Tsugaike Kogen Ski Trip!

The International Students Office organised a tour for the international students of the Univeristy of Tokyo to Tsugaike Kogen. Leaving on the evening 16th Feb for two days of skiing then on monday 19th Feb a visit to a rural Japanese Junior High School.

I was one of the lucky 30 people (the trip is always heavily subsribed...I probably only got in because I'm from england and I think they were making an effort to have a mix of nationalities...)

Right, here are some photos of the ski trip that i just went on...it was amazing! I love it! have to go again...anyway I'll try and fill in more details when I'm feeling less ill (I've managed to catch a cold from faffing about in the snow...)

Group B



Group E

The ski lift up to 'Champion'

At the top of 'Champion'...and yes it was VERY steep... that's why the hill suddenly dissapears behind us....

Me in a kimono! They really pull hard on that belt around the wasit when they put it on. Anyway I think the other girls kimono is much prettier than mine.

The Group Photo at the end of the trip, outside the univeristy ski lodge where we stayed...

on the way from the ski lodge to the junior high school there was lots of lovely snow covered scenery...

The view from the balcony of the school...nice isn't it?

Another almightly group photo...but this time out side the school...and some school kids are with us too...

ahhhh.... the typical japanese pose!

some more lovely scenery...

Chichibu

Another 'study' trip organised by the University of Tokyo for their international students! hurrah!

We had about a 2hour drive from Tokyo to Chichibu, a tiny little town sitting on a little plain surrounded by little hills (mountains by UK standards...)

First stop was making soba noodles...which was very energetic...



This involved jumping up and down on then dough, which was great fun. Unfortunately, i think our group was a little over enthusiastic and managed to break 3 of the plastic bags that we put the dough in before jumping up and down on it...





After the Soba making we crossed over the road to the paper making workshop to make traditional Japanese paper 'Washi'...

That's me trying to make washi...not that you can really tell because my stupid hair is in the way...

...actually it's a stunt double...





The outer layer of the wood is used to get the long wood fibers for washi, here being hung out to dry.



ahh the best part of making soba...is eating soba... with nice tenpura veggies...we actually ate the soba we made.




We then got back into the coach and headed to the river...i'm assuming it's Chichibu river...and had a big group photo and scuttled about on the rocks for a bit...



Me and Tatiana on some rock.


Then back on the coach...whence upon a had a nice little nap and then neatly woke up at the next stop where we went to Chichibu festival hall to look at the very ornate wooden carts that they celebrate the Chichibu festival with on the 3rd of December.


After this we walked on to find another little museam...unfortunately everything was in Japanese so we kinda lost out on the cultural significance of it all.

Then a long bus ride home...

there is also some form of PDF slide show available at the website below...
http://gwp01.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/kouryu/students/CultureHistory.htm
where you can play a game of spot the wayway...