Camping!

Camping trip in Hokkaido!!!

…Ok, not going to lie, I wasn’t at all excited about it since I hate bugs/spiders/foxes that carry scary diseases/typhoons in the vicinity that bring gratuitous amounts of rain/sleeping in a skinny sleeping bag that doesn’t let me move my legs/etc… but it really turned out to be a fun weekend.

The place we went to is called Akan, which is only about an hour away from here by car. The party didn’t start until Saturday, but the people I was carpooling with wanted to go on Friday. Unfortunately, as I said, there was a typhoon somewhere close enough to our area to cause it to rain the entire day, so even when the carpool group came by after work to pick me up it was still wet and disgusting outside. And lakes apparently form in my driveway when that happens, which blows since they opened the trunk to let me put my stuff in and the mats we would be sleeping on dropped right into a muddy puddle. Ah well. Everything was going to be wet soon enough anyway with all that rain.

Before we left, though, everyone wanted to grab a bite to eat. There’s this burger place here in town that's pretty well known amongst the foreigners as having darn good burgers (and it’s close enough that I pass it on my bike everyday to and from work), so we went there to eat. The burgers were pretty big and quite tasty, and the guy who works there was super friendly and entertaining (he immediately picked me out of the gaijin group as that person that goes by on my bike everyday). After admiring the stickers all over the restaurant and stuffing our faces with giant burgers, we hit the road for Akan. And of course, since it was already after 6, it was pitch dark. I’m not looking forward to winter when I have to go home in the dark at 4…

After only mildly losing our way and slowly driving through some vicious fog we safely arrived at the campsite. We were the first people there. In fact, we were the only people there for the next several hours. This was a good thing since it took us at least an hour of fiddling with poles and stakes and giant yet hidden puddles in the dark before we could actually get a sturdy tent set up. It was nice to not have anyone else know about our group failure. Until of course I write about it on the internet.

After awkwardly setting up our tent and getting our luggage and sleeping arrangements all in order, we decided to go walk around the nearby town. Turns out the nearby town has a shopping area modeled after Ainu culture (the Ainu being the native people of Hokkaido before the Japanese settled here). Unfortunately because it was late a lot of the shops were getting ready to close, but it was really cool to stumble upon that nice surprise while it was all lit up at night. A number of the shopkeepers had their pets there with them, so a few people were walking their dogs while others were just letting them chill out in the store fronts… Next to giant stuffed bears and things so that you jumped a little when one of the furry things in the store actually started to move.

The town also has a number of hotels with onsens (hot spring baths), so there were a lot of other tourists walking around in their robes and wooden sandals enjoying the atmosphere. That was pretty cool too.

After grabbing some ice cream at a nearby conbini we headed back to the campground to relax for a bit after our battle with the tent. But then again around this time some other people started showing up and began to battle with their tents, so it wasn’t really that quiet or relaxing. Not that it was easy to sleep anyway – I didn’t want to bring one of my nice pillows camping so I brought along one of those plastic bead pillow things that I found in my closet. Everyone enjoyed making fun of my bean pillow, but really I didn’t love it enough to try to defend it against the insults… They’re really not comfortable.

Somehow with that nasty pillow that should never have been created and my coffin-shaped sleeping bag I got to sleep and woke up the next day ready for some more camping fun. Apparently though I didn’t sleep too awfully well (big surprise) since even though it was Saturday I woke up rather early with one of my tent mates. Since everyone else in the vicinity had arrived after we went to bed no one else was really awake at the time, so we took that opportunity to use the foot onsen while it was vacant. It was pretty nice. It was kind of like a gazebo that had a picnic table-type thing in the middle with places to sit all around it while your feet soaked in hot spring water. And boy, was it hot. I don't know how people get entirely into onsens if they’re that hot. After soaking my feet for an hour or so it looked like I had pink socks on since my skin went red from the heat.

People then started moving about and we headed back to eat some of the food we packed for breakfast (even more conbini food). After that we then headed back into the town to take advantage of the shops while they were actually open.





It’s a pretty small shopping area, but it was pretty neat with lots of cheesy yet cool souveneirs. There were some cats on a leash laying in the shade outside one store that we got to pet for a while, and there were also what appeared to be college students carving some totem poles there too. The shops had all sorts of neat things carved out of wood, and one store even had a number of life-sized wooden statues in the basement we got to go look at.



I think the coolest thing I got was this cheap little piece of bamboo with a couple of strings attached to it called a mukkuri. It’s an Ainu instrument that’ a kind of mouth harp. The shopkeeper had one out and demonstrated how it works to us, and it was so cool I had to get one. I didn’t take it out of the package until I got home, but I’m sure my neighbors are tired of hearing me play with it already. If only I had A/C I could shut the windows and save them the pain of listening me.

Around this time some of the people I hung out with in Sapporo arrived, so we met up with them and set off to do more activities. The first stop was lunch, where we went to an Ainu restaurant. I love donburimono (food served in a bowl over rice so the sauce or whatever seeps into the rice too), so I had the yukku don - yukku apparently being the Ainu word for deer. It was pretty tasty, albeit a tad chewy.



After this we set off on a lake cruise to see the scenery. Everything – the water included – was a very brilliant shade of green, so it was really nice to get to cruise around and see everything with the wind keeping us cool (the weather was beautiful on Saturday, just a bit hot in the afternoon).





About halfway into it they briefly dropped us off on a little island where they built a marimo center. Marimo are these algae balls that grow in that lake (which is why the lake’s so green), so it’s become the town’s and even Hokkaido’s mascot. They sell stuff with the happy green Hokkaido marimo mascot on it all over the place.



