Although I cant go snowboarding again or play footsal for a while, I can go mountain climbing. This month’s mountain climbing club’s course was to climb up to Otsukayama then head to Mt. Mitake. The weather was great, and it was nice to get out and do some exercise again.
Lunch was hakata ramen.
Despite a broken arm, the following day I ran in a race. It was a 5 man relay race around the Yokohama Zoo with each person running about 4 kilometers. I was (involuntarily) signed up by some of the other teachers at one of the elementary schools I work at, and actually did some running the week before to prepare. So even with a broken arm I didnt want to let my team down, especially since they made me the anchor man.
Me and my bandaged wrist at the start line.
There were two races. One for women and kids and the other for everyone else.
Yes, I broke my second bone in Japan.
It was the final snowboard run of the day and, despite the sun going down and the snow turning to ice, I decided to go for one last big air. I dont remember how I landed, I just remember that when I got up my wrist hurt. The next day, after all day of kids jumping on me at work, I went to get an x-ray. I had a very small crack in my left radius, so they put a cast on my arm 
but I am only going to have to wear it for 2 weeks.
On a strange note… Chris, one of the people in my group also injured his arm on the snowboarding trip. In fact, he has the exact same broken left wrist, and now the same exact cast on his left arm as well. Interesting coincidence…
A bunch of friends and I went on a 2 day 1 night trip to Nagano to go snowboarding. The last time I was boarding was about four years ago when I went up to Hokkaido for the snow festival, so I was exited to finally go again. We went to a place in the Shigakougen area called Takaifuji which is famous for their snowboard park. There was a total of 6 of us, 3 Japanese and 3 Americans.
Our lodge - Chateau Teru
We were all exited to get on the mountain for the first day.
The weather and the views were beautiful.
I went to Sankeien in Yokohama. I was there about 2 years ago as well, before I went to Okinawa, and I have wanted to go back when the plum flowers are in full bloom.
Its that time of year in Tokyo again. The very beginning of spring when the plum blossoms start to bloom. There is a very nice plum tree park pretty close to my house (Ogurayama), and I went right when the flowers started to bloom.
You can see Mt. Fuji if you look closely.
Taco .. Bitch.
I found a little stand with an interesting name. No, they dont sell tacos, but Japanese taco-yaki or octopus balls. With a name like that I had to stop and try some. They were quite good.
Strange, but after over 2 years I finally got to meet up with some of my friends from when I lived in Big World 21. Takeshi and Ryoichi were some the very first people I talked with when I first moved to Japan almost 5 years ago. It was nice to see and talk with old friends again, but even more interesting was to see how much we all have changed. Albeit, some more than others.
I went with my friend to the zoo in Yokohama: Zoorashia. For the cheap entrance price it was a very nice zoo. The enclosures were very animal friendly, which sometimes made them hard to spot, but there were still plenty of interesting animals to see. The zoo is famous for its okapi but I really liked the polar bears.
If you come at the right time, you can see the elephant paint a picture.
I forgot what this is.
Thanks to my friend Josh, who had kindly sent me taco shells and seasoning for x-mas 
, I finally got to make tacos! I went out and got me some jalapeno Tabasco sauce, as it is impossible fresh jalapenos in Japan.. or jarred for that matter. I also made some guacamole from scratch. Although not the best guacamole, it was still pretty damn good. After all the preparations were done I showed some of my Japanese friends how to make and eat tacos.
