Aussie Day/phone/Ohh the pain...what a weekend

Most of you probably know that I am surrounded by Austrailans in Japan. And I am getting a quick lesson about Australia. If you did not know this (which I am guessing most of you do not), Friday January 26th was Australia Day. Aussie Day basically celebrates some guy sailing into the Sydney Harbor (the American version of the significance of that day :). Anyways, it is this HUGE celebration in Australia where they have a barbie (I am picking up the aussie lingo) at the beach and get very drunk (sounds a lot like Fourth of July :) It also just happened to be the day we celebrated Charissa's birthday at Outback Steakhouse (the best hamburger in Nagoya) with all the KIS coworkers-which always is a good time. After Outback we went to the Australian Bar in Nagoya called Red Rock, and because it was Australia Day was filled with Aussies. I felt like a major outcast :) They were playing Aussie music and movies all night.
But I have to say I have never seen a bar just completly stop everything that was going on because a song came up. It was incredible. One moment there was lots of chatting, dancing and drinking and the next moment all I could hear were a hundred voices shouting out "Waltzing Matlida" Who knew a song about a homeless man commiting suicide because he stole a sheep could be sooo popular-those crazy Aussies :)-I have to say I love that song-especially after that night. Whenever I hear "Waltzing Matilda" Japan will always pop into my head.

Aussies Singing "Waltzing Matilda"

I went downhill skiing on Sunday. The first time I have skied in 10 years, and boy am I in pain. I can't lift my arms above my shoulders, my bum is very sore, there is a nice shiny bruise on my knee and my nose hurts because I slammed my pole into it as I was falling down the mountian. But, no pain, no gain...right??

I went with my roomate Lizzie, her boyfriend and got a lift from one of Lizzie's students parents to this really nice ski resort in Gifu Prefecture called Dynaland Ski Resort about 2 hours away from Nagoya. It was the perfect ski day, and absolutely beautiful. It was snowing, the first snowfall in a month.

Dynaland at 7:30 am (meaning 5am wake up call)

The first two runs were a bit rusty-I was basically sliding down the mountian sideways, but after a couple hundred falls on my butt I was starting to get my ski legs back. It reminded me of how much i used to love downhill skiing. They are pro skiers so there was no gradual entry, I was flung full force into it from the begining. I even went down a black diamond, although about 3/4 of it was on my butt or stomach and they did it two times in the amount of time it took me to do it once. I had some great crashes that I wished I could have seen-especially down that black diamond :)

The infamous black diamond-sure it doesn't look too bad in this picture but when you are up there looking down, its not soo pretty

Dyland Ski resort-Black Diamond in background

Some of the beautiful scenery on the way home

Ok, I am off to soak my muscles in a nice Japanese bath-sure feels like the first week of rowing practice-ugh Next weekend I am going to a snow festival and ski again. So stay tuned for that report, I will get back to y'all soon :)

P.S. I finally got my cell phone-only took 6 months. If you want the number email me, I can recieve and call internationally from it.