About this time it was getting later in the day, so we started heading back to the campground for the free dinner one of the Hokkaido JETs was preparing for everyone. It quickly got dark out, so we all stuffed our faces with hot dogs, salads, and falafels at a picnic table while huddled around a single mosquito candle to illuminate our dinner. The light from the area where the food was being prepared only carried so far…

After dinner a couple more party people wanted to head back out to the conbini after this for drinks, but I was yet again interested in the ice cream (Hokkaido caramel ice cream is amazing, by the way). While walking back one of the girls who hadn’t had a chance to look at the shops earlier convinced me to hang back with her, which was neat since we then got to see a big procession of people carrying torches led by a van blaring out Ainu music that walked by. We weren’t able to get out of the shop fast enough to go grab some torches and join in, but it was still cool to see.





By the time we got back to camp many people had already clearly had a few to drink, and teams of people were playing bizarre party games. At least I got to watch the suika wari, a popular summer game in which you are blindfolded and have to break a watermelon open with a wooden sword. Kind of like a piñata, only the food you’re trying to get to actually gets dirt in it. Hm.

We roasted some marshmallows over a little yakiniku grill (no campfires allowed) and got to look on as a Japanese guy discovered in absolute amazement that toasted marshmallows are indeed better than plain ones. I think we foreigners and our crazy delicious s’mores blew his mind.

To raise money for the English camp the Hokkaido JET organization here organizes for students, there was a cake auction that night at the foot onsen. It was rather entertaining watching a bunch of tipsy, gung ho people bid up to $150 on a cake for the sake of the students. At least the program got some nice money from it… and many happy people got to victoriously snarf their expensive cakes (pies, cookies, whatever).

With all those people with food around though we started attracting foxes, so I saw my first Hokkaido fox that night. A number of people say they see them all the time while driving around, but I had yet to have the pleasure. As long as they stay away from me it’s kind of cool getting to see them. They need to stay away from my food too, though. They stole one girl’s breakfast for the next morning.

After some card games with a couple people I once again hit the hay with my bead pillow and semi-slept through the night. The following day wasn’t too eventful, as it was a grey, drizzly Sunday and a lot of us just wanted to get back home to shower/do laundry/sleep in a real bed. We took our time taking down the tent and packing up, but we left after all that was done.

However, on the way back we stumbled upon some sort of concert thing going on, so we quickly stopped there, had some fried festival type food, and listened to a couple rock bands. The crowd was pretty small, but one guy in a wheelchair was really getting into it, head banging along and occasionally swinging his hot pink fanny pack in the air to the music.

We all got our picture taken with one band from my city (in which the drummer wore a long blond wig and the guitarist enjoyed cowboy attire), and then finished the drive back to the city. We briefly stopped at a KFC for lunch where I got a triple sesame seed chicken sandwich, but after that I was home and free to do laundry and clean the house. And so ended my first camping trip in Hokkaido. Though if there’s going to be more I might need a better sleeping bag… and pillow…

And now I’m back in the weekly routine of going from school to school yelling over-enunciated English at people. However, classes keep getting cancelled on me. My junior high went to see an opera on Wednesday, so I had no classes then, and they have a marathon on Friday so I won’t have classes then either unless the weather is bad. And now for some reason at my busiest elementary school I was suddenly told that I had two class periods to sit around and do nothing since everyone apparently went… somewhere. I’m a wee bit left out of the loop. Oh well.

At least it’s finally starting to cool down. In fact, it’s been hard getting out of bed in the morning since it’s almost cold at that time (with the windows shut even!). I’m not complaining though. I’m not looking forward to all the snow, but I’m ready for the cold. Though I really am enjoying being able to ride my bike in a place that has sidewalks again… in the evenings when the weather is great and I can admire the mountains, onion fields, and kids I drive by that go “WAH, it can speak Japanese!” when I say hello.

Some junior high boys invited me to play basketball one day after lunch too. That was kind of embarrassing, as everyone in the gym got to watch as I failed to make a single shot (over and over again). I do believe I had mentioned before that I suck at sports though…

Some other boys really seem to get a kick out of watching me do this thing that I think my predecessor used to do, in which I strike a dumb pose and say “Konnichiwa” all loud and foreign-like. Perhaps making myself look like an idiot will help me get along with the students… or maybe it just makes me look like an idiot. Ah well.

Turns out the vice principal at my JHS is a big Blues Brothers fan too. That was a pretty sweet and unexpected conversation as we got to excitedly tell the other confused staff members about that film they’d never seen… while flip flopping between my broken Japanese and his broken English.

Not a whole lot else has been occurring recently though. Aside from me getting behind in my blog and emails… My bad. I’ll try to be more on top of my to do list from now on. But I do appreciate the emails. :)

Monkeys

So before I came I was told to keep my eye open for monkeys. Those monkeys that chill out in hot springs. Because Hokkaido is full of monkeys or something. So full of monkeys that they should even be found in the convenience store.

Well what do you know, I did see one in the convenience store. Attached to a Pepsi bottle. I bought it.



There you go, a bathing ape found in a convenience store. My mission is complete.

Sapporo and Such

So last week was my orientation in Sapporo. My supervisor came to pick me up and took me into the neighboring city to catch my bus. I had been told that the ride was very nice, and indeed it was. I got to see onion fields and onion fields and then some more fields (probably onions), and then got into forests and mountains. It was a very pretty drive, which is nice that I had something to look at for all that time.





The bus dropped me off somewhere in the middle of Sapporo, and of course, never having been to the city, I got lost pretty much right away. Quite a fail moment considering the hotel was only supposed to be a few blocks away. See, there’s this huge tower in Sapporo with a clock on it. Very big, very easy to see. Ah, must be the clock tower that is labeled on my map. But no. That is the TV tower. The clock tower is much smaller and hidden behind trees and is in the opposite direction I started walking. Awesome.



