A Short Visit....

Late last month my great auntie suffered a stroke.  She lasted for about a week after that.  She had stopped eating after the stroke so essentially I was on a death watch from a great distance afar.  When I received word of her passing away, I advised my office manager that I would be returning to Canada to attend the funeral.  She jumped to the conclusion that the funeral would be right away.  She called the regional manager and advised me I could have the rest of the week off.  She was a tad perplexed when I explained to her that funerals are not held that soon in Canada.  It takes time to make arrangements for funerals.  So she would have to wait until I got word.  When I told her it would take a few days she wasn't exactly happy but she grudgingly accepted the situation.

I was waiting on word of when the funeral was going to be held whilst keeping an eye on air fares.  Seeing fares jump from the $1800-1900 range to $3400 range made me push the button and book flights.  I picked a time period which I thought would be a good gamble.  As it turned out, the funeral was held the morning of the day after my arrival.

My great auntie had had a son with her first husband.  As her first husband was Chinese, my mom's cousin followed the Chinese custom of handing out small white envelopes after the funeral was over.  In each of the envelopes there was a candy and a coin, a $1 coin.  Recipients are expected to spend the coin that day.  I used the money towards a purchase of a cup of Tim Hortons coffee.  The "Roll Up the Rim to Win" contest is on and my great auntie's luck rubbed off on the purchase...I won a cup of coffee.  My family members got a chuckle out of that.  We had often purchased scratch and win lottery tickets to put in my great auntie's birthday cards when she was alive.  She had always been one to play the odds for a bit of fun.

It goes without saying that my visit was a bit of a sombre one.  I didn't touch an alcoholic beverage during the time I was in Canada.  I had breakfast with one friend and lunch with another friend with his family.  I dropped in on a friend's coffee shop and he was a touch surprised to see me.  I hadn't contacted him to tell him I'd be back and he doesn't subscribe to any of the social networking apps/sites I use.  That was all the socializing I did.

I'm typing this up as I wait to board my flight back to Japan.  Once I arrive, I'll hit an ATM, forward my suitcase by Yamato Transport, head to Tokyo station by limousine bus, catch the train back home, and then, after a night's sleep, trudge off to work the next day....  Yeah, I'll be in fine shape then.

Trying to Keep Warm

It may be the first of March but the nights are still a bit cold.  I overheard someone say that temperatures might dip below zero at night this week. 

Last week wasn't much warmer.  At one point I was sitting in our "satellite" office with the heater/air-con unit going at 28C.  It didn't feel particularly warm in the room but I did notice that the pieces of white chocolate I was munching on were just a touch "sweaty". 

About an hour later I collected my lesson materials for the last class I was going to teach that day.  As I stood up I remembered I had one piece of white chocolate left.  So I grabbed the box and gave it a shake...nothing came out.  I thought to myself, "Hmm...I'm sure there was one more piece left".  So I took the inner tray out of the box.  This particular brand's packaging has the inner tray tucked inside a plastic envelope/wrapper.  I pulled the tray out and saw what had become of my last piece of white chocolate...it had melted.  So perhaps the heater was indeed on high enough....

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This year's snow lantern festival was the 40th edition of the annual event.  The older brother of one of my students was a member of the organizing committee.  He was on a sub-committee responsible for coming up with some type of amusement for kids.  In the past the festival has had things like miniature train rides.  My student had mentioned that they were looking into more ambitious projects this year.  The organizers had floated the idea of a maze built out of snow.  But the lack of snow over Christmas and New Years made them decide to aim for a more modest goal.  I think their next idea was a petting zoo or polar animal exhibit.  They had lined up a deal to rent some penguins from a zoo in Niigata but that fell through.  So in the end they decided to set up a skating rink.

Yonezawa is very much in the "snow country", Yuki-guni, of Japan.   So one would assume that there are plenty of winter sports activities.  In fact, there aren't.  People are just too busy digging themselves out of the snow to bother to go out and play in the stuff.  I suppose they get sick of the sight of the stuff.  The city lacks a large enough body of water which could freeze over well enough to serve as a natural ice skating surface.  And the local ice rink was torn down a number of years ago.  Which to me seems peculiarly odd.  After all, it's not often one hears of a Canadian community without an ice rink or somewhere to skate.

Anyways...when my student told me they were going to set up an skating rink I immediately assumed it would have an ice surface.  So I was a bit bemused when I checked out the festival and found the skating rink...and its plastic board skating surface.  That really just wasn't what I had had in mind....