We arrived in Hiroshima on a Wednesday. It’s a city on the main island of Japan, Honshu, and it’s where the the Americans dropped the atomic bomb. We got there late at night so we went straight to bed. When we woke up in the morning we put on our hats and shoes and started off. Our first destination was the A-bomb Dome. When the bomb exploded in Hiroshima, the A-bomb Dome was one of the few buildings that survived. The only thing left of it is all the metal in the dome and part of the brick building.

After that we passed the Children’s Peace Memorial. It has a giant statue of Sadako. She is a girl who was two when the bomb was dropped and she died nine years later from Leukemia. Her friend told her while she was in the hospital that if she made a thousand paper cranes, the gods would grant her wish. She made cranes every day, but she only made over 600 before she died. Her classmates made the rest for her once she was dead. They also made a book about her and then she got really famous. Ever since then, people from all over the world have been sending her cranes. We made a lot and gave them to her.

Next was the Peace Museum. It was really cool but also very creepy and sad. There were pictures of people that were deformed from the bomb. Most of them were of people that had been burnt. There was also pictures of people that had blood dots under their skin, whose tongues had grown, etc. They also had stuff telling you about the bomb, a display of things that had survived the bombing and were all burnt, and about the bombs. The glasses were melted, so were the marbles. There was a bicycle that was completely charred and black. It was crazy. One of the coolest things was to see the city before the bombing, and than after. You could really see the devastation.

After all of that we hit the arcade.

On Wednesday night the Stevensons got here. They are our very good friends from Idaho. They got to Japan late so we didn’t get to see them. We saw them the next morning and they went to school with us. They where supposed to get here on Tuesday night but they missed their first flight and were 24 hours late. School was a lot more fun with them. The kids, Lucy and Briggs, are twins so they were both supposed to go to Decker’s class. Since Lucy is my good friend, she got to go to fifth grade for the day. Their parents are Megan and Justin but we call them Mego and Dodo. We showed them around and went to Toriton*.

On Friday we left for Kiroro. We stayed in the Barn!!!!! If you read my earlier blog, you would remember that I have always wanted to go to the barn. Well, not always, just once I found out it existed. We stayed in a house five minutes away from the barn that the same guy owned. He also owned a pizza place! We stayed in that house for 2 nights and we went to Kiroro every day. It was soooooooo awesome!!!! The first two days were complete powder days and then the third day was a sunny bluebird day!!!!!!!! The powder days were awesome!!!!!! We kept finding untracked powder stashes and it was awesome!!!!!!!!!!!! The barn was also soooooo cool!! They had two llamas, four bunnies, one duck, a miniature horse, a pony, three dogs, and even an ostrich!!!!!!! They also had goats. There was one goat that was born a week and two days ago and it was sooo cute!!! And, even though you think it can’t get any better, they had baby goats that we born two hours ago!!!!!!!!!! They had to be kept in a separate place because it was too cold for them. We got to see them for thirty seconds and then we had to close the door. We got to let the week old goat out and she ran around so funny! On the third day we left and drove to Niseko and stayed in the place we stayed in last time. It’s called Alpine. I’m on the couch right now in Alpine writing this. I think we are going skiing today but I’m not sure.

Powder!

Wish bell at Kiroro

Powder in the chip bag!

They have to plow under the chair!!!

Mego

Kiroro!

Due to lack of snow…

P.S. Tap on the photos!

*My next blog is going to be about my favorite restaurants, places to go, onsens, etc…

Konnichi wa

If you didn’t know or I never told you, I go to school every Wednesday and Friday. Just kidding! I go to school on all the weekdays. I go to school in Sapporo at Hokkaido International School. I don’t really enjoy it. They are way behind on what I am working on so I’m bored all of the time. The kids definitely aren’t as kind as they were in Idaho. My teacher’s name is Mr. Kelly and I like him. We do a lot of the same things and a lot of different things from Idaho.

The different things we do are daily PE, IPC, and dance. We just changed our daily PE. It’s where after recess, we go down to the multipurpose room. We used to do skipping, which is their word for jumprope. We just changed to something that doesn’t have a name. It’s where we bring our milk cartons that we decorated down and we do different things with them like running around them and trying to hit them with balls. But that’s all we did because we just started today. For some reason that I do not know, Mr. Kelly calls the milk cartons “skittles”.

I’m pretty sure IPC stands for International Personal Curriculum but I could be wrong (not like that happens very often). We also have Japanese class. I know a little Japanese but not much. I like Japanese, dance, and our Google Docs. It’s where we pick a topic to write about, and I chose Idaho. I’d much rather go skiing than go to school.

Almost everywhere we go there is an Onsen so you will hear me referring to an Onsen a lot. It is a natural hot tub. In all of the public ones you go naked! At the one in Moiwa, we wore a swimsuit.

