New Car, New Snowboard, and Elementary School

After about a month of tearing through Nakano City on a bicycle at top speeds, I decided to upgrade to an AWD, super charged, drifting machine. I have named it 白い刀, Shiroi Katana, because it cuts through the wind with the force and swiftness of a katana and shiroi is "white" in Japanese. Here is a picture of the beast.

Men, keep your women close, because when I come rollin' by in this earthshaking land cruiser, you may find yourselves a bit more lonely than you remember being.

The next new addition to my life came in the mail the other day.  I found myself purchasing my dream snowboard, which I have been thinking about since I was in high school.  I was able to purchase a new snowboard for when I am faced with intense powder and snow that is notorious here in Nagano. 

 The difficulty lied in dodging the ridiculous Japanese prices.  After searching for a while, I found a company that shipped to Japan and could be purchased with the US dollar.  Instead of paying the equivalent to 700 US dollars I only payed around $400.  Here is a picture of the board.

This is an Arbor Roundhouse RX mid-wide board.  This is an all mountain, rocker board.  It is made with bamboo and also recycled materials.  I can not wait for winter.

I finally visited two of my elementary schools the previous week and I now know why kids have so much energy!  It is because they are latching on to all the adults and sucking it out of us. They are stealing our energy!  

Outside of being extremely tired after elementary schools, I have to say it is a lot of fun and the kids are extremely interested in you.  I had to sign autographs for about 15 minutes. I was signing kids sports towels, notebooks, and arms.  I'm kind of a big deal now with elementary school.  

I also had the privilege of being told by a six year old girl to go wash my hands before eating.  Everyone then proceeded to freak out when I told them I did not have a pocket towel.  I have since purchased one.

The first year students all take care of two sheep which is really cute and quite amazing that such young kids are given that responsibility.  The best part is that they take care of the sheep and they do it well.  

My ending piece of advice for dealing with children, and this is a well known fact, is bring an arsenal of stickers.  When you break those bad boys out, everyone's eyes grows two sizes and you will gain instant control.

This up coming weekend is a 3 day weekend and I plan on going to Tokyo so you can look forward to some pics of that.