My Great Northern Adventure

January 1-January 11

I spent a lot of the first few days of 2011 sleeping, eating, drinking, and watching anime. It was gloriously slothful! On the 4^th my friends came back and picked up their cat. I was sad to say goodbye but it was necessary, not just because he wasn’t my cat but because that night was the start of my rather impromptu winter trip. In short, I went to Hokkaido and Miyagi Prefectures and visited Jenni, Jeannie, and Diane and saw the cities they live in. In reality, it was not that simple, I took just about every form of transportation that is readily available and actually had to take a lot of indirect routes to get where I wanted to go. But it was soooooo worth it!!!

To start, I hopped on a night bus headed to Ikebukuro in Tokyo and met up with Jenni early the next morning at the hostel she was staying at after having seen her family off to America. We then took the train straight to Haneda Airport to fly into Sapporo in Hokkaido (Japan’s northernmost island). We took another train to Diane’s town of Iwamizawa. Of all four of us, she lives in the biggest city and, surprisingly enough, I live in the second biggest.

View of Mt. Fuji from the airport!

When she picked us up at the station we were starving after all our traveling, so we drove to drop off our luggage and then went straight to a restaurant called Seize the Day. It featured Soup Curry which is a specialty of Hokkaido. It’s exactly what it sounds like: soup with curry seasoning and ingredients. I loved it! It warmed us up and was delicious at a good price! We spent the rest of the day relaxing and that night we went to karaoke. Needless to say, fun times were had by all :D

Soup curry. I got the sausage soup curry which apparently means just throwing a sausage right into the soup. Regardless, it was delicious!

The soup curry restaurant.

The next day Jenni and I braved the snow and met Jeannie in Sapporo. We saw some of the famous places including the Sapporo TV Tower, Clock Tower, Odori Park, and Tanukikoji Street. Those were cool to see but we spent the most time and had the most fun at a factory for a famous Hokkaido cookie called Shiroi Koibito (白い恋人is literally white lover). In the factory you could tour the building and learn about the history behind the cookie and about chocolate in general.

Sapporo Clock Tower

Sapporo TV Tower

Odori Park where you can see some of the preparations for the Snow Festival that would be happening later in the year which features huge snow and ice sculptures.

BTW it was really cold. It was the middle of the day and that sign says -6.2C which is about 20F.

On Tanuki Koji Street. That guy I'm posing with is supposed to be a tanuki or a raccoon dog.

Most of the street featured shops and gaming centers but we came across this monk just standing in the middle of the walkway for no apparent reason.

Jenni walking into the first door in the Shiroi Koibito factory walk through. We were trying to make it like walking into Narnia.

Jenni, Jeannie, and I posed with a giant version of the packaged cookie.

The chocolate time tunnel was particularly fun. Jenni is rather good at taking creepy photos.

The production. Those real people on the floor (not the walls though) making actual cookies.

Not only did we do the walkthrough of the building and see the production line, but we also got to decorate our own cookies. And even better than that, was eating the cookie with the amazing hot chocolate and chocolate fondue we ordered at the café. After a brief walk through the very cold and snowy park we went to the next building to buy omiyage and walk through the displays there. I really have no idea what theme they were going for in this second building or why they had some of the stuff they did. More than anything it was like walking through an eclectic antique store. You can be sure we had fun taking pictures with all the strange things.

Can't you just feel the skill radiating from this picture.

My cookie right before I packaged it. I wrote Hokkaido, the date, the initials of the three of us there, and Himi in kanji. Yes, I know, you are blown away by my creativity.

Heavenly chocolate fondue. I actually tried a banana piece but Jeannie ate all the rest since neither Jenni or I likes them.

The even more heavenly hot chocolate.

The sign for the Shiroi Koibito Park. Needless to say we did not stay outside to enjoy the park for very long.

More winter decorations at the park.

Inside the next building over.

One of many strange pictures we took inside. I don't know why a velvet suit wearing Abe Lincoln was sitting bench, perhaps we wanted some hot chocolate.

That night I went to Jeannie’s town of Kuriyama and Jenni went back to Diane’s. Jeannie and I picked up some food to cook dinner and, more importantly, we bought a bottle of wine. I was delighted with how enjoyable our bottle of Swagaroo turned out to be! The next day, I saw some of Kuriyama but mostly I just bummed around with Jeannie, watching TV, talking, etc. It was a nice relaxing day!

