Tomorrow I'm leaving Japan and traveling back to my homeland to reconnect with my roots. No, I don't mean Canada.. I mean Vietnam! I'll be flying to Saigon on Thursday to spend Christmas and New Years exploring southern Vietnam. I have a lot of extended family in Saigon that I'll be meeting for the first time but, unfortunately, they don't speak English and I don't speak Vietnamese. Luckily, I will have some help because half of my family already moved to Vietnam three weeks ago! My brother, sister, niece, and brother-in-law all sold their belongings in Calgary to pick up and move to Vietnam. My niece is only 4 years old but she wasn't sad about about the move, especially after her mom kept telling her they were moving to "Beachland"! They're getting away from modern life in Canada to experience a new, exciting life in Vietnam and are hoping to start up a clothing business there. My mom also went and flew with them on the same day. She's the only one in our family who can speak Vietnamese so she'll be our translator to the rest of our relatives.

I'll be there from December 18th to January 4th and will get back into Japan on the 5th. I'll be traveling with Callie so we're going to spend a little bit of time with my family before we head off to backpack around Southern Vietnam and Cambodia! We only have a short 17 days to explore as much as we can so we booked a few tours, all-day and overnight buses, and a domestic flight already. Traveling around Vietnam is ridiculously cheap so we're only bringing a few hundred dollars with us for the two and a half weeks we're there. The domestic flight only costs $55 USD a seat! It's a pretty popular place to go over the winter break because I know of at least 15 ALT's from Hokkaido who are headed there too. It'll be my first Christmas without snow so I'm pretty excited about chilling on the beach and relaxing in the sun. I won't be blogging while I'm there but I'll have a lot of pictures and stories to put up when I get back! Until then, I hope you all have a

On Monday I went into work and there was a hand-written note on my desk saying "X-mas Party, Wednesday 6:00pm. Can you make it?". I thought it was a bit strange so I asked my co-worker who speaks English what the note was about. She said the town's Rotary Club was holding a Christmas party and that I was invited. I didn't even know our town had a Rotary Club.. and to be honest, I'm not even sure what the Rotary Club does! I know we have them in Canada but I had only heard of the name. I checked my schedule and, since I wasn't busy, told her I would go.

I got to the restaurant tonight about ten minutes before 6 o'clock figuring I was on time. As I was walking across the street towards the restaurant, a man was there who was apparently looking out for me because the moment he saw me, he came over to greet and usher me into the restaurant. When I entered the private dining room on the 2nd floor of the restaurant there were around already 20 other older people sitting around tables full of food, waiting for me. They had invited another ALT I knew, Tania, who lived in the next town over to the party too and she told me afterwards that they had picked her up at 5:30pm! Whoops.. I guess being 10 minutes early still meant I was late!

They started out with the night with the ring of a ceremonial bell and the kaicho (president of the chapter) and others giving formal speeches of welcome. Once the speeches were done, they rang the ceremonial bell again and then brought out a large Christmas cake (with strawberry toppings) and asked me and Tania as the guests to make the first cut. They lit the candles on the cake, turned out all the lights and to much acclaim, we made the first cut. I'm guessing it has some special meaning but I have no idea what it was. After that, everyone took off their suit jackets and buckled down to eat. We were treated to huge plates of sushi, tempura and even actual turkey! After about 30 minutes of eating and chatting with the kaicho who sat next to me, we were all given out Bingo cards to play for prizes. Playing Bingo is really common at enkai's and there are usually enough prizes for everyone, even if they get the last Bingo. After five minutes of calling out numbers, I managed to be the first winner of the evening. They were joking about the first place winner getting hyaku man yen ($10,000) but all I got was to choose from the selection of prizes first. The money would've been nice! I chose a bag that looked like it might have had something good and ended up with a jumbo-sized New Year's mochi.. thing. I guess they're really popular during New Years.

