Five days.

Two boat rides, two hotels.

Dozens of bus, train and subway rides, a couple of cabs, bike rides, and countless kilometers walked.

The 58th Sapporo Snow Festival.

I went with eight other JYPE students on the ferry between Sendai and Sapporo, and the ride was a lot of fun! We went out on the deck for a while, and as you might have suspected, it’s pretty cold in the northern Pacific.

14 hours on the boat there, leaving at 8 PM. The room we got wasn’t so much a room so much as a bed. They have these large rooms on the ship where 20 people sleep on futons, with a kind of foam-brick-like pillow (apparently relatively common in Japan). Very relaxing sleeping at sea.

Before sleep, and while amusing ourselves with poker and some Chinese card games we learned, a couple of Japanese guys who were heading off to bed handed us their half-finished bottle of Gilbey’s vodka. (In some cultures, “Gilbey’s” translates to “rubbing alcohol”.) We didn’t touch it, but when we were done playing cards, we kept the dream alive by passing it to another group of Americans.

Woke up for about an hour to see the sunrise. Unfortunately, the cloudcover didn’t let us see much. Glad to have tried, anyway.

We got into port around 10 the next morning, and we caught a taxi to the train station for the 12 o’clock train ride. The train was pretty full, so we were spread all over a couple of cars. I sat next to a Japanese woman, and she started talking almost without cease. He name was アスカ (Aska), and she just graduated high school and was on break before heading to college in Osaka. Not sure of her major - when I asked her about it, she made a gesture like giving herself and injection. My guess is nurse or doctor, but hey, maybe you can major in intravenous drugs these days.

I asked her where a good place to eat in Sapporo would be, and she said she was meeting a friend if we’d like to join. We wanted to check into our hotel first, but we agreed to meet up later at the snow festival. It was fun to hang out with a couple of friendly Japanese kids, and we got to practice a lot of Japanese.

The snow festival is in three different parks, and we hit the first two on the first day. Dozens if not hundreds of smaller sculptures from 2-3 meters in height, with maybe a half dozen or so larger international ones, most of which were about 20 meters wide by 15 meters tall and 12 meters deep. Can you imagine!?

At night, we went to the second, which consisted exclusively of ice sculptures. There were even entire functioning bars carved from ice, where they were serving promotional alcohol from Smirnoff to Bailey’s.

Dinner was たべほだい (all-you-can-eat) lamb. Delicious. Every 2-3 people are given a grill, and platter after platter of raw lamb.

In the morning, we went to the last park, which was more geared towards children, it turns out. Slides, build-your-own snowman, a life-size maze, ice golf, curling, and even one attraction where you ride in a raft that is strapped to a snowmobile.

In the afternoon, Sapporo beer museum. Sapporo has Japan’s first beer brewery - the founder studied for two years aus Deutchland for this undertaking. Not bad. Not my favorite, but relatively tasty. Still not a fan of dark, and I was pleasantly surprised by the chocolate and the カルピス (Calpis) beer cocktails.

Back to the train station to catch our train ride to Otaru, where we will be seeing another relatively famous snow attraction.

In the evening, we walked the streets of Otaru, where many of the blocks are lined with hundreds of votive candles in ice candle holders. I don’t know if love or hearts was the theme, but we must have seen at least 12 given snow hearts throughout the whole walk.

Sleep was at a really really cheap hotel that would turn out to be our most comfortable stay. A more traditional Japanese hotel - straw mats on the floor, robes, and very comfortable futons. Rice paper everywhere. Really quite beautiful.

The next morning we wandered around Otaru (famous for glass-blowing and music boxes), and were invited into several shops. Everything seemed to be closed, but we’d walk by a shop, and an old woman would come running out and welcome us in with great enthusiasm. A seaweed shop was the first, and the owner was giving us sample after sample, and brought us each out two cups of tea. I don’t know if it’s the ploy, but we felt almost obligated to buy at least some seaweed. Some was pretty tasty, but on the whole, meh.

A glass-blower was next. They welcomed us in, and asked us if we wanted to try blowing our own glasses. It was about $20 per glass, but it was about as much to buy such a glass anyway. I don’t want to give the impression that they showed us the glass and the tools and lets us go at it - it was very controlled, and they really do virtually everything. You blow a little here, a little there (very gently and slowly), and when we occasionally use a tool, they guided our hand. More interactive than watching, far less involved than the job. I brought home a small beer mug.

