TEAM 23

The company I work for has many different circles that look after your spare time interests (that is to say for the employees that have any time off from work). These include everything from sport circles like soccer and aikido, to more traditional circles like tea ceremony and shodo (calligraphy). They also have a mystery circle, which is still unknown what they actually do. I have joined the shodo circle, the swimming circle and the snowboarding circle, called TEAM 23. Two weekends ago it was time for the first gathering for the winter for TEAM 23. We started at 3.30 AM (!) and drove all the way to Hakuba and back in one day (four and a half hours one way)! Since I don’t have a drivers licence valid in Japan I could sleep in the car, but I felt sorry for the guys driving, but they seemed to be fine. We had a great day together and Hakuba offered us blue birds and beautiful views the whole day. They were a very fun team to ride with, playing around in the snow and doing all sorts of crazy things (unfortunately including some broken bones, but not mine this time). Most of the team members were complaining that they didn’t speak enough English (as many often do, but most of the time it’s just a lack of courage), and sometimes we had difficulties understanding each other. I was happy to be there without the two other Swedish guys at the company, because then it becomes easier for them to speak Japanese instead, thus excluding me from the conversation. And it seemed like they actually enjoyed practising their English, they were very interested students. In exchange they taught me some Japanese words. My favourite was sarra sarra, which means powder (and also soft). I hope I’ll be able to join them for their next snowboarding adventure.

To see the pictures from the trip, click here!