Either way, after dragging my suitcase all over Sapporo and looking on as the wind basically tore apart my map I eventually made it to the hotel. I wasn’t there more than a few minutes when a fellow JET from the area and proposed that we go get lunch. I had had coffee for breakfast that day and then sat on a 4 hour bus ride, so I was all for that.

We went to the station and ate some Italian food (after wandering around trying to figure out where the heck the restaurants are). After that we retraced our steps back to the hotel, grabbed some Starbucks (yaaay~~!), and waited to meet another girl from our area. She has been in Hokkaido the past 2 years, so she took us around to some stores in the area. There’s a foreign foods store in the station where I got some flavored teas and sharp cheddar cheese (didn’t realize I was missing it until I took a bite of it. Guess I’ll have to lead up when I go back in November). Then we went to the bookstore since they have an English/bilingual section where I was able to get some books for the new, revised JLPT exam. Luckily my old ones look like they’re still valuable for the new test, but more books (especially ones with some English clarification) don’t hurt.

Then we once again went back to the hotel and picked up some more people into our group. The herd of us walked down to an Indian restaurant where I had some butter chicken curry and garlic nan. It was quite awesome. I’d definitely go back.



Several hours passed there as we all rejoiced at being able to speak English with other people who understood our slang and faster speech and whatnot. It was a good time, but eventually we decided to get out of there and wander around a bit more. We stopped at a convenience store to pick up some drinks and ice cream (I got some delicious chocolate monstrosity called Black Thunder… or something like that anyway, but I think that was the name). After wandering around we ended up on the main grassy park area before the TV tower, where a couple of dudes were belting out tunes with their guitars and a harmonica. It was pretty cool, so we just sat there for awhile with the little crowd that had gathered and listened.

After that I headed back to my hotel room to crash. It smelled like cigarettes, but it had AC. I cranked that thing up about as high as it could go, finally happy to not fall asleep sweating because of the heat.

Monday started orientation.


(The building orientation was in.)

I ate some stuff I had gotten at the convenience store the previous night for breakfast and then met a bunch of people in Starbucks for coffee (since I have yet to find a really effective way to make coffee at my house and have been too lazy to get a real coffee pot, I’ve been drinking these “meh” instant flavored things on weekday mornings). Then I went to several hours of orientation and heard lots of info. I just wrote a report on it all for my BoE and don’t really want to repeat any of it, and it’s not overly fascinating for this blog anyway. I heard a lot about Hokkaido, the winters, community events and clubs, etc.

Then a bunch of us walked to a Subway for lunch. Yay avocado shrimp sandwich and French fries covered in basil.

Then more orientation! Yadda yadda…

Then we were free around 4. I had found a fellow anime geek and we had a small group go with us to some geek stores not too far from the hotel (not surprising, everything is in the center of town and it’s not that awfully big). I picked up a couple small nerd things (which I can actually use: one is a mug for my many coffee and tea breaks, and the other a dispenser for my conditioner since I’m too cheap to buy the ones in the bottle, only the bag).

After buying nerdy things we took the elevator up a couple floors to a cosplay shop (costumes and wigs and whatnot). It was fun to look around, but the best part was all the costumes they had ready made which you could try on and get your pictures taken in (rather, purikura, or print club… basically those photo booths you go in, pose for pictures, decorate, and then print out as stickers to put on your cell phone/notebooks/whatever). We did that (and somehow I managed to fit into one of the outfits even though it was in Japanese sizes), which was lots of fun.

Nerd:



After that we got in touch with the other half of the large group that seemed to be hanging out together a lot, since one guy knew a local who directed us to a famous ramen restaurant. It was pretty small and our large group of gaijin basically took up the entire counter, but the butter corn miso ramen there was indeed quite tasty. Sapporo is known for miso ramen, after all.

Sapporo at night!



After that everyone seemed to split up again. I ended up with three other girls, one the anime fan who went shopping with me and the other two the two girls who live near me, and we went to karaoke… where I once again tried to avoid singing alone as much as possible (singing along when everyone is doing the same thing isn’t as bad). After that we picked up snacks and beverages at a convenience store and hung out at the hotel before sleeping… in AC.

Tuesday involved… more orientation. Started off with getting lost trying to find the one room separate from the others for a Japanese class, followed by seminars for teaching at different levels.

But the real fun was going with my anime buddy to the Pokemon Center for lunch. You don’t need food when you have a magical store like that. I tried to resist but that store took some of my money away, and while rushing back to the conferences we quickly grabbed some convenience store food for “lunch.”

Then more orientation, etc, etc…

That afternoon I ended up travelling along with the two girls from my area… and we ended up back at the pokemon center since one of them was sad to have missed out on the fun. This was followed by more purikura picture-taking fun (as there was an arcade-type thing next to the store), and then more wandering around the city.

That night we happened to stumble upon an event for the Bon festival, which involved stands of yummy things to eat and a large collection of people doing the bon odori (bon dance) around a decorated, raised stage full of singers and taiko drums. It was fun to watch everyone for a while (including this one middle-aged dude wearing a pink wife beater and dancing to his own dramatic version of the rather simple dance), and before leaving the two girls I was with and I danced a lap around the stage (if you can call it that anyway. I was trying to follow the lead of the woman in front of me but kept stumbling at parts. It’s a simple dance too…).

After that the three of us wandered over to a restaurant chain called Freshness Burger. It was indeed pretty good, and my burger had loads of onions on it (yay!), but the burgers in Japan just miss some of that deliciousness that makes me adore certain American burgers. I’m looking at you, Portillo’s. Still, while the regular burgers are good, so far nothing beats the katsu burger at Mos Burger for me. It’s tonkatsu on a bun and is therefore pretty hard to beat. I grabbed one of those while I was in Sapporo since I have none within walking distance here.