After that we played an awesome horse race game that must exist only in Japan. We each had to pay 400 yen ($4) to get four vouchers (another lady there bought me and Tania our vouchers as 'presents') where we had to choose a number between 1 and 8 and write our names on each of them. Then they have a large board with inward facing cards on rows that are numbered from 1 to 8. There are 80 spots on the "racing board" but 81 cards. They start by putting the number, for example '4', into the left side of the '4' row and by doing so, pushes out a card from the right side. If this card had the number '2' on it, it would get placed into the '2' row and so on. This continues until one of the rows has all of its numbers facing outwards and whoever chose that number on their voucher was a winner. The prize money gets split up evenly among all of the vouchers with that number (ie. a person who chose that number more than once gets more of the prize money) - AND - to add to the excitement, there's a red 落 card which means the horse fell down and is out of the race! Oh noes! So even if that number finishes first, no one can win off of it. Unfortunately I didn't pick the winning "horse" and get any prize money, but it was a fun way to gamble!

After that was an auction on different things like ramen, flowers, and various seafood. The kaicho next to me bid on a box of ramen (a high quality brand, apparently) and gave me a package as a gift. Near the end of the auction they were auctioning off whole frozen salmon but, since there were no takers, the auctioner just decided to give the fish away to the guests, me and Tania. I got a free whole salmon!

Shortly after that we finished eating and then had the closing speech. The kaicho talked for a bit and then, surprisingly, asked me and Tania to make speeches as well! They wanted us to speak in Japanese so not quite knowing what to say, I said "Hello everyone. Thank you for inviting me. The food was delicious. Tonight was fun. Thank you." in my broken Japanese. After that we all stood up, joined hands, and then sang what I'm guessing was the Rotary Club anthem song. We all swung our arms in unison during the song and after it was over, we all did the formal, single clap that marks the end of an enkai.

It was a really nice surprise at being invited to the Christmas dinner (notice in the top picture, the banner says Ⅹ'マス (X-mas) in Katakana?). Apparently they like to have English speakers at their gatherings in order to promote the whole internationalization aspect of the Rotary Club. I think they were inviting us as guests in order to welcome us to Japan and the town. Not that I mind though. If it involves free meals, invite away!

One of the reasons I came to Japan was so I could continue to learn Japanese and study it in an immersion setting. I came here with three years of language courses under my belt and decided I wouldn't be leaving here until I can actually say "I speak Japanese" and mean it. I'm planning to stay here for a minimum of two years so the least I could do is come out with a second language.

Studying a second language in an immersion setting is a lot different than learning in the classroom. Instead of reading textbooks and doing homework, my textbooks are street signs, menus, and food labels. My homework is finding a way to communicate with my kids in a foreign language without getting lost in translation. I simply have to step outside my door and I am in my Japanese classroom. The main difference between the classroom and immersion, however, is motivation. In school, the motivation was ultimately to learn a second language, but also the relentless push to finish homework before deadlines or to study and do well on tests. Its easy to check on your progress this way but outside a structured classroom, everything is not so streamlined.

I realized this really quickly when I first arrived here in Japan. Sure, I had three years of Japanese language background, but it wasn't at the point where I could hold an extended conversation with a Japanese person. I knew a lot of grammar and vocabulary but I knew if I didn't work to expand on it, I would forget everything and my ability would fizzle out and die. I've heard of JETs who have left Japan after a year or two with worse Japanese than when they came and I wanted to avoid that. What I decided to do to give myself motivation was to take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT).

The JLPT is a standardized test held once a year in December which tests for Japanese reading and listening skills. I took the easiest level, 4kyu, last year. I did well on it since you need around a year of study (or 4 months if you study really hard..) to pass it and I had been studying for over two and a half years by then. This year I decided to go up another level and write 3kyu which requires around 2-3 years of study. The application deadline was way back in mid-September but I knew I would be writing it so I sent in my application soon after I got here. I received my little test voucher in the mail about a few weeks ago and the test itself was held today.

There were quite a few JETs writing the JLPT ranging from 4kyu to 2kyu (there is also an 1kyu level but it's pretty damn tough.. even for native Japanese) so we all gathered in Sapporo this weekend to write it. I stayed at Callie's place with two other JETs and we got up early this morning to get to make sure we got to the test site with plenty of time to spare. Before we went in, we had a short camera interview with some students from Callie's High School who are making a documentary about her Japanese-learning experience. When I got into the room which held about 30 people, I chatted with a few other JETs who were also taking 3kyu before settling down for the start of the test. I had studied steadily for the past two months or so and pretty heavily in the weeks leading up to the test so I wasn't feeling nervous at all. I was as prepared as I was ever gonna be.

