"One Pound Fifty an hour..."

My face glows slightly from a light sunburn, my whole body has that comfortable ache of lots of exercise and I am just about ready to fall into my beautiful futon ready for my usual ridiculously early wake-up for school tomorrow. But before I do and in the face of some not so positive accounts of life here I want to acknowledge how out and out lucky I am to be here.

Japan is beautiful and interesting and I am out of this world lucky to have the chance to be here. It is so easy with language school to forget how stunning it all is.

After our enormous test last week and in light of the fact that our sempai (second years) will be finishing the program in under a month we organised a skiing weekend. From the night bus on friday, through to the hot springs and two days of perfect weather we skiied our little hearts off under the towering majesty of nearby mountains. I couldn't have asked for a better weekend. Japanese ski resorts are wholesome and as far as I can tell identically ugly, straight forward and non pretentious. Stupid, luminous flared sports gear and cute japanese girls in over baggy oh so stylish snow board gear are the order of the day. They are a strange mix of the basic, unadulterated focus on simple pleasures; no over priced chalet meals here, no real 'nightlife', other than a few beers and a hot bath, the ninety eighties ski gear shell suits shine their overbearing way across the slopes. Yet amongst the Tokyoites, the obsession with 'looking cool (or suguoy)' remains; full length mirrors great you at the start of each lift, I squeeze and 'sumimasen' my way through the ladies toilets to reach the sink, only to find hoards of japanese women fixing their make-up and hair for the slopes. Miso soup and natto (femented soya beans) for breakfast, baths that scold you clean in the evenings and fresh, bright awesome skiing all day long. I cannot even really describe what a luxurious and wholly life renewing time it was. I am only sorry the season is over, or I think my entire Daiwa budget would be blown on hauling myself up to the mountains every weekend.

One dawerite has recently figured out that this scholarship is paying us one pound fifty an hour just to exist.We shrieked and giggled in pleased wonder as we hauled ourselves across ski lifts and over mountain ranges. We knelt back on tatami mats, sipping green tea and declared, 'just remember we're being paid one pound fifty an hour to do this.." And when I think of it that way, my life is really pretty sweet.