Then we finally got in contact with the people who knew where the ice cream bar was located. Unfortunately there weren’t enough seats when they called our massive group in, so me and the three other girls I’d spent most of the time with waited a little longer but got a nice table in the corner of the restaurant next to a bunch of Christmas decorations. Now, I don’t like bars since I don’t like booze, but this place was pretty darn cool. What you do is order a set, which generally comes with a mug of ice cream (with a free refill!) and your choice of 2 or 3 liqueurs. The sets we got also came with little crepes, crunchy thingies, and piecrust bits to add to our ice cream, as well as a little sample of some amazingly rich yogurt. So, with the 4 of us ordering the set with 2 liqueurs and the additional topping things we were able to pick 8 liqueurs to share. They deliver your ice cream and topping things along with a spoon with a notch on the handle designed to rest securely on top of the mug. This is because the tiny liqueurs you are given have itty bitty ladles that you use to drop a little on to your ice cream-filled spoon, followed by toppings. Then you taste your concoction. The ice cream looked vanilla but had a rather fruity kind of taste to it, which went well with our choices since a lot of what we got was fruit flavors: peach, pineapple, coconut, blackberry, mango, passion fruit. We also had chocolate and caramel liqueurs, which of course didn’t suck with ice cream.

Then they give you a handmade animal shaped cookie and coffee to finish everything off. It was pretty cool.



Once again, more convenience store snacks and hanging out at the hotel before sleep. With AC.

Then there was the last day of orientation, which was a “scavenger hunt” around Sapporo. We had to ask people on the street where certain places were and then walk to them, which would have been more enjoyable if it wasn’t so darn hot out. At least that was quite a break from sitting in presentations.

Then came the end of orientation, where I dragged my suitcase across the city, briefly into a Mos Burger, and over to the bus station. Four hours later I was back in my home city.

So that’s Sapporo for you! I enjoyed it, looking forward to going back.

The next Friday I had my formal introduction at the junior high, where I got to stand awkwardly in front of 200 students by myself and talk to them both in English and Japanese for a few minutes. And… that was pretty much if for that day. Afterwards I went to a meeting with the teachers at one of my elementary schools, but after that I was free to go home and stress about my upcoming lessons. As in I basically made dinner and went to bed early because I was pooped. Whoo party animal, that’s how I roll on a Friday night.

Saturday I was roped into being on staff for the town’s fireworks. A week or so prior I had gotten a break from mindlessly sitting at my desk doing nothing to go with my supervisor to try making potato dumplings for the fireworks.



That was fun and they were successful, so I was called back again for the real deal, where a number of volunteers gathered to make hundreds of the things, as well as an onion/fish flake salad. Making the dumplings was simple and entertaining enough, but good heavens did my eyes just about give out on me when everyone in the room started slicing onions. It was kind of embarrassing really, and I kind of got shoved out of that activity since I could barely see the knife/onion anyway. Luckily they had other stuff for me to do.

Then, despite how busy she had been the whole day, my supervisor took me aside to dress me up in a yukata (basically a kimono for summer) that a woman from the library let me borrow. Unfortunately she didn’t have the shoes for me, so I walked around in a beautiful yukata and my nasty old sneakers for the evening, but it was still pretty cool. I handed out dumplings and salad for a while and was then relieved to go spend my tickets on festival food.



Or so I thought, I hadn’t gone very far before someone recognized me and pulled me away to sit with a bunch of others on the grass. I knew these people, it wasn’t like some random dude just dragged me off, but it was just kind of surprising how quickly I got pulled into the fun.

Eventually a woman from my eikaiwa walked around and got food with me, and then we sat back in time for the fireworks. It was indeed quite a nice show, and I really enjoyed it. Afterwards I found my supervisor who appointed someone to help me figure out how to get out of/appropriately put away the yukata, and then sort of got dragged to an after party despite being so tired. There some very outgoing guy (who can’t remember my name so just keeps yelling “Catherine!” every time he sees me) struck up conversation about whatever American things he could think of (“Americans hug ALL the time, yes?” “Sort of…” “Do you hug your father every night before bed?” “Uh?” “WHAT DON’T YOU LOVE HIM?” He’s pretty much the town comedian and is quite vocal, hence he was the announcer at the fireworks). But alas, I pooped out quickly and another girl who was feeling the same took me back home. After all, I had to be up bright and early for the following day’s sun festival!

So, the next morning I walked on over to the community center (since, to be social, I had like half a beer with the people at the fireworks… which therefore made it illegal for me to drive my bike home, so I just left it at the community center for the night). At the festival I got to don some festival attire and meet up with the mayor and, uh… vice mayor and… well, I don’t actually know who all of those guys were, I just know that I was at the bottom of the list but I still got to go up on stage and fling tiny bags of mochi at the crowd. That was fun.



After that I pretty much just got to walk around with my supervisor and enjoy the festival. They had an event that lasted most of the morning involving a log over a pool of water, where two people straddling the log had to knock each other off with big inflatable bat things. That was fun to watch. Some local student brass bands and little girls with dance routines took up the stage for most of the morning, but then I got to see the city’s yosakoi dance group do their thing. I hadn’t heard about yosakoi until I went to Sapporo, but I guess towns and cities all over the island have yosakoi dance groups that prepare routines for a big event/competition in Sapporo. Their outfits were very pretty and it was a lot of fun to watch.

We continued to watch all this from the grass while cooking up some yakiniku, the summer meal of choice. I also had some more salt yakisoba to go with it. Good stuff.