Now if you noticed from the picture about the test times, we were given around an hour for each section. For example, we were allotted 50 minutes for the writing/vocabulary section but, curiously enough, we were only given 35 minutes on the actual test! This is because they have a very long and formal procedure before and after the test period. There were three officials in the room with us (who barely talked at all) and the instructions (in Japanese) were given by a pre-recorded voice over a loudspeaker at the front of the room. First, they explained the penalty system which is similar to soccer games where a yellow card means your given a warning and a red card means you're disqualified from the test (they actually had yellow and red cards). Then they handed out our answer sheets and test booklets in order of registration number and then checked our faces against the images on our vouchers. Then there was a random 5-10 minute wait before the voice over the loudspeaker would say "Hajimemasu" which was the signal to begin. At the end of the test the voice would say "Jikan desu" and tell us to put our pencils down. Then the officials would come and collect all of our answer sheets and booklets before we were allowed to leave the room. They repeated this procedure for each of the three sections so it was pretty slow and monotonous. At one point, I laid my head down on my desk to nap while waiting for the test to start and the lady official had to wake me up to check my face against the voucher.

Eventually, it was all done and over with. I felt pretty confident about most of my answers so I'm sure I did fine. During the breaks I talked with the others about the questions which helped to confirm how well I did on the test. It was a long and exhausting day but it was well worth it. Looking back in retrospect, studying for this test has definitely improved my Japanese since when I first arrived. I also believe that regardless of how well I did on the test, I still put in the effort to study and constantly improve myself and I can already see the results in my everyday life. To keep my motivation going, my next goal is to write 2kyu next December. Passing 2kyu is one of the defining marks of being fluent in Japanese and lots of companies recognize a person with JLPT 2kyu to be proficient enough to work in Japan. That's my holy grail for next year.

I'm looking forward to the day I can smash down the language barrier and not have to rely on someone else or a dictionary to navigate my way around this country. Until then, I'll continue to study at my own pace and return back to my normal, steady life in Japan - back to my classroom.

SNOWBOARDING!

It's my absolute favorite thing to do in the entire world - now around the entire world! Mother Nature recently had a big dump of snow so now my town and the entire island of Hokkaido is blanketed in it. It's cold and sucks to drive in but it meant I could finally dust off my board and put it to use, which is precisely what I did a few days ago.

We had another long weekend due to Labour Thanksgiving Day falling on the Sunday so we had Monday off. I'm not sure if we're celebrating Labour Day or Thanksgiving Day (or maybe a kind of "Thank You For Your Labour" day?) but I'm probably guessing Thanksgiving since it falls around the same time as American Thanksgiving. My British friend, Georgie, had the brilliant idea of taking advantage of the long weekend and hitting up a ski hill in the area called Kuro-Dake - which is Japanese for 'Black Mountain' - and invited a bunch of us to go. When I heard about it, there was nothing that was going to stop me from going. I can never pass up a ski trip, especially the first of the season!

On the night before I went, about fourteen of us met up in Georgie's town of Rubeshibe and had a tabe/nomihoudai (all-you-can-eat/drink) at his local izakaya (pub). We all crashed/passed out at his place that night and then woke up early at 6:00am the next morning to try and catch the first lift of the day. We made a quick stop at 7-11 for a breakfast of pastries and onigiri and then caravan'd it to the ski hill. It was snowing pretty heavily that day and the roads were covered with a layer of packed snow so the driving was pretty treacherous at times, especially up in the mountain passes. However - in my experience driving to the mountains - whenever it's really sketchy drive to the hill (meaning it feels like I'm going to slide off the road at any moment), it means that it's going to be a good snowboarding day... and I wasn't disappointed!

Rubeshibe is a town near the base of the Daisetsuzan mountain range that sits directly in the center of Hokkaido. Daisetsuzan has a bunch of mountain peaks that are famous for hiking in the summer and skiing in the winter. From Rubeshibe, we drove about an hour and half to a town called Sounkyo which is an onsen town situated right at the base of Kuro-dake. From there we took a gondola halfway up the mountain to a mountain chalet and then it was a short walk to the chairlift.

