Happy and exhausted...

Sapporo Snow Festival...kittens....Couch Surfing guests and party......work....

Too much activity...but all good.

Sapporo's in the middle of a weekend blizzard and the big Snow Festival, a million visitors are downtown enjoying snow sculptures, we were down there last night in Susukino with Sebastien, the young German guy who is Couch Surfing with us this weekend. Couch Surfing hosts and guests from all over the Sapporo area all got together to have an izakiya dinner, and then enjoy the ice sculptures...and finally karaoke till midnight. I LOVE Couch Surfing. Have met some great people through it. Tonight an American woman is coming to stay 2 nights. They don't actually stay with us anymore of course (too much a shock for Okaasan to find random foreigners in the kitchen or bathroom!!) - they stay at my English school...but we try to hang out a bit with people and show them our city.

And kittens.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....so so sweet and entertaining, and funny, and amazed by everything. And needy. And noisy.
Yujiro's cat climbing jungle gym arrived. It's huge and blue and white with fur...NOT the kind of thing I would choose to have in my living room. But he's sweet for getting it. And Chichi and Popo (these terrible names are sticking) love it of course.

Okaasan knows about the kittens. She was in the hallway  when the cat gym arrived in a large box.
"What's this?" she said to Yujiro.
"A cat climbing toy" he said.
"Cat? Who has a cat? We don't have a cat!"
"Yes we do, Amanda and I have TWO cats upstairs now..."

(Interestingly she does remember that we don't have a cat anymore....)

Sometime we'll introduce Okaasan and the kittens. But no rush. They aren't meant to have much contact. Okaasan doesn't dislike cats, but she finds the unpredictable movements etc all a bit much and we hope to keep them apart. Yujiro has done a wonderful job in blocking off the gaps n the baby gate which is at the top of the stairs - we hope it'll keep Chichi and Popo and Okaasan apart.

Meanwhile...random kittens pictures...