After a while of that the woman from my eikaiwa found us and we joined up with her group. More yakiniku, yay! Around afternoon though I headed back home since I hadn’t really had any time to prepare for my upcoming lessons. Unfortunately somewhere between me leaving my bike and me picking up my bike somehow the chain fell off and it’s completely enclosed by some screwed-on metal case. So I got to go for a walk home with my bike. It’s fixed now, but for a couple days I did a lot of walking.

Monday I had my first class with the junior high students. That was pretty terrifying since it was my first time actually doing any teaching. The classes were really quiet (Not that I blame them, I was a pretty darn quiet student), and even with explaining everything in Japanese first I think the puzzle I gave them to do during my self-intro was too hard for their level. Doesn’t help that the teacher suddenly decided “Everyone remember this puzzle since I’m putting it on your next exam!” They must love me for that. Thanks for the oodles of candy, mom, I might need to use it to make friends with a few dozen first year students now… (At least walking around some students were able to do it all, so it wasn’t impossible or anything…)

However, yesterday I went to one of my elementary students, and that was actually a lot of fun. I kind of like that the kids were loud and energetic, and it was easy to laugh off any loud interruptions. I had lots of doodles and stuff to show everyone, so I think even in English they understood some of what I said. Then we pretty much just played games. Some related to new vocabulary, while the other classes just played heads up 7-up. Then I was done by 2, and my supervisor just let me go home. It was awesome.

That night I had my first eikaiwa. There are three members so far, and so for an hour and a half it was pretty much just the four of us introducing ourselves and whatnot. I didn’t really have anything cool planned, I just brought a bunch of stuff with me (especially my laptop since it’s full of pictures) and talked about anything to fill the silence. Hopefully I’ll be able to think of something more interesting for next week.

Today I had my health check. Lots o’ fun. My exam wasn’t until 1 and I couldn’t eat anything for lunch, and then they got my blood taken (at least they got my vein in one try. I always dread the needle thing), got all wired up to an EKG machine, and then out to a bus for an X-ray (yet another chest X-ray. They’re awfully popular here it seems). I also talked with a doctor who knew very good English, which was kind of cool since unless anyone else there spoke English my exam was the only “private” one. The doctor’s office was basically a sheet held up by some clips.

They also spelled my name wrong on all the forms so there was a scramble to fix it followed by many apologies, and I hit (read: barely tapped) my forehead against the vision exam machine, which made the nurse all panicky and start looking at my forehead asking me if I was OK. Occhokochoi, yes.

Oh, also I had my welcome party with the BoE a couple weeks ago. HAd some amazing fish/sashimi/tempura/other stuff I didn't know but liked, and then went to the second party where I ended up singing Beatles songs with one of the guys from the office. Here's a small sample of what was for dinner:



What with deliveries from America and not having a weekend to just clean everything yet, all I've got pictures of are my bedroom. Ta da!







And am I eating properly...? Well... I'm not good at cooking, but I have managed to make omuraisu (omelette over fried rice):



And katsudon (fried pork, onions, egg over rice):



And then I just sort of make whatever else I can concoct. But it's ok, because I have the help of some nice garlic.



And… yeah I guess that’s about it. Finally got a cell phone, but my electronic dictionary still hasn’t shown up yet. I really miss that thing.

Off to think of more lessons…

New Home

(I’ve had nothing to do at the Board of Education as of late, so for your entertainment I have written you all a book.)

Well, I finally made it to my new home, and after what seemed to be quite a long wait I now have internet. The BoE (Board of Education) hooked me up with the same internet my predecessor had, which he said wasn’t always the greatest, but we’ll see. It’s not that swank fiber optic stuff that other JETs rave about (I don’t even know if I can get that here) but at least now I have some sort of contact with the outside world. (Even better, the people at the BoE found an old TV they let me have so I now can watch a handful of Japanese channels. I’m ridiculously happy for the noise, especially for the listening practice. Plus, it had been over a week and I hadn’t seen the SoftBank dog-dad or the kodomo tencho car salesman or any of the other commercial mascots I got used to seeing during my stay in Nagoya. NOW I’m in Japan).

So anyway, getting here they herded us all onto a bus early on Wednesday to go to the other airport in Tokyo I hadn’t been to before (there were quite a few of us – I think we were the biggest group of all the prefectures, not surprisingly). Upon arriving at the airport several of us noticed the bright yellow Pokemon plane – I was not one of the first to spot it, but I was prompted to look when half the bus exclaimed in joy and started taking pictures of it like a bunch of happy 8-year-olds (that made me a happy nerd too). There was also a plane with Gundams on it next to our gate, which we were able to see (as I sipped my last taste of Starbucks until I head back to Sapporo for orientation) due to our plane being delayed 40 minutes for some reason (just like home). Unfortunately our plane had no nerd logos decorating it, but they do have cameras outside the plane so you have a bird’s eye view of takeoff and landing on the TV screens. Not sure if I really liked watching how much they kind of skid around during that though.

After we landed at Chitose Airport and got our bags we went out in small groups to meet our supervisors. Somehow I got at the back of the line and went with the last group. After a long walk across the airport I then got to meet up with my supervisor (along with another supervisor with a new nearby JET I had been talking with at orientation and before that via facebook) and we all set out to catch our next plane out to the eastern edge of the island. We didn’t have too much time due to the delay, so we got some neatly boxed sandwiches and ate them at the gate. Then we went through the gate, down the stairs, onto a bus, out a short distance to the plane, and hoped on one of those tiny little noisy things that only holds a handful of people. My supervisor and I were at the very back next to the can. We didn’t talk much, mostly because we couldn’t hear anything, but at least it was a short flight.