What Japan lacks in the size of their ski hills they make up for in the quality of the powder! It is awwweeesome! There was one time in Canada when I went to the Castle Mountain ski resort in southern Alberta with a few friends. I went on the weekend of my 22nd birthday and it had been snowing pretty heavily for a few weeks up until then. There was even an avalanche a week before. While we were driving there it was snowing and completely white out so the drive was slow and (again) pretty sketchy. Once we got there we headed up the peak of the mountain where we were basically in the clouds.. and got treated to the best powder I've ever had in my life! It was knee-deep, fluffy, and felt like floating on clouds. Orgasmic! My point is that snow like that doesn't come often in Canada, but I guess during the winter in Hokkaido it's like that almost every day!

The hill we went to already had a snow base of 150cm after only a few weeks of snowfall, and it was still snowing that day. When we got there we weren't the first people on the hill so we didn't get first powder, but there was still plenty left to go around! It's a fairly small hill with only one, double-chair lift and two or three runs. It takes maybe ten minutes to get up and only a few to get down. A really popular thing to do on this hill is to take the lift to the top and then do a three-hour snowshoe hike to the peak of Kuro-dake to ski back down, off-piste, and through the trees the entire way. We were debating of doing the hike but since it was pretty snowy and windy, we decided not to. Decked out in our matching, orange, Jagermeister bandanas, we just stayed on the hill and played in the powder playground the entire time. As the snow continued to fall, it replaced the snow that had been scraped off so we essentially had unlimited powder all day.

We were at the hill for about six hours with only a few minor mishaps involving slicing my finger on a ski edge, oversized boots, a twisted knee (and afterwards, a wheelchair), MSG allergies, a lost (then found) digital camera in the snow, and a missing pair of glasses. By the end of the day my feet were protesting the abuse I put them through so we took one of the last gondola's down and headed into Sounkyo to soak in its famous onsen. The one we went to was on the 7th floor of a hotel and had a rotenburo (outdoor onsen) that faced the mountain cliff. It's a bit strange sitting naked in a hot pool with snow falling around you... but it's also very awesome. I highly recommend it. After that we headed back to Rubeshibe and went to a ramen restaurant where I had their super-spicy ramen to try and warm up my insides as well.

It's still technically Fall, but winter has gripped the entire island and won't let go until May. It's going to be a long winter of scraping off my car every morning and freezing all the time, but I guess it's a fair trade-off to enjoy the sport I love the most. Who knows, maybe in a month I'll get sick of the snow and want to get away from it. It just so happens that in a month is exactly when I will be leaving it behind for the beaches of Vietnam..

I've been in Japan for almost four months now this is usually around the time that home-sickness kicks in. What better way is there to cure home-sickness than having a little piece of home with you? (Not that I am suffering from home-sickness...just saying...) This piece of home I'm talking about is a sport that Canada has adopted and DOMINATED over the past 40 years - so much so that it's now essentially associated with Canada. I'm talking about.. Curling!

Way out here in the middle of nowhere, Hokkaido is actually home to one of the largest curling centres in all of Japan. In the small town of Tokoro, nestled along the north-eastern coast where winter reigns for most of the year, is where curling took hold. The curling hall in Tokoro and has actually spawned quite a few olympic class curlers who have competed internationally in the Olympics. Pretty good for a town of 5000 people!

My friend Caroline - a 2nd year JET who is also conveniently Canadian - lives in Tokoro and was naturally drawn to the sport as well. She used to play back home so it was no wonder that she'd be taking up the sport here as well (and even brought her curling shoes from home o_O). Last year she made up a curling team with some other JET's in the area (mostly Alaskans.. but they're basically Canadian) and competed in a few tournaments that were held throughout the winter. They were called 'Team English'. Quite a few of those JET's had left for home this year so the team was basically down to one person - herself. When the new batch of genki JET's came in early September, she quickly went to work and started recruiting for her curling team. Once I heard that she was looking for people to make a new curling team, I told her I was definitely in. I'm no newbie to curling believe it or not. By the end of her recruitment spree we had a new team of six people, three of us being Canadians (the highest concentration of Canadians on the team to date) with the others being an Alaskan, a New Zealander and an Irish. [Insert Joke Here]

