Earthquake

I am writing this from my desk at school on Monday, March 14, 2011. The teachers are going about their daily routines, even though the TV in the staff room has been on all day, showing us the now-familiar scenes of destruction from the northeast area of Japan. It’s all in Japanese and my desk doesn’t face it, so all I can hear are the serious voices of the newscasters and the occasional list of JR lines that are closed: Takasaki-sen, Joho-sen, Joetsu-sen. . . A little while ago we got a memo from the heads of school telling us that the students will go home at 2:40 in preparation for the 3:20-7:00 p.m. blackout scheduled for Takasaki. Mr. J just now handed me another paper, too, but I don’t know enough kanji to know what it’s about. When Ms. N gets back from class, she’ll explain it to me.


During second period today we had another earthquake/aftershock. It wasn’t bad and only lasted for 30 or 45 seconds, but it was bigger than any of the latest aftershocks we’ve had. I can’t get used to them; my heart leaps up in my throat every time the floor starts to shake and my hands tremble for 15 minutes after it’s over. All the students immediately ducked under their desks until it was over, but afterwards, the teacher continued with the lesson as usual as if nothing had happened. It was surreal.

As most of you probably know already, I made it through Friday’s big earthquake in one piece. Gunma is so far from Fukushima (about 250 kilometers) and Miyagi (about 350 kilometers) that we escaped relatively unscathed from the massive damage that happened up north. Still, we had about a magnitude 6 quake that lasted for about minute and a half.


Friday started out as such a normal day! It was the school’s graduation, the last day for the third graders, so all the teachers and students were in a good mood. The ceremony was beautiful, the students were proud, and the teachers were looking forward to their end-of-year party that night. At 1:30, there was early dismissal and all of the students, together with their parents, went home. The teachers stayed at school to take down the decorations in the gym and do some last-minute paperwork. After helping clean up the gym, I sat at my desk, wondering what to do next. After sitting idly for a few minutes, I decided to clean out the cabinet behind me that was full of the third graders’ name cards and assignments that they wouldn’t be needing any more.

The staff room is divided into thirds by a large bookshelf/cabinet that stands in the middle of the floor, with about a meter and a half on each side to walk around it. Two thirds of the room house the teachers’ desks; behind the bookshelf are the copier, shredder, computer, and a couch. Ms. I and I went behind the cabinet and started shredding papers at the large shredder. All of a sudden, things started shaking. We looked at each other confusedly for a second before we joined the rest of the teachers on the other side of the staff room. Everyone was standing or sitting by their desks, seemingly calm, as the rumble grew louder and louder. “It’s an earthquake,” Mr. T told me. He didn’t seem perturbed, and I think everyone thought it would be over soon, in this earthquake-prone country. The quaking got worse, though. The lights dangling from their cords swayed back and forth, the floor was shaking, everything was trembling. The pool outside was sloshing water back and forth. I didn’t know what to do. “Get under your desk,” Mr. T said calmly, and proceeded to do the same.

I crouched under my desk, trying to stay calm, as the whole building moved back and forth like a giant was shaking it. I kept my eyes open and my hands over my head, staring at the floor in a daze, alternately thinking Oh God don’t let me die don’t let me die and Earthquakes don’t last long. It’ll be over soon. Just hang on. It’ll be over soon. When it was over, I shakily stood up, thinking I would be strong, it was just a little earthquake, everyone else was OK, but as soon as I got up I collapsed in my chair, flew my hand to my mouth, and started hyperventilating then crying. One teacher immediately turned the television on, and we saw that there had been a huge earthquake in the north (that’s what we had just felt) and that a tsunami was predicted for a few minutes later. While we were watching TV, we felt another shock that send me clutching at Ms. S’s arm like she would save me. “Daijoubu, daijoubu,” Ms. S, beside us, told me. It’s amazing how everyone could be calm and smile when I was feeling so flustered! Mr. T told me, smiling, “That was the strongest earthquake I’ve felt in my life,” but he seemed all right. Out of all the teachers, I seemed to be the only one with tears running down my face and my heart racing. I will admit it was reassuring to see that no one was panicking; even during the next wave of aftershocks they were OK. All of us crowded around the television as we watched the tsunami advance on the shore. It was incredible to know that we were watching it happen live, just a few hundred kilometers away. I had never been so happy that Gunma was so far from the coast, but I was terrified for my friends in Hokkaido and Chiba.