Upon arrival we drove into my town and I got to meet about half of the people at the BoE. My supervisor also took me to the big store down the main road to get some simple groceries, and then I was left alone to settle into my new home. Full of furniture that’s not mine and (at the time) no TV, internet, or any other sort of way to connect to the outside world. That part kind of sucked since I didn’t really know what to do with myself yet, but my predecessor left some DVDs behind so I had some Family Guy to listen to while I unpacked. He also left a bunch of other stuff I need to figure out what to do with, since everything in the main room feels really cluttered at the moment.

I’ve also used what little time I’ve had around the house to do some cleaning, since I got tired of the dirty walls (I can still see a circle where a clock or something must have been hanging for who knows how long at one point), but minor complaining aside it’s a very nice set up for a newbie in Japan living off neighborhood hand-me-downs. My bedroom is huge (with a big fan left for me since I have no air conditioners), as is the closet, and I have a couple more closets I might try to cram some more stuff in to sort of free up some room (like the giant snowboard I’ve been left). I don’t have a fancy control panel toilet or anything like that, but everything works fine. Quite nice.

For the first few days at the BoE I was taken around town to do such things as introduce myself at the library and city office, and get paperwork taken care of. My supervisor also took me shopping for things like groceries and cell phones (which I’m still pondering over since I went home with pamphlets full of kanji describing phones and billing plans and my electronic dictionary is not working to help me decipher it). She also took me out to eat at several good restaurants around the area, which kind of made me realize that I’ll probably have to get a car here at some point if I want to keep enjoying the town. It’s a lot bigger than I thought it would be, and it really is right next to the bigger city of Kitami.

On Friday the boss of the BoE I work at took me into Kitami city to meet with the BoE there. I then got taken around the whole office to introduce myself to several groups of people (who I think I began to confuse, since I started off saying I was from Kentucky due to the whole living near Louisville thing, but then unconsciously slipped back to “I’m from Indiana” halfway through, so no one knows where I live anymore. I think I’ll stick with the Louisville, Kentucky thing though since I like watching everyone’s faces light up as if I come from a magical world made of fried chickens).

Later that day my supervisor asked me what I was doing that night and proposed that I go bowling with a bunch of people I don’t know. When she told one of the other office workers that I accepted the invite I assumed it was the office crew I would be going with and she meant that it was just people I didn’t know well yet… but after she picked me up and drove me to a yakiniku restaurant (grill your own meat at the table type restaurant) in the heart of Kitami and I was introduced to enough people to fill half the little restaurant, I realized that it was indeed a bunch of people I really didn’t know. I think it was a mix of people from the board of education and the neighboring town office, since they were all familiar with me (big surprise), probably from one of my 1,204 “pleased to meet you, I’m Danielle” intros over the past few days. I didn’t know anyone’s names though, outside of the people I’d been sitting with at the office the past 3 days. And in fact I still don’t really know the other peoples’ names…

Even so it was a fun evening. Apparently it’s good to constantly rotate around the little grill with your chopsticks/the tongs that came with the meat plate, flipping and turning all the meat and onions - something which everyone else at the table immediately started doing and then failed to stop doing until the plate was all grilled. I was kind of hesitant to snag things off the communal plate with such constant activity going on. Even so what I had (whatever it was, there was a map of cow parts on the wall and one of the meats the other people at the table couldn’t find on said picture to inform me what I just ate) was tasty, save perhaps some sort of special Hokkaido only thing that took about 3 minutes to chew.

The seat next to me had been empty since we had gotten there until a younger woman from the neighboring table excitedly sat next to me to make friends. Turns out her major in college was English but she hadn’t used it in so long she pretty much refused to speak it with me. Luckily for her (I guess) the guy across the table wanted to talk about a recent event involving a bear, but all he did was start saying, “Bear! Bear!” to me (as I was reaching for a piece of meat. They had a good laugh at my deer in the headlights expression), which gave her the opportunity to explain the story to me in English. Quite well in fact, there was no need for all the panic.

Then we went bowling! I got some bowling shoes out of the bowling shoes vending machine (after debating about the centimeter sizes), grabbed a ball, and headed to the lane everyone directed me to. And I then remembered that I can’t bowl. Everyone seemed entertained that the new girl likes the Wii and bowls on that at least, but my actual game turned out to be less than impressive (with some attempts going by where I hit no pins at all). The girl from before gave me a pointer part way through and one of my teammates kept trying to advise me throughout the game as well. Finally the head boss (I assume, since though I didn’t know him he was the only one buying everyone drinks and was still in his suit jacket) took me aside and gave me a quick pep talk/play-by-play on how to do it right. Seemed like serious business, but it actually did help and by the second game I was at least getting spares. This made me extra happy since everyone who got a spare/strike achieved a round of high fives from everyone in the vicinity. By the end of the last game I was dying for just one chance to victoriously slap everyone’s hands (One guy was really enthusiastic and loved to go “YYEEAAAY!” any time it happened). It was pretty cool.

On Sunday I went to a toshokan matsuri (library festival) at the library right next to where I work. It was a somewhat small event, but it was nice nonetheless. There were a bunch of kids running around all over the place, and I got to do such little kid things as make giant bubbles with stretched out hangars in tubs of soapy water and make crafts out of milk cartons. I also went to story time, which was an older man in the town talking about life during the war when he was a kid… didn’t know what I should have been doing during that so I just kind of stayed in my corner and used it as listening practice, I guess.

Outside some of the local junior high students were making senbei (Japanese cracker things) and some kind of old traditional sugar candy. I got to make the senbei when the girls in charge of that stand ran off for awhile, and then I got to make the boiled sugar candy thing with some of the boys as the older people pressured them into using English with me. Two of them managed to work their way through simple introductions, though one just flatly refused to do it and went on his merry way. That seems to happen a lot since I guess people get easily embarrassed, so hopefully in the classroom at least I can get them to talk…

There were a bunch of old books laid out in the library, each one going for 10 yen, so I bought a few with some more new recipes I can try to struggle through (which turned out to be housewife magazines). After the crowd dissipated a truck came to pick up all the leftover books, and all the adults in the vicinity formed a line to pass the books from person to person. Some people were happy I wanted to help and some felt bad that they were making me work. I was happy because I got to wear those white gloves that I’ve seen taxi drivers and elevator ladies and the people who cram people into subway cars wear.