Once the reality of winter hit and the snow began to fall, the curling season officially started. Caroline entered our brand-new Team English into a round-robin tournament that's held every year. This was no small tournament either - in a town of 5000 people there were 37 teams competing! Just like the Futsal tournament however, there were four leagues depending on level of competitiveness. We were in the fun, "Smiley", D-League. Our "first" official game was actually a few weeks ago but, due to scheduling problems for most of us, we weren't able to make that game and had to take an automatic forfeit. Our second official game (but actual first game for us) was last night. We were scheduled for two back-to-back games with the first game pitting us against a vicious pack of little Junior High School girls and our second game against a team of teachers from the same school. Our game started at 7:00pm so we arrived a little early to get ready. With Caroline being the only surviving member of last year's Team English (and the most experienced), she was skip, I was vice-skip, Chris was second and the Alaskan, Sean, was first. We started off the match by seeing who would go first using the method that settles absolutely any and every dispute in Japan - by Rock, Paper, Scissors. Their 'Rock' beat our 'Scissors' so we were the first team to throw.

I won't bore you with the details... but we smoked those girls 9-4! They were playing really well but with a few lucky throws and strikes, we won two 'ends' with four rocks in the house which put us way in the lead. I took a picture of our rocks (we were red) during one of our ends (a round of curling is called an end). For our second game we rotated players and Caroline opted out so I became skip while the other two moved up and our new player, June, became the first. This game didn't go quite as well as our first game and we lost 6-2. We were playing on a different rink than our first game so the ice was a bit different and a lot of our throws were too strong (yeah I know.. excuses, excuses ;) It may have been a good thing that we didn't win because if we did, we would've had to go back there tonight to play in the semi-finals. After playing for a solid three hours, we were Curling'd out!

Our next game is sometime next month before Christmas and we're hoping to get some team hoodies made so we look more official. I think between Curling, Futsal, and now that snowboarding season has started, I'll have enough to do to keep me busy throughout the winter!

A couple weeks ago my friend, Eoghan, called me up and asked me what I was doing this past Sunday. He was putting together a team to play in an upcoming Futsal tournament and needed a few players. Futsal - Portuguese for "futebol de salão" - is basically indoor soccer played with a smaller field and slightly heavier ball. I had never heard of Futsal before but after he explained it to me, I told him I was definitely in. I hadn't played soccer in years but I love playing it. Our name? TEAM RAMROD!!

The tournament was two weeks from when he called so we decided it would prrrooobably be a good idea to have at least one practice before then. He told me they were having one the following Friday so I said I'd show up. When Friday came around I took off right after work and drove the hour to Kitami for the practice. It was at a school gym where a group of regular guys come to play recreational futsal. Eoghan and another team member, Ben, usually go and play with them every few weeks. There were six members on our team: Eoghan, Ben, Justin, Me, Ben's Japanese friend Daisuke and his friend Take. Daisuke and Take were part of the staff for the tournament so they were the ones who told us about it. During the practice we thought we would be practicing together as a team, but before we knew it we were split up randomly among three teams and pitted against each other. We wouldn't be able to play together but I would still be able to learn the basics.

Futsal only allows five people on the field at a time - including the goalkeeper - and during our practice we rotated players after each goal. Once a goal was scored the goalkeeper would rotate off, another would go into net to be goalkeeper and a substitute would come onto the field. We played two hours of King's court where winner stayed on and the matches were five minutes each or until a team scored two goals. The goal posts were made up of two pylons with big padding propped up behind to stop the ball. The soccer ball is made deliberately heavier in order to discourage raising the ball above waist height and encourages players to focus more on passing. The field consists of lines so the ball can go out of boundaries. When this happens the opposing team simply sets it on the line where it went out and kicks it back in. It was fun and refreshing to play after so long and the two hours flew by. We definitely weren't quite as good as the other Japanese regulars, the best players probably being two junior high students! This ended up being the only practice we would get before the tournament.

We had to be at the Centre where the tournament was held by 8:30am on Sunday morning. It would turn out to be an early start to a long day. We thought it would be elimination style where the losing teams are out right away. With our makeshift team, we figured we'd be out of there by noon! When we got there, we looked at the tournament schedule and realized we actually had three games that day at 11:15am, 2:30pm and 4:40pm. There were also four different leagues with 4-5 teams competing that day with the A League being the pros, B League being the amateurs and so on. We were in the D League - the "fun" league - or as Daisuke put it, "D is smile, A is not smile". We were playing against teams like "Scratch" and "Fuzz" so with a name like "Ramrod", we fit in perfectly.