I started texting everyone I knew, but no one responded. “All right, everyone,” the principal said, “You can all go home. Go home and be safe.” “I don’t want to go home,” I whined to Mr. T. “I don’t want to be by myself.” “It’s all right,” he reassured me. “The first one is the worst. From here on they’ll get smaller. Don’t worry. You’ll be all right.” Thus reassured, but not really at all calm, I followed the other teachers to the parking lot and we all went to our separate homes.

I threw my bags on the floor, checked my phone for the thousandth time (still no replies from anyone), saw that some things had fallen off the shelf in the kitchen, and felt my eyes well up with tears again in delayed shock. I couldn’t get anyone on the phone—every time I tried a “Call Failed” message came on—so I got on Facebook instead. Almost all the other ALTs were online, too, and Facebook was swarming with earthquake messages. I talked with some friends in Gunma; everyone was all right but none of us knew what to do or what would happen next. K, A, L, and I decided to meet for dinner and then spend the night together because none of us wanted to be alone.


So at 7:00 I went to K’s house and we met the other girls at a Turkish restaurant downtown. The television was on, and as we watched we began to understand exactly how much devastation was happening around us. We keep feeling aftershocks, too; some big, some small, but none like that first one that knocked the bravery out of me. That night, lying on K’s couch, I responded to the hundreds of emails I was getting from friends and family around the world and tried to get some sleep. We were jolted awake twice: once by a pretty hefty shock around 12:30, and again at 4:00 a.m. by another one. Angela checked her Earthquake App she has on her phone (thank you, Apple) and saw that the second quake had occurred in Nagano, just one prefecture over. Even though it was frightening to think what might happen if one hit Gunma, I felt better being with people.

Of course none of us slept much that night. In the morning I woke up to enjoy more of the lulling aftershocks (sarcasm), before heading home in the early afternoon. I didn’t know what else to do so I cleaned my apartment. Luckily, too, Softbank was working again, and I managed to get in contact with everyone I was worried about (except M in Chiba; but we talked on Sunday and he was OK). Saturday evening, in an effort to forget the chaos around us, eight of my friends and I went to karaoke, which might have been heartless, but gave us a refreshing feeling of normality, at least for a while.

Sunday morning was absolutely beautiful; warm, 70-degree weather, bright sunny skies, and a fresh breeze. I took a walk in Mitsudera Park, trying to forget there might be higher levels of radiation in the air from the Fukushima explosion (I don’t think there were, though), and instead just enjoyed the warm sun. My friend N came over around 12:30. After a bit of discussion—he was more afraid of radiation levels than I was—I convinced him that it was OK to go outside since Gunma is so far from the nuclear plant. Even so, as we passed the gas stations on the way to Kannon Yama Park in northeast Takasaki, we saw that everyone was preparing for more disaster: the lines spilled out onto the street in people’s hurries to fill up their tanks before the gas ran out.


It almost seemed wrong to enjoy the sweet scent of early pink cherry blossoms, the hot sun, the sound of the breeze in the pines and cedars, knowing that just a few hundred miles north people were cold and hungry with their cities in tatters. I tried to explain my feeling to N, but in my limited Japanese, all I could manage was: “It’s a really nice day in Takasaki. It’s not a nice day in Fukushima and Miyagi.” I’d like to think he understood—he’s usually patient with my stumbling, slow sentences.

Now, back at school, I still haven’t shredded those papers from Friday. I feel a certain kind of Pavlovian response inside of me; that if I stand in front of the shredder, the whole building is going to shake again. I know that’s stupid, but I can’t help feeling that way. I might just rip them up and put them in the trash can instead.

Also, for those of you who think I’m going insane (from having read my last post) please rest assured that I was just having a terrible couple of days and wanted to sort out into words what was bothering me. I’m sorry if I worried anyone. I don’t hate Japan; I just find learning more about its culture to be difficult sometimes.

I have no plans to leave the country any time soon; I’m going to stick it out until July when I take a three-week vacation back at home before returning for another year. In the meantime, I will just roll with the punches, the aftershocks, the blackouts, and all the rest. I’ll let you know if anything changes.

Thanks for keeping track of me and I will be in contact again soon.