Sake from Jeannie's town of Kuriyama along with the awesome Serentity sake glass she gave me.

We totally painted our toes Christmas colors even though it was already 2011.

Swagaroo, the delicious and hilariously named wine that Jeannie and I enjoyed.

In case you forgot, it was really snowy outside.

For the rest of my exciting adventure you will have to read the sequel, coming soon to a blog near you.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

December 22-January 1

Dec. 22^nd was the Christmas enkai for Jusan MS. As usual I had a lot of fun and enjoyed seeing all the teachers in a more relaxed setting. Part way through the night one of the teachers came out wearing a Santa costume and carrying a bag of presents. In order to get a present they played a trivia game about the school. Of course, it was in Japanese and I don’t work there full time so I didn’t really have much of a shot but they were kind enough to include the question: “What state is Jusan’s new ALT’s from?” which naturally I could answer, so I was able to get a present from the bag.

For Christmas Eve I went out to dinner with Katie, her boyfriend who is visiting from America, Mariko, and Mariko’s friend. We went to a delicious Italian place and I had great pizza. It was snowing really hard so we didn’t go see the Christmas lights like we had planned but I still enjoyed the dinner and just hanging out afterwards.

My four cheese pizza. I was in heaven. I just wish it had been bigger.

After dinner we stopped for dessert at Baskin Robbins.

My Christmasy chocolate ice cream cone.

The tables had been removed from inside to make room for all the Christmas cakes people would be picking up...so we stood outside while it was snowing and ate ice cream :D

Christmas morning I woke up to a snow covered Himi. I opened up the presents I got from a few people here and Skyped with my family. It made me really happy to see everyone crowded around the webcam telling me about the delicious meal they had (since it was still Christmas Eve in NC) and just catching up with everyone. I don’t get to talk with Gregory, Allan, and Theresa that much so it was especially nice to see them.

I'm cat sitting for some friends. This sleepy guy is Marble. He's lounging by my Christmas tree.

The snowflakes were some of my other Christmas decoration. I eventually added some more. Also, the lamp has an elf hat.

During the day Katie, her boyfriend, and I enjoyed a Japanese Christmas tradition: Christmas Cake. Earlier in the week Katie and I had ordered one for us to eat. We went with a smaller, less expensive one but it was still quite delicious. Unfortunately, we had to go pick it up ourselves and the weather was still rather treacherous but Katie and I successfully made our way to the shop. However, on the way back the cake got jostled a bit and wasn’t in perfect condition. I didn’t really care because it still tasted fantastic!

Sadly this is the sight that greeted me when I opened up the cake box.

Luckily the front still looked okay and, like I said, it still tasted fine.

That night I went to a Christmas party with Alex and Joe. As usual, good times were had by all and I think it was a fun way to end my Christmas Day. Despite this being my first Christmas away from my family I wasn’t sad like I was worried I might be. I've really been helped by the fact that I've made some good friends here and that I have kept in touch with my family through Skype.

Since then I’ve been taking it easy and relaxing. I did have a couple of days that I had to go into the Board of Education building for work but even then there was nothing to do. It’s been great to just be a bum for a few days and the weather has really contributed to my just wanting to laze about…not that I need a reason :P

Don’t worry I won’t spend the whole winter just locked in my apartment. I have a trip to Hokkaido (Japan’s northernmost island) planned for the week before I go back to work. Jeannie and Diane both live up there and Jenni will also be visiting so I am very excited to go! So be prepared for a blog entry about that with many pictures.

New Year’s Eve was another party night. Wyatt had a Countdown Party that Alex and I went to. It was a lot of fun and after the party ended Alex and I went out for a late night snack (some might call it breakfast) with the owner and the bartenders and a few other of their friends. I’m glad to be making friends with Japanese people, especially because it seems to be helping my Japanese improve.

Alex and I stopped for dinner before heading to the party. I ordered the tonkatsu (fried pork) meal. My last meal of 2010 was amazing and I got a ton of food for a decent price. I will definitely be going back.

Well that’s all for now. I’ve had some requests for pictures around town so I’ll work on taking those to show you all in the future.

Happy New Year! 2011, here we come :D

Santa says HAHAHA!