On Friday night, our friends the Treismans came over. I was really exited to see them because I was starting to get very sick of my family. The parents’ names are Mariya and Michael. They have two kids named Quincy and Harper. Quincy is 9 and Harper is 6. They are all so great. Over the weekend, we went to their hotel’s Onsen and we did a lot of skiing. On Monday, my dad and the Treismans went to Kiroro and stayed in a “apartment ” above a barn. In the barn there were all sorts of animals. Goats, horses, bunnies, even an ostrich! I wanted to go so bad but my parents wouldn’t let me miss any school!

In the middle of school on Wednesday, my mom came and picked Decker and me up. We drove and drove for 2 hours to Moiwa. We went to the one in Niseko. When we got there my dad and the Treismans were already there. Our other friends the Hickeys were also there. The parents names are Jeff and Hannah. They have a kid named Riley who is my age. She is  really nice. We shared a house with the Hickeys while the Treismans were in a house right next to us. Right next to us. Both of the houses had an Onsen. Every single day we went skiing. Every single time we got home the parents would go in Onsen. Every single time we got home the kids would start on our fort.

Our fort was awesome!!!! We built a meeting area that was really big, had a chair for each of us, and it even had a tunnel full of three hundred snowballs. It also had a slide going into it and a secret place covered by ice chunks that had our special ice balls. Our fort was built on a snow bank that was nine feet high. We made a slide down it but it only went for about a foot and then you had a eight foot drop. Right on the edge, we built a three and a half person trench that was four feet deep. In front of the trench, there was a moat that held a ton of snowballs. Next to the trench there was a three foot hole. On the last day we had a war with the grownups. We totally won. We were hitting them left and right with snow balls and spraying them with shovels full of snow. Our one big fault was our hole. Someone was hitting Harper with a snowball and she was running. She didn’t see the hole until it was to late. The next second you would have found her head first in a hole with just her legs sticking out.

We went to a lot of ski resorts. One we went to was called Rusutsu. Where we walked through it we passed a hallway with a group of singing bears. They were hilarious!!

We went to a lot of different ski areas. My favorite one was Rusutsu. It was so much fun!!

Right now, we are living in Sapporo. Sapporo is the biggest city on Hokkaido, the island we are on. We go to ski towns every weekend. My brother and I, Decker, go to a international school called Hokkaido International School. We just got a car but before we were taking the subway every where. It takes one subway stop and a 7 minute walk. The school mascot is a husky. Right next to our house there is an army training facility. When I look out the window, I can see a mountain called Moiwa. There is another mountain called Moiwa up in Niseko. It is very confusing. We live in an apartment. It is so much fun!!

The little ski area in Jozankei didn’t have a lift. I would never ever call it a mountain. It was barely a hill. It was not at all steep. You walk up for five minutes and then you would ski down. Or you could walk up this skinny part at the top and one powder run. There was also a jump. It was a lot of fun.

There was also a snow bank obove a rail in the parking lot. Decker and I walked across it a few times. Every few steps the snow under you would fall and you would have to hang on for dear life. It was scary but really fun. 

So far I have been to Kokusai 3 times. I don’t even know how many times my parents have been there. The first time was just like the others, not that much snow. But the second and third time were awesome. The second time was very powdery and we did this run that we found the whole time. The third time was the best. It was snowing really hard and there was so much powder. We fond a different trail, or, I found a different trail, and that was all we did. It was so much fun!!!! Decker had a lot of crashes. My mom and I got a lot of powder. While my mom and brother skied, my dad and I went out of bounds!! It was soooo much fun!!!! You only get a few turns at the beginning and the rest was traversing, but it was still amazing! The pictures of me below are in the out of bounds.It was soooooooooooo beautiful!!!!!I was a rough night for all of us.

Niseko was really fun but again it didn’t have much snow. In Japan we always wake up and yell, “Is it snowing?”.  It’s never snowing. We went to Niseko with the Wilsons and they showed us a few fun runs but that was all. To make maters worse, well, not that they were bad, it was really cold and windy. All we could find to warm ourselves were back warmers. They were supposed to stick to your back so they were really big. It took them 3 hours to warm up and by that time we had left.

After skiing we went to dinner with the Wilsons. We were all really tired.

The funniest thing was the sign on the wall. 

1

Skiing

     So far we’ve been to 5 ski hills. Tiene, Niseko, Rusutsu, Kokusai, and one in Jozankei that didn’t have name.

     Teine was the first skiing we did in Japan. At the time we didn’t have a car so we decided to take the subway. My dad also decided not to use a ski bag!?? So we all ended up carrying our skis and poles,  Decker and I wearing our helmets, us all wearing our ski clothes, and my dad also carrying a duffel with our boots and the parents helmets. My mom mostly carried Decker’s skis and poles because he got all whiny. It took us 3 hours to finally get there. We took one subway, one train, and one bus. When we finally got to Teine, Gary was waiting for us. He brought us up for lunch and we met his kids, Winnie, Elliott, and Hugh. They are really nice. After lunch we went skiing. It was really great but their wasn’t much snow. On the way back we had it figured out and we made back home in 1 hour! How is that possible, you say. Nobody knows.