Rant. Diatribe. Just Give Me A Second

Well, it finally hit me, seven months in. Stage Two: homesickness and frustration. Not in a terribly bad way, an, “I-have-to-go-home-right-this-second-or-I’m-gonna-go-berserk” way. It’s just a little tickle that hits me once in a while. It might just come from wondering if I really made the right decision to stay another year. I mean, I could have given up Japan in August—I will have seen a good portion of this country by then—and gone on to teach English at some universidad down in South America. But I’m not; I’m going to stay. I was feeling pretty good about this decision for a while; I’ll take advantage of my time here and travel, learn, teach. It’s just that recently, every time I have a bad day at work, or a store employee asks me something I don’t understand, or any number of little instances happen that make me feel frustrated, I feel doubly so because I know now that it’s not just “five more months and I’m gone.” It’s nineteen. I coasted through the first six months easily; but now that winter just won’t leave and I can’t get the hang of Japanese culture, everything is starting to get to me.

There’s just so much I don’t understand! And I don’t mean verb tenses and sentence particles, either. It’s the entire deep culture. That’s what’s been bothering me recently. I keep comparing Western and Japanese culture. Like I don’t understand smiling at the funeral when an immediate family member dies, suppressing your true feelings of grief, or immediately changing the subject any time some remotely difficult topic like death or divorce comes up, or looking the other way when some stranger gets felt up on a crowded train, or only telling your girlfriend she’s beautiful when you’re drunk, or not holding hands in public, or not eating Twizzlers because they were snuck illegally into the movie theatre, or not understanding sarcasm, taking everything literally, or being afraid of friendly hugs, or always having an impassive face like you’re straight out of 1984. I want to yell, like Gregory Corso’s line from “Marriage”: “You must feel! It’s beautiful to feel!”

I don’t know how to react when someone says, “Oh, that’s a very American casual outfit you have on,” as if I were wearing a garbage bag. I don’t know if, “That’s a very bright shirt,” means, “Don’t wear that to school again,” (even though I do). I don’t know if all the exclamations of “kawaii!” that only happen when I wear my contacts mean I’m ugly with glasses. I double-analyze everything everyone tells me to check if they’re being sincere. It’s got me walking on eggshells.


I don’t understand why so many strong expressions I want to say (“You don’t have time for me,” “I feel really angry,” etc.) can’t translate into Japanese. When I ask someone if it makes sense, the answer is usually, “Mmmm, we don’t say that in Japanese.” Any strong honest sentiment gets watered down before it reaches the listener’s ears. No one will use the actual word for “angry” and even if they did, God knows no one will ever actually voice it! I can’t get a straight “yes” or “no” answer to any question, either at work or personally, only ambiguous replies like, “If I can go, I’ll go,” (which means I’m not coming) or “You did a really good job on this, but . . . “ (which means It’s not good enough). I would so much appreciate a straightforward, direct, frank conversation some time.


I know these are just cultural differences that don’t merit my eye-rolling exasperation. I know they’re not wrong, they’re just different (and try saying that in Japanese, when the same word for wrong means different! ちがう!). I’ve taken Intercultural Communication courses and studied sociology and social work and ESL education. I know about ethnocentricity and positions of power and What It Means to Be A White American, et cetera et cetera et cetera. I’ve been to foreign countries; I know everyone doesn’t think the same way I do. Living in a small island nation, it makes sense that there is less independence, more politeness, more formality. There isn’t enough space to spread out and “be yourself.” People have reasons for their behavior. It’s all about tradition and saving face and all of those other sociological terms. I get it. I honestly do. But all that knowing doesn't prevent me from feeling frustrated at times. I feel like I can’t be 100% Jaimie Lynn, either for fear of being ostracized or fear of stepping on someone’s toes. And that’s hard for me. I’m not trying to change an entire culture. I’m just voicing all these little frustrations that have been building up in the past few months. I’m just saying, I think, that I’m ready for Stage Two to be over and for Stage Three, Acceptance, to get here already.

Oh that Japanese, Japanese: Study!

