Hey everyone that reads this! (Don't know who, but if you do, let me know you do by leaving a comment please)

First thing's first. We are now up to 1.5m of untouched snow in the fields, but elsewhere there are mounds of the stuff up to 6m high.

Anyways. This week has been fun. Sort of. This week I just feel like I've been sitting in the back of my mind, watching myself do all the usual work. Taking part of course, but this week I've actually stopped and paid attention to the differences between cultures here.

Well before I get into it, I'll not pretend that I'm the only foreigner that's been here. I do live with Steve, and there have been voluteers doing the exact same thing as me for 15 years.

Anyways, The main thing is that, from my point of view, they are a much better people than any other I know. In Toya anyways. They're kind, accepting and accomodating. There is no violence and everyone knows you and talks to you, whether in English, broken English or Japanese! It's such a community spirit! During the day we work and teach people. But after that it's completely different. We become one of the people so to speak. We go out together, we eat together and we get drunk together! We sing together, we dance together and ski together! It's so fulfilling! They adapt so quickly to foreigners here, and everyone of them is different! Volunteer, that is.

For example, Our rep, Yuko. She is one of the best people in the world! This week when we were out clearing snow, Yuko walked by, as she normally does because she goes for little walks every day. Anyways, we had the opening usual conversation that we have with everyone here. 'Lot's of snow, isn't there?' 'Yea, I know' 'how was work today' 'The usual, tiring' ... Then we got on to the topic of Sleds. Because of the huges mounds of snow. And we said that we'd love some sleds right now! It seems so much fun! So what did yuko do that same day? Yup, that's right. She brought us two of them! Last years volunteers, were completely different. One was a raving homosexual, and I mean raving! And one was a shy boy (apparently). The year before that, were relatively quiet and the year before that one of them was like Us two! It just makes me feel so good!

The only problem I feel that I have here is the loss of communication. Two people speak fluent Japanese, a few speak advanced and some, basic. But I'm not really fussed with making friends with the older generation. Don't get me wrong, I love everyone up here. It just makes me feel out of place constantly having friends that are my mothers age! I want to speak more freely with the younger generation! Which is why I'm teaching them English, but I'd like to make them feel more comfortable by speaking with them in their own language!

It's just getting so frustrating at the minute! I know basic Japanese, but not just enough to hold a proper conversation! Which makes communicating freely a big big problem! I'm getting friendly with some of the high school pupils, but it's just not the same, not having... proper friends? No that's not right. They are proper friends, but I just don't know how they feel when I talk to them. Which makes me feel so awkward!

But I'm sticking at learning the language, and I mail all my friends here in 'Japanese' lol, so hopefully soon I'll improve quickly. I'm talking with alot of people. And making many friends who speak english in various fluencies! Who in turn help me with Japanese! Not to mention that when I return to Britain, I'll be going to Uni to study Japanese. So I'll hopefully be much more fluent then!

Crap. I kinda went off on a tangent there. Oh well, what can you do!

If you read this one, let me know what you think. Please leave a comment.

Until monday!

Ryan x