November 25-December 21

I spent actual Thanksgiving at the JET Mid-Year Seminar. It was a rather boring two days worth of speakers and classes but I got some good ideas to use in my classes and I’ve actually already used some of them. That weekend there was a JET Charity Pub Quiz that four of us Himi people entered. Our group was called the Himi Hermits. We came in second place by only one point, too bad only the first place people got the half of the money that wasn’t going to charity. Still it was a lot of fun! Also, it wasn’t actually at a pub, it was at a Brazilian restaurant and the food was awesome. There was even turkey, which is basically unheard of here, to give me one more chance to celebrate Thanksgiving.

Exciting news for Himi is that buri (yellowtail) is officially in season! This is one of the things Himi is most famous for and, having eaten it both grilled and raw, I can see why. It is sooooooooo delicious!!!

Buri nigiri.

I haven’t done anything too grand recently but work has been pretty busy all December. For example, on Dec. 10^th I had a demo lesson for prospective students at Seibu MS. Basically, 6^th graders from the three elementary schools that feed into Seibu came and had a mock English class. I think it went okay. This was largely helped by the fact that two of those elementary schools were schools that I teach at so I already knew the students. That same day we had the BOE enkai which was great because they scheduled it at Tori No Ya which is the restaurant owned by the same guy that owns Wyatt. Having been there before I knew to expect great food and they did not disappoint.

I made little nametags (with no names...) for the demo lesson.

Also at school, I have had several really great Christmas classes. We did all sorts of Christmas activities including: Christmas bingo, Christmas card making (I made one card for each of my schools), cutting out snowflakes, reading Christmas stories, talking about American Christmas (including some pictures of my family), singing Christmas songs etc. At several schools I wore a Santa hat, which was usually met with great enthusiasm, especially from the younger kids. I even got applause when I walked into one of the staff rooms! I got the kids all riled up by walking around during cleaning time saying “Merry Christmas!” I apologized to the teachers but I figured it was okay since it was the last day of classes and I usually don’t interrupt their chores.

One of the best classes was with the 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd graders at Hayakawa ES. As we were doing the fun lesson, Kyoto-sensei (vice-principal) walked by a window dressed up in a full Santa costume. The kids got really excited and by the end of class, after walking around outside several times, he finally came in the classroom and gave the students their presents (which was just some Japanese candy). I cracked up because instead of saying HOHOHO he said HAHAHA.

Another great experience was with my 5th graders at Kubo ES. We had a fun lesson and at the very end they gave me a Christmas present. Their present was to play "Silent Night" and "Take Me Home, Country Roads" on their recorders. Apparently they had just learned "Silent Night" in the few days before my lesson with them so they could play it for me. I was very touched!

More Christmas spirit has come from the decorations around town. My favorites are the lights near the main bridge that include some shaped like a buri! Also, the ALTs helped the CIR with a Christmas event for 30 or so 3^rd and 4^th graders that had more of the aforementioned activities and was really a lot of fun.

All these pictures are of the lights near the Hattori-kun bridge in.

The buri Christmas lights.

The Christmas tree outside of Sunstage. The lights flash faster and faster.

Making Christmas cards at the Christmas party. I figure that you can't see any of their faces so this should be an okay picture to post.

The card I made :D

Alex came out as Santa at the very end. Also hilarious was John's reindeer hat that you can sort of see in the background.

Christmas ice cream from Baskin Robins. I had the bear and Katie had the Santa.

Since I probably won’t update this again before Christmas: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! メリークリスマス！よいお年を！

Auld Lang Syne

November 19-23

From the 20th to the 23rd I was in Tokyo with three of my best friends from Wake Forest, Jenni, Jeannie, and Diane. Late Friday night I took the night bus to arrive early the next morning outside of Ikebukuro station, which was very conveniently about a 5 minute walk from the hostel we stayed at. I was the last to arrive so despite it being too early (around 5:30AM) for me to check in there was no problem with me just walking right into the room with Jenni who had come to pick me up…for some reason she thought my sense of direction might need a little help :P

After a few more hours of sleep for everyone I officially checked in and we headed off for our first day of adventures. Our first stop was McDonald’s for breakfast and I enjoyed a delicious McGriddle. Next up was Nakano Broadway, which is basically a big store but with several of the floors devoted to fan goods for all sorts of different things such as anime, music, and movies. It felt kind of like a classy flea market (if that isn’t too much of an oxymoron). We spent most of the day shopping and playing around in the different stores. That night we bought some food and drinks and then spent a very long time singing karaoke. It’s hard to describe just how much fun it is to karaoke if you haven’t had the real experience, but believe me when I say it’s a very fun way to spend an evening.