According to my textbook, I should be able to do these things in Japanese:

• Conjugate verbs in the present, past, present continuous, potential and conditional tenses in both plain and polite forms
• Tell time using “from~to~”
• Count to infinity
• Express actions using “while” (“I made dinner while listening to music.”) and “after” (“After knocking, please come in.”)
• Express first-person desire (“I want/don’t want to go to England.”)
• Express occasional actions (“There are times when it doesn’t rain for a month.”)
• Give polite imperatives (“Please write.” “Please don’t write.”)
• Say what I have and haven’t done (“I have been to Mexico. I haven’t eaten natto.”)
• Talk about giving and receiving
• Express actions in sequence
• Express “must”/”have to” (“I have to study!”) in 6 levels of politeness
• Express actions one should not do “(You mustn’t be late”) in 5 levels of politeness
• Say “It’s okay to ~” and “It’s okay not to ~”
• Ask permission (“Is it okay to ~?”)
• Ask questions in plain and polite forms
• Use pragmatic softeners to explain situations (“I’d like to go, but the thing is, I have to work . . . “)
• Link nouns
• Give a series of verbs in sequence
• Give advice (“It’s better to ~”)
• Express things that are hard and easy to do
• Express “how to ~” (“Can you show me how to use this copier?”)
• Link adjectives and “become” (“It’s becoming warmer now.”)
• Link two verbs (“I’m going to the store to buy shoes.”)
• Make comparisons in three different ways
• Conjugate adjectives in the present and past positive and negative in polite and plain form
• Express what one has done and hasn’t done (“Have you cleaned your room?” “No, I haven’t cleaned it yet.”)

However, when I’m in the real world hanging out with people, it just doesn’t flow! I’ll want to say something, and I’ll know that I’ve studied that grammar before, but I just can’t say it! I don’t remember! Especially—especially!—verb conjugations. They are driving me crazy with their tenses and forms.

Take these two sentences, for example:

Kono hon wa yonda koto ga aru. この本は読んだことがある。

Kono hon wa yomu koto ga aru. この本は読むことがある。

The first sentence means, “I have read this book.”

The second sentence means, “There are times when I read this book.”

I’m getting it now, but it’s confusing. But it’s not just this one example. It’s everything. I don’t know how many times I’ve studied the negative past tense, so I can say sentences like, “I didn’t want to go” or “She didn’t talk to me,” but it’s just not sticking. And I can never conjugate “-te” and “-ta” (continuous and plain past) forms correctly, either, because I can’t remember when you double the consonant and when you don’t (atta = met, mita = I saw). I know it has to do with the verbs being in different categories but I just can’t remember exactly how it goes, and when I’m actually speaking to someone all my tenses go flying out the window.

There is good news, though: I am communicating. I can talk to people, even though my grammar isn’t correct and I have to use a dictionary or a pen and paper to explain myself. I talk with the librarian at school when I have nothing to do. Last night two new students, one from China and one from Cambodia, came to my Japanese class and we talked for two hours about hospitals and illnesses. (I really can’t say how much more I love this class than last year’s . . . . !) My friend Shogo and I hang out often, and we’ve managed to talk about religion, politics, technology, farming, future dreams, family, cooking, food, and art, even though his English is about on the same level as my Japanese! Plus I’m learning how to text in Japanese like a pro! ^_^

And here, I think, is where I’m finding my solace. Communication. I’m not always going to speak correctly—hell, I probably never speak correctly—and I’m going to make mistakes. But communication is my aim now, not necessarily verb conjugations. I still don’t pay attention during morning meetings at school, and I’ve all but given up trying to listen to Japanese radio announcers, but little by little I’m getting there.

Happy Weekend

This is just a quick note to say how much fun I had this past weekend! Friday night was my friend Liz’s 28^th birthday party, and we had a delicious meal and then sang karaoke for two hours (I am getting to be a pro at this karaoke thing). I saw old friends I hadn’t seen in a while and met new folk at well.

I spent almost all of Saturday shopping in Saitama at Costco and the outlet shops there with Emiko and Hitoshi. I didn’t find anything for me but I bought some presents for other people. Saturday night was much needed chill time.

On Sunday I Skyped with my parents for the first time since Christmas, then cleaned my house and did the laundry I’d been neglecting for weeks. In the afternoon I went with my friend Saori to the Takasaki City International Relations 20^th Anniversary Party at the Takasaki View Hotel. There were about 300 people there—my community center Japanese teachers included! Even though it was a foreign relations party, I’d say easily 97% of the clientele were Japanese. Of Takasaki’s 4,000-ish foreigners, about 20 came. I saw two or three other Americans, an Iranian family, a Pakistani (?) family, and one person each from Peru, the Philippines, India, and China, but the whole event was conduced in Japanese. It was a relatively fancy affair; almost everyone was wearing a suit, and I felt kind of underdressed in a jean skirt and Civil War boots. Luckily, though, after the fancy hors d’ouvres, belly dancing show, and more speeches, my new friends and I joined in a Western-themed folk dance! I could have sworn the music they were playing was “Little Brown Bug” (“Ha, ha, ha, hee, hee, hee, Little Brown Bug is full of glee . . . ") as we twirled around and clapped hands just like it was 1850. The one downer from that day was when I went up to the man from Peru to tell him in my immaculate, flawless Spanish that his Japanese was very good, but once I was facing him I could only gape at him awkwardly as all of my espanol ran out of my brain like water. I couldn’t think of one thing to say. His refusal to answer me in Spanish also didn’t help, so I talked to him in my stumbling, terrible Japanese, inwardly cursing myself for not being able to summon at least an “Hola.” What is happening to me?

