Monday morning

Wow - that whole weekend got away from me! We are developing quite a social life and it's tons of fun!
On Friday afternoon I took Taran into Date for physio and wound up taking Hiro too as she was pretty sick and the school nurse wanted her to get checked out. They were both fine so we headed home in the pouring rain. After dinner Ian and Joisan and I headed for the volleyball tournament where I had to play a few extra games - just to confirm that we were indeed the worst team out there! Ian didn't end up having to play so he and Joisan headed over to Ato-san's mother's restaurant which was having it's grand opening that night. So that was Ian's second night of drinking with Ato-san (they went out after volleyball on Thursday too). There was a ton of food and good company so by the time Hiro and I got there they were both enjoying themselves. Ato-san's daughter Misuzu was there. She is in Joisan's class and he really wants them to become best buddies so he and Ian had cooked up some plans for a Saturday night dinner party and sleepover.
On Saturday we got up and headed toward Chitose (where the airport is) to go to the movies. We took the same road we came in on the night we arrived but this time we could see the incredible scenery. It is absolutely gorgeous here. There is a huge lake that we passed and it is surrounded by majestic mountains. I think it is mostly national park land but it still seems odd that there is no sign of human life at all. I just know at home that there would be countless houses and access for people to get at the lake. It was snowing a bit on our way to the movies but we had no difficulties getting there. We met Joisan's friend, Akari and her family and then went in and bought the tickets. We had a bit of time to kill so we popped into the 'mall' next door and played some arcade/prize games with Akari's family before they went off to shop and we went into the theatre. We had been a bit concerned about being able to get in without buying advance tickets (it being opening day here) but as it turned out it was not an issue. The five of us represented more than one third of the total number of people in the theatre! Joisan loved New Moon and I'm sure she'll get into all of that in her blog entry this week. Afterwards we did a quick shop before braving the snow that had accumulated to head home. We were expecting a number of people at our house for dinner and felt a bit of a push to get home and get ready.
Ian didn't feel like he had a clear picture of the dinner expectations from Ato-san the night before so he made a mountain of curry rice and a bunch of Gyoza's for the unknown number of people that were coming. When they all eventually showed up Ato-san brought with him at least $150 worth of sushi and a bunch of other stuff besides! Then Akari's family showed up with a bunch of food and drinks too! There was mountains to eat and we'll be having curry rice for at least a week!
The girls played card games and DSi games and ate junk food and generally had a good time. It was supposed to be just the Jr. High School girls but Akari's two little sisters were there too and really wanted to stay so I said they could. It's kind of neat here that the kids (at least at the Jr. High) are still really young. There's no pressure to grow up and be into things like makeup and boys so it's still okay to hang out with the little sisters too. I'm sure Joisan will give more details about her part of the gathering but ours finally ended when the adults left at 12:30am. The men were pretty drunk and Akari's dad was totally embarassing her trying to high five with Joisan all the time. It was a good wake-up for Joisan that other kids get embarassed by their parents too!
Yesterday was all about cleaning up. We did a good clean of the party stuff and the girls left about noon. Then Ian and I spent the majority of the afternoon trying to cleanup and organize the resources in the hall next door. I am really surprised by how disorganized it is. I hope to get it all cleared out and a good filing system in place before I leave here. We had (you guessed it!) curry rice for dinner and then cleaned up and headed to bed. The big deal this week is that I have the ALT conference in Sapporo on Thursday and Friday. Rianna (the Date ALT) is coming up on Wednesday night and Ian is going to take us to Sapporo on Thursday morning. We will come back to Date on the train on Friday. It should be fun!