It was raining by the time that was done, but it was also time for more yakiniku, so we all ran out to this big empty garage behind the library to enjoy some grilled meat. Basically what that meant was that the garage turned into a smoke house, and soon I could barely see. Nevertheless, I had my fill of Genghis Khan (a lamb specialty in Hokkaido… sorry mom) and pig intestines (which was the chewy stuff I had eaten last time too). But after that there were beef slices and peppers and onions and such too.

After that I was wondering what I was supposed to do the rest of the night, since some other JET I didn’t know had called me a few days before that asking me to join her and a bunch of people that night for dinner. I was tired by this time, but tried calling her anyway. I ended up getting a hold of her, and while she wasn’t coming she said someone could meet me at the station in the city if I jumped on my bike and made it to the station before the next train came. For whatever reason I blindly agreed and hopped on the bike and wearily pedaled along the not so smooth sidewalks here as I got used to riding a bike again, all the while hoping I read the map right.

There wasn’t a soul at the station, but I made it there right before the train came… which turned out just to be a single car chugging along the track. No ticket booths, no ticket machines, so I stumbled on the train in a very confused manner and headed into the town.

I paid the guy at the city station, which I guess was the correct way to go about it (I had wondered at that point if there was a ticket I should have grabbed on the train as I got on, since the guy I paid was basically just taking my word about where I got on). Some other ALT from I don’t remember where was waiting for me, and we drove to some small Indian curry restaurant where there were a bunch of other foreigners filling up their bowls at the buffet line. I was still full of grilled meat, so I didn’t eat much, but I got to talk to a few other people in the area about life up here in Hokkaido. And then during that the time for the last train home passed because someone else offered to drive me home, which meant I was then dragged along to karaoke because said driver was going as well. So I got to go to Japanese karaoke.

Can’t say I’m a fan of it when I’m there with something like 9 other people I’ve known for perhaps 2 hours in the room. At the end I stumbled through a song in Japanese just to try it out, but apparently I have weird tastes in music since I’ve gotten more than a few “Err, you like WHO?”s since I’ve been here… Perhaps I should have just stuck to cheesy English songs like everyone else. I’ll have to think of a few to keep in mind I guess, since I’m willing to bet this won’t be the last time I get dragged along to one of these.

By the time I got home it was something like 1 am, so I took a shower, completely forgot to make my lunch for the next day, and went to sleep. The next morning I ended up getting up early to hastily cook some rice and make some onigiri for lunch. They were easy enough for even me to make, so no problems there (though my second attempt at the tuna stuffed ones resulted in crumbled rice and tuna when I tried to pick them up. Not sure what I did differently that ended up in such failure, but I’m bringing an emergency pair of chopsticks from now on).

My predecessor stopped by that next day to say another goodbye to everyone in the office, so I did have the chance to meet him. He came by in the evening to drop off some stuff for the house he had taken camping since his brother was visiting with him, and with that invited me to go with them to the house of some lady in the area who liked practicing English with him. That was another somewhat late night, but I was very happy I went. She was incredibly outgoing and fun and had a huge banquet spread out by the time we got there (sushi, gyoza, ramen salad). She was very much the “don’t hold back! Eat! Talk! Laugh! DRINK!” type. Her daughter (at a different junior high than the one I’ll be at) had a friend over, and the two of them enjoyed giggling at the computer and introducing us to their favorite mangas. After listening to a rather awkwardly worded “let’s learn English”-type radio show the daughter started proudly throwing around F-bombs as if they were compliments or something, much to everyone else’s amusement. That is, until her request to have the boys say it for her to get the correct pronunciation was incorrectly worded in such a way that her dad understood as not being something you want your daughter asking of older guys, so he calmly put a stop to the conversation and we continued munching on Japanese snack foods.

Tuesday I finally had a night to just stay at home, do laundry, and sleep early (still some lingering jet lag), but I also had the chance to try to install my internet by myself only to eventually pick up on the kanji enough to see that it basically said “if you’re not on windows, go find internet elsewhere to look up instructions to get your internet, since this book we just sent you is worthless.” Thanks guys.

On Wednesday the predecessor of my predecessor of my predecessor was in town with his wife and kid for a reunion with people from the town, and I got pulled into the party as well. It was held at a beer garden restaurant in the city which is apparently a pretty happening place with the locals, and it did have some good family style food (salad, yakisoba, those edamame green beans that show up anywhere beer seems to be, and – eee! – deep fried pork intestines!) I was at a far end of the table and was lucky enough to be near some of the people from my upcoming eikaiwa (conversation circle), so I got to know them a little better. But then at about 9 I got my first taste of the “nijikai,” the party after the party. We went to a snack bar, which apparently means a tiny little place with an older lady working at the counter ready so serve you whatever you want to drink accompanied by snacks and karaoke. I managed to get by without singing this time around (though it sounds like the nijikai for my welcome party next week will have karaoke, and I don’t think I’ll be escaping that), and it was fun to listen to the other people who had obviously been enjoying the beer that night belt out some songs. I didn’t want anything else to drink, but the lady running the place seemed to take pity on me for some reason (maybe I looked as tired as I felt? Or maybe she was just trying to be nice to the new kid) and she kept finding cool things to give me. First she came out with this little bottle of thick, fresh raspberry juice (which was amazing), and a little while later gave me this dumpling thing with the kanji for “celebrate” on it. Then she brought out these little juggling beanbags I tried to play with, and I was given those as a gift to. Then she gave me a little bag to take everything home in. And of course no one would let me pay anything there. Again. These people are too nice.