We wandered around Otaru a little more, back to Sapporo and onto the port. The boat ride home was similar to the first, though the room for sleeping was a lot larger (housing 80 people, 30 of which were from the Japanese national guard). Also, once we got out to sea, a lot colder. We all took a lap around the deck in tees and pants, snow and ice flying everywhere, and the boat rocking pretty steadily. It was a lot of fun running around the deck like that - when it would rock, the ground would suddenly give way underneath you, and you’d be running almost in mid-air.

All in all, good trip, and for reading this all, here are some pictures:

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Yes, yes, it’s over.

This has been an interesting semester, and I’ve certainly learned a lot about myself and Japanese. Also, about the Japanese.

Last night I began studying for my last final (Kanji), by trying to learn about 100 kanji that were going to be on the test. It is virtually impossible to learn that many kanji in that amount of time (trying to double my kanji vocabulary overnight), but I had to try.

Test today, went alright.

Got a shirt I ordered in the mail:
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Lastly, heading to Sapporo in a few days for the Snow Festival. When I feel more energetic/alive, I will say more. In the mean time, please enjoy this wonderful show called “Duders.” It’s a little rough, but I think it could be/will be good.

This is Front Row - a little media center that ships with OS X that works wonderfully with the apple remote that comes with MacBooks, iMacs and Mac Minis.

The video is a little joggy, and that’s a symptom of the screen capture tool, not the actual performance. (I have the screen capture tool set to 10 fps as opposed to 30 or so.)
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It is apparently the tradition in many cities across Japan to have a little festival in mid January to burn to in luck for the new year.

We showed up at around 5 pm at Hachiman Shrine, which was packed with more Japanese people than I have seen anywhere. The road was roped off for several blocks leading up to the shrine (this is a 5-lane road, not a little street), and the hundred yard walk up the stairs from the entrance to the fire took the better part of a half an hour. When we finally got there, we got a look at this enormous bonfire going, no ropes holding people back, and people throwing stuff in.

In some of these pictures (see below) you’ll see these people in essentially a white headband and glorified shorts, and the many laboratories, classes, and companies do this. I’m told that this tradition started when during this celebration, sake brewers wanted to prove their strength and so go around like this in the freezing weather. And what’s more, it’s not a little jog down to the shrine warming up on the fire and then sprinting home. They really take their time, and they walk around a lot before they even come to the shrine. I imagine it gets chilly.

The things that people were throwing into the fire included New Year’s decorations, but also these items (many of which had dice on them) available for purchase nearby. A bystander who spoke English (he’s a professor at our University on another campus), was trying to tell us the significance, but it was too loud to hear, and most of it was lost on me.

Not far from the fire, there were hundreds of little food stands or game stands (very fair-like), and we had some food, and walked around the what was practically a little village around for while and found a temple where the scantily-clad folk were going and drinking a cup of sake, and then moving on. There was also a huge crowd in front of it all where people were waiting to throw money (in units of 5 yen) into these collection bins and ring a bell. Off to the side, you could buy a fortune for anywhere from 100 yen (~$1 US) to 30,000+ yen (~$300+ US).

Amazing festival, and I hope to see another again some day.

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Got up around 7 this morning with the intention of going to Sendai Highland - a ski resort that’s about 35 minutes by train from here, and whose website makes no mention of skiing or snowboarding.

The site I use to get all such information (http://snowjapan.com), said that they are in fact a resort, and gives me all this information, including that they are 5 minutes from the nearest train station (八ツ森駅). The price is right, and it’s not a 2-hour trek like the last place I went to. (To which I went, I suppose.)

8:10 - Hop on train. ~35 minute ride ahead 8:50 - We haven’t stopped, but everyone carrying a snowboard (about half the people on the train) is still on, so hopes are up. Internet information is sometimes wrong, after all. 9:00 - All the boarders get off the train, at a station whose name I don’t recognize. There is no one to take your train ticket (they use the honor system a lot here, and don’t make a fuss if you’re dishonest. Especially if you’re a stupid 外人 - lit. foreigner, more along the lines of “white devil”.) I walk about 10 meters, following the other people, and I find myself at a ski lift. I may have my ski trip after all.

