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Got paid to ski today. The schools in my area all have compulsory ski classes so I got to tag along and ski for half the day. Awwright.
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Rant (1/25/2012)
Feeling pretty good about everything right now.
Work is good, I feel like I’ve got a good relationship going on with my students (even at my “bad” school) and even though I am still not doing too much, I feel like I am doing a decent job as an ALT.
Winter is still shitty, but I am starting to get really into skiing, so that should be one way to keep myself entertained (and in shape, hopefully.)
I haven’t been seeing too many people, but I feel really good about the people that I do see.
Financially, I am just barely getting by (as usual), hopefully things get better once I stop having to spend so much on kerosene (aka, staying warm.) Well it probably won’t make a difference actually, but I certainly have enough to live comfortably.
Overall, life is pretty decent right now, even though looking at the big picture, I’m probably not going anywhere. I also decided that I will recontract, meaning I will be in my little town in Hokkaido until August 2013.
Not much of a rant but more of an update, but there it is.
Also, I added a page for browsing my blog with tags, if you are into that kind of stuff.
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Coffee & Bread Vita
I actually mentioned this shop briefly a while back, but here’s a more detailed post on it.
Among the hills of Toyooka in the outskirts of Yoichi (the town next to where I live) there’s a little coffee shop called Vita. Toyooka is actually just as close to Niki as it is to central Yoichi. I found out about this coffee shop on the internet and I told myself there couldn’t possibly be a coffee shop there. Here’s what it looks like on Google Maps:
I thought it’d at least make a good drive, so I decided to check the spot out, and to my disbelief, there it was: (ps the photo is from my previous visit, thus the lack of snow)
The inside looks like this:
The coffee is good. The master of the shop is originally from Kobe and handles all the coffee himself (I don’t think the shop gets too busy in the first place though.) The coffee is brewed using the humble, if a little unfashionable, pour-over method with a paper filter and cone, rather than with a flannel drip that seems to be the trend at most coffee shops like this in Japan.
Overall a very nice coffee shop. It was kind of awkward being the only customers there since the shop is pretty open, but you get used to it pretty quickly and the rural setting is really nice (which reminds me, I need to write about Takano Coffee in Niseko.)
It’s nice to have such a nice place just a 10 minute drive from the house. Hokkaido continues to impress me with its great cafe scene.
(Vita also sells bread from a bakery just down the road. Website)