Yet another late night and getting up early… particularly great since this week I also got to do my first run of driving on the left side of the road. I guess it’s good that at home I was what they call in Japan as a “paper driver” – basically someone who holds a license but never uses it – since I haven’t had too much trouble adjusting to the little things like the fact that the turn signal (the “winker,” as they call it) is on the opposite side. Also the roads are (for the most part) wonderfully wide in Hokkaido and the speed limit quite slow, so I don’t feel too stressed about being a rather crappy driver. I only worry about the fact that everyone backs into parking spots, which I still can’t really do. I have to back the car into the garage when I return it, and lucky me it’s parked right next to what appears to be some kind of cop car. No pressure.

And… yeah I guess that’s about it for now. The town I live in is famous for onions, and now that it’s harvesting time I can really see why. I wake up to the earthy smell of onions in the morning as tractors drive by on the road outside my window, and this past day or two as I’ve biked past the field across from me I’ve gotten to see these giant metal cages filled to the brim with hundreds of freshly harvested onions. Mmm, onions.

Oh, I also got to see a farmer spraying his fields one day via a small radio-controlled helicopter (maybe about as long as a bike?). It was pretty cool. Though for some reason yesterday my city was one of the hottest in Japan, and the office was pretty much dying. So much for trying to escape the heat in the north. At least I have yet to see any monster spiders.

Pictures of the house to come soon, because at the moment my main room is cluttered to the brim, driving me nuts, and even though there’s like one outlet per room I want to try scooting stuff around so I’m not so claustrophobic first. Here’s the entryway/genkan, though:



Tokyo orientation!



The big recognizable Tokyo government building, as seen from my hotel room:



At the opening ceremony:



Somehow this was the picture I got from the “how to bow” portion of the intro:



Best nerd plane ever:



Pretending to make dinner while watching DVDs left for me:



Dessert? Try some Kit Kats, either lemon or cola flavored:



Lunch I usually take to work:



ONIONS! From across the street:



And some shots from the top of an over the road walkway of my town:

Arrival

All right! Made it to Tokyo in one piece. The flight over wasn't all that bad, save the whole being 13 hours too long bit. That, and the approximately 7452 mosquito bites I managed to accumulate all over my feet and hands shortly before the flight enjoyed keeping me busy most of the way over. I'm sure the people around me loved watching me frantically rubbing some sort of cream from a little tube all over my itchy feet...

But then we got to Tokyo and were ushered into the fun fun customs line. Apparently they want to make a good first impresion by having virtually no air conditioning in that part of the building (though I guess I haven't been in a customs line that isn't uncomfortably warm... and that was my fifth time through customs this summer, egads). After that whole bit we gathered up our luggage and were shooed out the door into an even more intense heat accompanied by rain, where some current JETs who I thoroughly felt sorry for had to stand around in that muggy weather to take some of our luggage away to be shipped and herd us all on to buses. But then after that we got to sit back on the beautifully air conditioned bus for the couple hour drive into the city.

Yay sightseeing! We drove by Tokyo Disneyland on the way, and the hotel there looked quite swank. We then drove by some more buildings, some of which I probably should have recognized but I was sort of not awake all the way by this point.

Then came the hotel, which was quite nice. Chandeliers and all that fancy stuff (including the fancy toilets). Also right next to this rather well-known building I was happy to recognize from my last trip here - the metropolitan government building. (Want to upload the pictures but alas, I'm too tired. My bad, I'll get onto this later, but when I post it later you'll know what I'm talking about at least.)

I got my first dump of documents and was then left to find some food for myself. I found a convenience store and got an onigiri, coffee Jell-o, and watermelon soda - healthy, I know, but man was I glad to have that Jell-o again. After taking a shower I then crashed for the night.

The next couple of days was full of pretty much nothing but sitting through seminar things (and breakfast that included things like salad and french fries). We had a phenomenal keynote speaker the first day who spoke about culture shock, providing many examples of what other JETs (both good ones and... ones that were perhaps not living up to their expectations) have done in the past when dealing with it.

I didn't really do a whole lot of WHOO PARTY-ing while I was here - big surprise for me, I know - but I enjoyed being able to shower after an entire day of info-dumping and sleeping for several hours. This last night I did go out for a walk around Shinjuku station (actually looking for the tonkatsu restaurant Dad and I went to 8 or 9 years ago. I remember the name, but alas, I didn't succeed in finding it). That was fun to look at all the big city Tokyo lights for awhile, though since I had to turn in all my checked luggage I didn't have room for any shoes other than my fancy heeled business ones. I think my mosquito-bitten feet may now have blisters too, so I can up the tally of gross bumps on my feet. Didn't help that I wandered all the way around that enormous station and then kind of got lost when trying to cut through it. Wasn't too hard to find my way back once I stepped out of the building again, but man my feet hurt. And again, I just kind of gave up and headed back to the conbini for a round of the latest shinhatsubai (new products). The Anko-cream dorayaki I had was phenomenal, though, like all other shinhatsubai, it will probably be replaced by new shinhatsubai in a week. Sigh.

So tomorrow I head off with the other Hokkaido JETs to go meet our supervisors and go to our new homes. Eep. Hope that all goes well, and that my luggage all comes along with me/was sent there safe and sound. Also, I don't know if said home has internet currently, so don't be upset if you don't see me for awhile, though regardless I'll probably try to make an effort to post something after I get there anyway.

Well, early morning tomorrow, so I'm off.

Here I come

Hey kids, there's a new teacher in town. And she doesn't yet know what she's doing.



Watch yourselves.