I had been planning on using the ATM in the town I was planning on visiting, but this town doesn’t have one. None of the businesses I’ve come across in Japan take credit cards, and ATMs close at about 6:00 PM, and don’t open until about 9:00 AM. (I thought the point of an ATM was that it doesn’t need to go home and eat dinner with its family. I can understand them being closed if there are a lot of muggings, but this is Japan.) I’m told the nearest ATM is two towns (and train stops back the way I came), so I keep my ticket, and just hop on the next train back.

I get back to the resort Omosiri-yama (面白山) with money around 10:00, get a rental, a coin locker, and I’m on a lift by 10:10.

I fell a lot on my first run, but after that, I fell maybe 30 times the rest of the day. I played it pretty easy at first, getting warmed up, and then I decided to try and hit the powder (of which there was A LOT). There were these little hills I guess you’d call them, lining the runs, and just stacked with powder, so monkey see other boarders doing this, monkey try. They’d get up the velocity and either try to go up and jump to the other side, or just come back down with a huge velocity. A lot of crashing, but to my surprise, it’s soft and cushy! There is no pain - only cold powder spraying your face and getting in your coat.

I spent most of the rest of the day on the intermediate and advanced runs where I got a lot of powder experience. The speeds and slopes I can handle are really really picking up, and I felt really good on a lot of the runs.

Biggest achievements:

1. Improved speed and balance.
2. Standing up parallel to the course instead of standing up, stalling, and then turning the board.
3. No yard sales.

Next weekend I’m taking some friends back, because it’s super close, and really affordable, and great slopes and snow.

This has been the first week back to school after break. Interestingly enough, there’s only about three weeks left until we get back to break, this time for two months. What does that break hold? Who knows.

Things that will happen for certain: snow festival and snowboarding.

Every year in Sapporo, they have a snow festival that lasts for like six days. Colin and others and I are planning to go, maybe be by train. My hope, however, is that we go by boat. Freezing waters of Japan? Hell yeah.

As far as snowboarding goes, mostly a matter of when friends want to go. A lot of Colin, Keith, Zhou Peng, Nicolas, and we might even invite New York’s own John from down the hall.

In preparation, I went out and bought グロブs (we call them gloves) from Mont Bell downtown. They are by far the nicest and most expensive gloves I’ve ever bought in my life, but man, are they comfortable. I’m looking forward to hitting the slopes (maybe this weekend), just to wear them.

I have spent a good amount of time the last couple of days either eating powder or tumbling down the mountain, and the excitement had to be measured on a logarithmic scale.

Wednesday I talked to Keith and he said that he was going skiing with a bunch of friends Thursday through Friday, and I was welcome to tag along, and so I called Collin (a kid I know from Wyoming) to see if he was interested. Keith was planning to go to the town, spend the night, ski, sleep, ski and come back, but Collin and I decided we’d try to get there in time to hit the slopes, and then spend the night, go again, and then come back. Unfortunately, it was about 1:00 AM when we got everything together, and had to catch a 6:30 train.

Little sleep that night - too excited, and no sleep on the train. We get there around 10, get everything in order, get geared up and go for it. The night before I read an online “tutorial” on snowboarding, but that can only “prepare” you so much. I (admittedly a little recklessly) ignored the tutorials suggestion, and just jumped on the beginner course. A lot of wipe-outs, goggles and hat flying everywhere, but I figured the best way to learn is try it, do your best, and get my hindquarters handed to me by the mountain.

By the end of the day, I was going down the intermediate run (very slowly and wiping out a lot), but I was enjoying myself. We got some food and checked into the hotel. Speaking of which, the room we got was enormous and way way better than our apartments. Also, very Japanese.

Second day, and lots of Tylenol and Ibuprofen later, we get on the mountain just as they open, and I’m starting to go a lot faster, and catching about 1/8 the number of edges as I was the day before. Go up to the very top (all intermediate runs), and the view is spectacular. Almost as beautiful as the Rockies, but not quite.

We had to stop around 3:30 to get our rentals in and catch the last bus at 4. We get home around 7, and I stuffed my face, went to bed, and then when I woke up, all my joints had turned to bone.

Will I do it again? Absolutely. As much and as often as my body can afford.

I’ve been saying all break that I was going to go skiing/snowboarding, but I’m actually going to be going tomorrow. Around 4:00 PM this afternoon, I called a friend and we made plans to spend the next couple of days in 山形 (Yamagata) skiing/snowboarding.

