After work yesterday the wife and I met up with her friend Emi and her boyfriend for a trip to Komoro.  We enjoyed dinner at a Chinese restaurant where I tried my very first lemon sour and some liquor from China.  It was a weird taste,  almost like a combination of tea and whisky but I found it enjoyable. 
Later that night at the train station I found my kanji reading skills have slightly improved. At the ticket purchasing computer I was able to read the two selections for Karuizawa!  Yay me!
Also, I was supposed to be practicing a few songs on guitar to play rhythm guitar with the IAK band at our upcoming Christmas party, but with work and the pension I really haven't had time,  so I think I won't be playing with them this year. 

Winter is coming

Last week I went to one of the shougakkos (elementary schools) in town to talk to the English Club about Canada.  Armed with Asuka's Canadian landscape picture book and an mp3 of our national anthem I arrived ready to talk. Needless to say I was woefully unprepared.  After participating in a brief exercise to help them practice asking directions in English,  I began to bombard them with as much unorganized information as I could throw at them.
I'm not sure which was more scary; the surprising accuracy of what I said, or how the children seemed to listen so enthusiastically,  although they maybe only understood every third or fourth word I said.

Other than that,  winter is beginning to show up here in Karuizawa. Each night after work the temperature had been hovering around zero degrees and we have even gotten some snow on top of Asamayama.  (Asama Mountain,  an active volcano.) No snow as of yet has stuck to the ground but I am sure it will soon.