After checking the schedule we claimed some seats in the bleachers overlooking the gym and sat down to wait. While we were looking around, it dawned on us how serious this tournament was. Literally everyone had track suits, soccer shoes, matching uniforms and jersey numbers! We had a motley collection of uniform colors (we had agreed on black but Eoghan showed up entirely in red) but even our uniforms weren't enough. We learned (while we were there) that we had to have knee-high socks, shin pads and shorts without extra pockets. Fortunately, Daisuke had plenty of extras to go around so he lent us the socks, shin pads and even lent me a proper pair of shorts (mine had extra pockets). The other thing we noticed with this tournament is that the goals were proper 3x2m soccer nets and each team had an actual goalkeeper with different colored jersey and gloves. Each match consisted of two, 13-minute halves so we decided we would rotate goalies for each half. No one was particularly keen on being goalie so I said I would take the first shift.

Our first game was against Team Scratch which was a fairly young team around our age. We were the first match of the D League so we weren't sure how this team compared after watching numerous A and B League matches (including an insane kick from the corner of the net where the player was two feet off the ground, horizontal, doing a scissor kick and managed to score a goal... in a pink uniform! It was the most amazing goal I've ever seen). The first half of the game went pretty well. Luckily Team Scratch were at the same level as us so we were able to hold our own. I managed to make a few good (lucky?) saves and we kept the ball in their zone most of the time. Unfortunately, by the end of the game we weren't able to pull out a big win and lost 3-1. We were pretty pumped about our performance though and vowed we would do better in the second round.

We had over two hours to kill before our next match so four of us (minus Daisuke and Take who had to referee the other games) plus another JET who came out for the day to cheer us on, June, went out to get lunch. We drove into downtown to a Mos Burger, the Japanese equivalent of fast-food. We gorged ourselves on mos burgers, chili burgers and fries (some of us more than others) for more than an hour before deciding to head back. When we got to the parking lot we realized someone forgot to close Ben's car door after they got out (*cough*Justin*cough) and it had been completely open the entire time we were at Mos Burger! This being Japan, of course nothing was stolen, even though his iPod was in complete view. Also of course - this being Japan - no one took it upon themselves to close his door either!

We got back to the Centre with half an hour to spare before gearing up for our second game of the day. This team was older than the first one and were a lot bigger and more scruffy (I love that word). I liked being goalkeeper from the first game so I gladly volunteered to stay in again for this game. I had to wear a different color jersey than the rest of the team so Daisuke, with his staff connections, went into the back room and got me a pink #9 pinny. Nice! We were playing really well this game and managed to outplay them for the most part. Our one and only goal was by Daisuke off a brilliant rebound from a penalty shot. Even though we were playing a little better, the other team were also playing really well and we ended up losing this game 4-1. If anything, we were pumped to do even better in our last round.

Right after this, Justin had to leave us to go to his viola practice. There was only an hour to go until our third and final game so I quickly dropped him off and made it back with time to spare. I had rushed for nothing though because they were running late and there was still an entire game before we were up. Our team member, Take, had to go and ref the next game so he asked me to switch my shorts with his. He had to have only pure black for his referee uniform and the pair I was wearing was (coincidentally) the pair that Daisuke had lent me. We discretely switched my pair of shorts and his #11 shorts up in the bleachers and then he went off to ref the game directly before ours.

With Justin's leaving we were down to five men, the bare minimum, which meant that we all had to play for the entire next match. When the game before us finished I wished the guys a "Ganbatte" and volunteered myself into net again. Just before we were lining up to play, Take realized that I was still wearing his shorts so he motioned frantically to me and said "change, change". He wanted to switch shorts again because I was wearing his number. I said, "What? Now?!" We were standing in the middle of the gym with the other team gearing up to go and tons of players watching from the bleachers. I also had my bulky goalie gloves on too so I wasn't exactly keen on stripping down in public. I asked him if it was alright if we kept on the shorts we had (which is, you know, what anyone would prefer) but he kept insisting. The other team was ready to go and the coaches were waiting for our team to line up so I said "Alright, fuck it", took off my gloves, dropped my shorts (while he simultaneously did the same) and tried to minimize the amount of time I had to stand there in the middle of the gym in my boxers. After (what seemed) a long time, we managed to switch shorts and then were finally ready to go.

