me, I didn't have any problems with the course. I had problems with my wax. Yah story of my life. In a previous race I won race wax as a raffle prize and thought I would just save money this year and not spend $40 on the proper temp wax for just 1 race (it was +8C that day). I used -4C to 0C wax and figured I could brush it up really well and get by. Hell its just wax right? Wrong..... I learned that no matter how fast of a rider you are, if you're on a slow board you're not going to win...PERIOD! So I ended up Top16 or better known as the quarter finals. Brian did awesome and made the Top8. Mitsuru did the best out of all of us and he was all drunk! He made the finals but slipped up in the beginning and never could catch the pack... 4th place. I really thought he was going to win. Kazuo and Hiishi were eliminated before the quarter finals which shocked me. Kazuo is soooo quick and so talented.

For the ladies, 1st place was Mika Sensei, 2nd was Ichiko!, 3rd was Takachan, and 4th was Eiko. In the end, the Hakkoda riders all did very well but none of us were able to win it! Hehe, but winning isn't everything and since this will be my last boarder X race...definitely good times and good memories.

March 2nd, 2008: SBX Hyakuzawa Championship

This year, the Hyakuzawa SBX Championships fell on March 2nd of 2008. I was looking forward to this event because last year I tied for 1st place because of some photo finish b.s. Really it wasn't a photo finish because the guy crashed out and never crossed the finish line. I was less than a meter away and saw it with my own eyes (great view of the crash!). Yah, that's another tainted story I'd like to wash out of my memory and just remember that I did well that race. Sorry, whining over.

The course this year was fun. Very tight and very challenging. Abe san, the course creator, made a wave section that consisted of 11 whoops in a row amidst a mild turn. It was kinda fly or die. You either went through it conservatively or go ballz out and risk ejecting yourself off course. Definitely a leg workout.

Eiko and Takachan did very well this year. I thought Eiko had it in the bag but ended up taking 2nd place. She's soooooo fast. Takachan took 3rd. She is just as fast and its a good thing they are best friends otherwise it would be an intense rivalry. As for me, I made it to the semi-finals which is basically the top 8. Last year's course suited me better I think but oh well...not a big deal. Wax was not the right temperature and I had no start wax.....but still a lot of fun.

The car ride home with Eiko and Takachan was hilarious. We didn't talk about the race at all, but about trimmed muffs and pubez. Yah..hilarious.

February 9th, 2008: Hiking Hakkoda

Living in Aomori and having Hakkoda in our backyard is a wonderful blessing. Before coming to Japan, I knew absolutely nothing about northern Japan's snow condition and when I arrived I knew I landed in heaven. POWDER HEAVEN!

This year's highlight has to be the hike up Takada Odake. The weather was pristine, the snow was fantastic, and the time...just perfect. All of us, Nao, Eiko, Mitsuru, Brian, and I were so stoked when we arrived at the destination and got our packs ready in the morning. There's not many days of blue skies in winter and when there is there is no better way to spend a day at the mountain. We arrived about 8:30am and sorted our gear and made our first steps about 9:00am.

This was my first time hiking and I kept thinking, "Man am I really doing this? This is sooooo cool." In my backpack I had my nothing but my camera, my snowboard jacket, and 2 onigiris. I was wearing a fleece jacket, but during the hike I got so hot I decided to take it off and wrap it around my board. I hiked the entire duration in my long sleeve undershirt and t-shirt.

After a long hot and sweaty 3 hour hike, we finally reached our destination. Magical!! It was a moment I will never forget for as long as I live. Until that day, I've never seen the top of a snow covered mountain without riding a chairlift or gondola.....something man made invented to cheat nature and make life easier on us humans. This day, I fully understood what it meant to "earn your turns." The ride down felt like it lasted maybe mere 30 seconds. I was haulin' ballz!!! It was the fastest I've ever gone on a snowboard. Faster than any of the boarder x event I've been in. The adrenaline rushes to your head and all you can think about is going fast and making HUUUUUGE turns!

January 13th, Car LIFE

This was a Sunday usually spent at Hakkoda...however the winds were too extreme at 30 km/hr which stopped all gondola activity. Instead of just packing up and going home, Brian and I decided to build beds in our cars. YES!!!! This means we are gonna sleep in our cars at -10 to -15 degrees Celsius all winter long!

Unfortunately, we were no longer able to stay at Mitsuru and Reiko's house because their landlord enforced a "no friends over for the weekend" rule. Bummer, but since they weren't paying anything for rent, it was best to respect the landlord's obscene rule and go on with life.

Our friend Makoto helped us build our beds since he had a pre-fab bed made for his Pajero and had a good idea on what to do (also he had all the tools at his house). Our first stop was Home Center Sunday!! Here, we rounded up the necessary wood, screws, carpeting and began construction immediately upon return. After about two hours of manual labor our goal was complete. With a total cost of about $20 I had a bed that allowed me to lay flat and get a good night's sleep. I think Brian spent $50 since his is incognito convertible....extra cost for coolness.

Our last year in Japan, a year to remember as we spent Hakkoda winters living out of our cars.

Dec. 28th, 2007....Double Print

In the past 2 years, I just had this tiny itch to send my photos to photo contests here in Japan and to my surprise, I've had really good luck with them. Last year in the Tohoku regional worker's photo Contest, one of my photos took 2nd and I won about $300 in travel coupons. The following year, in 2007, 2 of my photos placed and I received a total of $150 in visa check coupons.

You know what? It's not about winning prizes or gifts...or any of that sort. If these contests didn't have prizes, I would still submit pictures to them (especially if they are small prints or online submission). To me, its seeing how you place among a field of photographers who all share the same passion. By submitting, you easily find if your pictures are on the same level. If you're not, you have to get out and shoot a bit more. So I just try and shoot as much as I can when I have the time. Practice practice!

Dec. 22nd 2007, Wedding in Hirosaki

This was my very first wedding where two of my snowboarder friends would tie the knot. Of course, that meant a lot of snowboarding hommies getting together and having an all day 'n night fiesta! Crazy fun!!

Ichiko and Kazuo make a wonderful couple. I've known them for almost 4 years, but more exclusively in the past 2 years because of Hakkoda. Previous seasons, I went to ski resorts like Appi, Okunakayama, and local favorite Yakeyama (can't beat 15 dollar lift tickets). Anyways, these two are sooooo fun to snowboard with. Kazuo always keeps the mood fresh, light, and funny with his crazy hilarious antics and Ichiko is probably one of the coolest girls I know. Both are fabulous, warm hearted souls and I love hangin' out with them.

To Kazuo and Ichiko.........love love love!
Best wishes..