Diane in front of the sign for Nakano Broadway

Just one of the many stops we made to play some ufo catcher games. Jenni is really good at them and Jeannie really wanted some Christmas Disney characters.

When we say this huge ice cream cone we just knew we had to get it. Jenni looks very devious in this picture.

It took very little time for the ice cream to go from the previous picture to this one. I love Jenni's face...I promise I was just pretending to steal her bite of ice cream :P

Jeannie and I posing with our ramen we had for lunch.

It was really awesome to see UNC paraphernalia in a store in Japan!

Weeellllll, I spent a bit of money but I now have the entire set of the One Piece poster...and lightsaber chopsticks, so it's okay.

Yes, we bought matching Mario one-up mushroom "Get A Life" socks.

Sunday Diane went to go visit her host family so Jenni, Jeannie, and I went to go see the new Harry Potter movie. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should go! Before the movie started we did a Harry Potter themed purikura (picture booth), one picture had Hogwarts in the background and the other with the Weasley’s. After we all met back up we went to Akihabara and did some more shopping and exploring. For dinner we went to a sukiyaki restaurant and had delicious, delicious food.

This frog and Santa Spiderman were hanging around outside the movie theater advertising some nearby shop.

There was Harry Potter purikura inside the theater! I tried to take pictures of my pictures so these aren't the best quality. Here we were trying to make the same face as Ron.

Yay Hogwarts!

Jenni and I playing the taiko drumming game after the movie.

Jeannie and I posing with the movie poster after watching the film.

Many of you won't appreciate how extremely cool it was to see this cafe. Basically Gundams are giant fighting robots.

Jenni and Diane posing with the Gundam taiyaki.

Sukiyaki!

After cooking the meat and veggies you would dip it in raw egg to make it even more delicious. I know this is a little off-putting for many westerners but the Japanese use raw egg quite often and I haven't gotten sick yet *knock on wood*

Since Tuesday was a national holiday and we had no work, I was able to ask for Monday off. Monday morning Jenni and I were on a desperate search to complete the poster collection we had started and Jeannie and Diane were willing to humor us so we headed back towards Nakano Broadway. With some good luck we were able to get the full set of One Piece posters! Lunch was at a kaiten sushi restaurant named sushi-go-round, which is my new favorite description of conveyor belt sushi. After lunch we split up for a few hours so Jenni and Diane could go to Korea town and look for fan goods for some musicians they liked. Jeannie and I went off to Tokyo Tower since I had never been. It was cloudy so we didn't pay to go all the way up to the top but we had a lot of fun exploring around inside.

First glimpse of Tokyo Tower.

We did our omiyage shopping at the tower. This was one of the particularly good bits of engrish there.

The very disturbing Tokyo Tower mascot...sorry, but I don't think I would ever buy my child a stuffed animal that looked like that.

The so-bad-it-was-hilarious 3D haunted house movie Jeannie and I watched. It had worse graphics than most video games made in the past decade.

We were being Godzilla.

Naturally we took a picture with the mascots, wouldn't want to forget how disturbing they are.

Outside the tower was very festive!

Our last stop was Yokohama to go to Chinatown for dinner. We went to a dim sum restaurant. It’s like a buffet but better because you pay a set amount and have a menu with tons of items on it that you can order from. They bring out a small dish that everyone at the table can share. We at sooooooooooo much food and it was all freshly cooked and delicious, as opposed to cold, stale, and touched-by-who-knows-how –many-people food you get at a buffet.

After dinner we did a group purikura before my night bus left. We cut it rather close and Jenni and Diane waited at the bus stop while Jeannie and ran back to the hostel from the train station and then ran to the bus. This is probably why I got sick a few days later because it had started rainy and was rather chilly and I was dashing about working up a sweat and getting rained on. Luckily I made and after a final round of hugs and a group phone call while we were waiting for actual final departure and could still see each other, I was headed back to Himi. The bus got into Takaoka just in time for me to catch the first train into Himi and I spent a large part of the Tuesday just sleeping and realizing that I had caught a cold.

A couple of the purikura we did. We were on a pirate ship in this one. Clearly I'm the captain because I have the top hat and mustache.

I love how this one came out!!

So to summarize the trip: I had an awesome time, got some cool swag, and got to see some people I love. All in all, an excellent way to spend the weekend before Thanksgiving!