…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. :)
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