Even though I had that moment where I wanted to cry, I got over it quickly enough. The median age of participants at this party was maybe 45 (not factoring in children), so the few 20somethings of us that were there all banded together quickly. I met all kinds of cool people at the party: a guy from Idaho with a weird name that started with “Z”, a cool girl from Ghana studying design at one of Gunma’s universities, an ALT in Tomioka (maybe?), a Japanese boy who speaks English (!), two 28-year old Chinese guys, and two 16-year old high school girls who randomly starting hanging out with us. We had a lot of fun chatting and playing silly games at the party. When 5:00 struck and it was time to go, we carried our party on to Glime Bar, the tiny place I frequent.

It really is tiny, with just one room and two tables, and the fourteen of us (we were joined by other folk, and the high school girls didn’t come) barely fit. But it was so nice! I helped the owner carry drinks to everyone; I was driving and so just drank ginger ale. I love being surrounded by new friends and old friends and it was just a wonderful, wonderful night all around. We’ll have to do it again sometime!

This week is shaping up to be super busy, too. Even though I thrive on it, I probably need to find some time to chill, too . . . naaaah.

Hokkaido Trip!

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11

After a bit of frantic last-minute checking and re-packing, I stood in the hallway and calmly surveyed my apartment to make sure everything was ready for me to go: kotatsu turned off, microwave unplugged, heaters unplugged, futons stored in their closet, dishes washed and now drying on the rack, refrigerator bare of any items that could go bad in my five-day absence. Only the overflowing laundry basket made me feel guilty, but shoganai, there wasn’t enough time to get it done. My three small bags sat by the doorway, full of winter clothes, Japanese study books, Gunma omiyage, and the requisite Valentine’s Day chocolate for all the boys I’d be seeing on this trip (all two of them).

Shogo picked me up at 1:20 to drop me off at the train station, and my traveling began: first to drop off a movie at Time Clip, then the 30-minute drive to the station that culminated in a series of train rides that carried me to Haneda Airport in Tokyo by 5:00. I have to say, for a girl who grew up at the end of a country road in rural North Carolina, I do pretty well navigating public transportation in foreign countries (I guess all the posted bilingual signs don’t hurt, either). I used to be so afraid of transferring trains, too . . .

Flying domestically was similar to how it would be in the U.S., except for a few small differences: 1) Japan lets you fly with three checked bags, not one; 2) you don’t have to put your liquids in a small plastic bag, and if you take a beverage with you they have a cool machine that scans it for illegal contents instead of making you dump it out; 3) you don’t have to take your shoes off when you go through security; 4) you can’t put huge quantities of liquid in a checked-in bag (on the way back, they made me take my bottle of Hokkaido wine on the plane in my carry-on). I flew Sky Mark, and I will recommend them to anyone: it’s a budget airline, but still comfortable and nice.

I was exhausted by the time I arrived at New Chitose Airport near Sapporo at 8:30, but there were still a few more train rides left before arriving in Ebetsu. Tony had picked me up the airport, and we met Peter and Brian at Nopporo Station an hour later. Once all together, we made our way carefully over the slippery ice and snow to Puu-san (a play on Winnie-the-Pooh, maybe, because the whole bar was full of Pooh paraphernalia), a local izekaya that the Hokkaido ALTs frequent. While the boys sat around the table flirting with the cute, smiling waitresses, I gawked at the one cute waiter in the back, a young-ish looking Japanese boy in a sleeveless shirt and a nametag that said: わたる (Wataru) in black-markered letters (later, I found out just how young this one was—ouch). We stayed for a few hours, my eyes progressively becoming heavier and heavier, until I couldn’t be awake any more. We left around midnight and took the last train back to Tony’s apartment, where I crashed on the first bed I’ve slept in in months.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 12

It was cold in Hokkaido, with a heavy quilt of snow over the whole area, snow piled up five feet deep in some places. The roads in Ebetsu were still covered with a layer of ice and snow, and the curbs were slushy and wet. The snow was beautiful, as snow always is, but its beauty had the fading grace that February winters have: too many months of snow and ice, melting and refreezing. Everything looked tired and ready for spring.