Our last opponent of the day was Team Fuzz, the only team we played that had proper uniforms. The match started out evenly with the ball going back and forth between both sides. They were the first to score a goal off a sharp angled kick from the corner. We rallied and pushed back but we weren't able to get the ball into their net. They scored on us a second time... then a third... then a fourth. These guys were quite a bit better than the other teams. By the time the first half was over we were all exhausted and were glad to hear the whistle. The other team realized we were getting tired and that I wasn't as good as they thought. During the halftime they were talking and I was pretty sure their game strategy was "Kick the ball in the direction of their net and it will go in," which is pretty much what went down by then. Soon after the start of the second half we gave it our best and tried to score at least one goal but their keeper was too good. They scored on us a fifth and sixth time and by this point the game was pretty much decided.

At one point when I had the ball in hand (after it went out behind the net), my teammate told me to kick the ball so I punted it towards a player on the other side of the court. This earned me a whistle from the ref because I forgot that you aren't allowed to punt the ball. They gave me the ball back so before kicking it again I set it on the ground, which also earned me a whistle from the ref and.. a yellow card! I was being given a penalty! I learned later that this isn't allowed in Futsal either - BUT - dropping the ball and kicking it after one bounce is allowed. I would call that splitting hairs, no? The two referees conferred (probably after looking at our empty bench and the score) and decided to be lenient. They gave me the ball back and said to play on. I guess it's better to learn the rules before a tournament, huh. Whoops!

We ended up losing 9-0 but, hey, at least it didn't go into the double digits! We didn't feel too terrible about losing this badly because we literally had no practice as a team (other than our previous two games). It was also my first time in net. We still had a lot of fun though since we didn't have that high of expectations in the first place. But, playing in this tournament made us all want to do even better in the next one. This tournament is held four times a year and the next one is in March so we're hoping Team Ramrod will make another showing in three months. I really want to learn how to goaltend properly now too so I may have to invest in a pair of shoes and gloves. There's a practice this Saturday that I'm hoping to go to and one every following Saturday so maybe after a bit (or a lot) of practice, here's hoping we do better in the next tournament!

Yes, the title does not lie. It does exist. I was shopping at the grocery store when there, amongst the Pocky and Crunky bars, I saw its shiny box calling to me. It was so strange, yet familiar, that I had the sudden urge to buy it. Behold, the McFlurry Kit Kat:


And to prove it's actually McFlurry flavored, the McDonalds logo is displayed prominently on the back. I haven't tried it yet.. and honestly I'm a little afraid to. I don't know why but Japan seems to love Kit Kat, or maybe it's the other way around? According to Wikipedia, only in Japan can you get these flavors:

- Kit Kat Original
- Kit Kat Cacao 61%
- Kit Kat Sakura (Cherry blossom)
- Kit Kat Cacao 72%
- Kit Kat White
- Kit Kat Iced Tea
- Kit Kat Caramel and Salt
- Kit Kat Kinako (soybean flour)
- Kit Kat Wa Guri (Chestnut flavour)
- Kit Kat Green Tea
- Kit Kat Apple
- Kit Kat Orange
- Kit Kat Café Latte with Hokkaidō Milk
- Kit Kat Kiwifruit
- Kit Kat Strawberry
- Kit Kat Peach
- Kit Kat Gold
- Kit Kat Cantaloupe
- Kit Kat Triple Berry
- Kit Kat Mango
- Kit Kat Azuki (Red Bean)
- Kit Kat Green Grape Muscat
- Kit Kat Caramel Macchiato
- Kit Kat Zunda - mashed edamame beans (only in Yamagata prefecture)
- Kit Kat Hascapp - Hokkaido blueberry (only in Hokkaido prefecture)

Quite the odd mix, eh. I think I'll make it my new goal to collect them all while I'm here... like delicious, chocolatey Pokemon. I've only tried five of these flavors so far, my favorite being Green Tea. My friend got it in Japan and brought some back to Canada for me to try. Ever since I've arrived, I've been looking everywhere for them! I learned later that they're seasonal and are only sold in the springtime. Ah well, I guess I'll just have to wait and make do with my Caramel Macchiato in the meantime.

Edit: I just tried it.. and they should just keep this flavor to McFlurries..