It’s about $150 US for transportation, a day of snowboarding with rentals, a hotel, another day of snowboarding, and then transportation back. I don’t think that’s too bad relative to the JASSO scholarship.

I feel like a total nerd, but I actually went online and read a tutorial on snowboarding before packing my backpack and getting some shut-eye. We leave for the train station in about four and a half hours, and we should be on the mountain by 9:30 or so. Exciting!

If I’m still alive, I will post pictures.

Happy New Year everyone!

This holiday season was my first away from family, but it proved enjoyable. I was able to talk to almost all my family back home, and even got my stocking from home. I found a couple of good friends who were also staying in Sendai for the break, and that’s with whom I celebrated Christmas and New Years.

For Christmas, Collin (a friend from University of Wyoming) and I went downtown and saw all the lights and got dinner. We started off by going to one of at least a few of Sendai’s Irish pubs. Well, I suppose they’re only Irish in the sense that they’re run by Japanese. Japanese who have made it Ireland-themed. They even serve both kinds of beer - Guinness and stout. Then we found a nice little hole in the wall at which to try 牛たん (cow’s tongue), for which this region is apparently famous.

The time between Christmas and New Years has been spent trying to get back into a more normal sleeping arrangement. Instead of waking up at 5 PM, I tried to switch over to waking up around 7 AM, but to no avail. My chance actually came with New Years.

For New Years I bought a bottle of Champagne and Collin, Zhou Peng (from University of Beijing) and I cooked dinner and then waited for the new year on the roof listening to the Shinto shrines ringing their bells. (Every new year, all the Shinto shrines ring the bells 108 times. I’ve heard it’s to get rid of 108 bad spirits, but I have not verified this in any way.) Since Japan is all in the same time zone, all of the Shrines across Japan are relatively synchronized, and in a city like Sendai with so many shrines, it was really a wonderful sound.

Collin and I agreed to meet up again around 6:20 to see the sunrise at a nearby shrine that sits on top of a hill. We took a time lapse of the sunrise, which didn’t turn out super-great, but it’s still nice to have.

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I guess it was two days ago I was talking to my friend Keith about holiday plans, when he invited me to go to Matsushima with him and some other kids. The plan was to leave at about 3:45 AM that night on bike to see the sunrise on the beach. It sounded like a reasonably fun adventure, and I’ve heard a lot of great things about Matsushima, so I said I’d go. I woke up at noon that day, so I figured I’d just stay up until it was time to leave, but in retrospect, it would have been better to get some sleep.

The downward spiral:

Around midnight, Keith called and told me that we’d be leaving around 2:45 instead, because Kurnia (a friend of ours from Indonesia) would be coming with us. Mind you, Kurnia had just learned to ride a bicycle about a month before. We leave the dorms on time, and everything looked good for the first half-hour or so.

We missed the turn onto the road we had planned on taking for the majority of the journey, but Keith said he was pretty sure he knew a more scenic alternate path, and we had planned for a little bit of padding time-wise. We decide to take a chance.

Around 4:00, we get pulled over by the police. We passed them while they were driving the opposite direction, and they had slowed to a stop, but we just rode past them, thinking they were just letting us by (the road was very narrow). They turned around and caught up with us about 200 meters later, and it was a little interesting trying to explain why four foreigners are up at four in the morning biking to another city in the freezing weather, but we got by. Again I was surprised at how much communication could take place between us and the native Japanese-speakers, and it answered my question about how polite the police are. (It turns out that they use the informal when speaking to us.) They asked for our foreigner and bike registrations, and took down all of our information. About 30 minutes later, they let us go; we never had the impression that we were in trouble and they were really friendly.

The getting lost continues and Kurnia can’t keep up, so we each take turns biking with her behind the others.

Around 7:00 Keith finally realizes where we are, and that we’re about 6 km from where we wanted to be, but seeing as it’s freezing and the sunrise is starting, we watch from the docks.

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We ate at a McDonalds (one of the only places open), and got warm. The ride back took about 3 hours, putting us at about 7 hours of being on a bike. I feel bad that Kurnia had such trouble keeping up, but it also would have been nice to be able to go at a regular pace.

All in all, a bit of a Christmas Eve day adventure.