Saturday was the much-anticipated Snow Festival! The boys and I got up around 11:00, took the train to Sapporo, and ate a (somewhat strange but delicious) breakfast of ramen on the top floor of a building near the station. One whole wing was dedicated to ramen restaurants—Sapporo’s specialty—and choosing which one to go to a little difficult. Plus, it being the last day of the Yuki Matsuri, every place was absolutely packed with lines 30 people long. We picked one at random because the line seemed shorter than others, and even if it wasn’t the Most Famous Ramen Shop in Sapporo, it was still good! I had Otosk seafood ramen, with crab.

After we ate, we made our way to the Festival, stopping by the Governor’s Building to take our picture in front of the giant snowman that said, “We Heart Hokkaido” in big English letters.

The festival itself was fun, but different than what I had expected. In my head, I was imagining a tree-lined park filled with giant snow statues like the snow version of Edward Scissorhands’ (or the Overlook Hotel’s) shrubbery. But, there were more commercial shops and food vendors than there were actual snow sculptures, with so many people packed into the park that men were placed in strategic spots to yell, “Keep walking! Keep walking!” in order to prevent bottlenecks. And unfortunately, since it was a warmish day, many of the sculptures were looking kind of sad and droopy in the sunlight. Don’t think I was unimpressed, though, because the sculptures I saw were absolutely amazing! There was a giant baseball player (I was told his name but have forgotten), a fantastic 30-foot tall Kyoto palace replica, intricately carved owls and foxes, and a life-sized 2-story house, all made of snow! There were also various animals and sentient beings, all carved into existence by some talented artist. Ice sculptures abounded, too: dinosaurs, flowers, and alligators. There were other ice sculptures on the other side of the park that I wasn’t able to see: instead, I skipped it to go to the temporary post office to buy cards and mail them off to my friends. (It was worth having a Snow Festival-stamped card!)

As we were wandering around, we were approached by two friendly people from a Japanese tour group. “We’re a new company doing tours around Sapporo,” they explained. “Would you like to go on a free, English-speaking guided tour this afternoon, in exchange for filling out a short survey?”

Free?
English-speaking?

Sure!

Right at 4:20, we met the group by Sapporo Tower, and were riding on the big tour bus with 25 more people by 4:30. Weirdly enough, three Gunma JET girls were on the same tour as us! The world is very small—or at least, an ALT’s in Japan is. We had been promised a tour of a chocolate factory and a ride on a Ferris wheel between 4:30 and 7:00, but unfortunately, the chocolate factory was closed by the time we got there. The building itself was amazing: large and impressive, with intricate patterns, like a French government building from the 18^th century, but we couldn’t go in the factory part. Instead, Tony and I spent most of our 40 minutes playing outside, for nestled in the snow around the building were dozens of little dollhouses, the perfect size for a 5- or 6-year old girl. I was immediately transported back to my days pretending to be Laura Ingalls Wilder, and happily jumped in to sit on the doll-sized wooden furniture. Before we left, we bought some caramel cake to share and a slice of cheesecake that I ate all by myself. Yum!

On the bus ride over to our next stop, we filled out our two-page questionnaire, that I mostly understood but whose English was so convoluted I couldn’t make heads or tails out of some questions. I wish I had copied some of them down to give you a good example! It was something like, “When you make a plan to visit another place, do you always not plan by yourself before you go?” I hope I answered correctly!

Our next stop was Susukino, the Tokyo-esque section of Sapporo, the one with the huge neon billboards and people all over the place. Our tour group stopped in front of one building (not exactly sure which one) and went up to the 7^th floor, where another guide was waiting for us. We were put in a line that led to the rooftop, where a gigantic Ferris wheel was perched. Tony and I shared a car with a woman who claimed she was from New Zealand but who had a completely different accent that I couldn’t place, and I think maybe she was a spy. From the Ferris wheel, we could see all of Sapporo glowing underneath us, the city lights blazing and the moon high in the sky. I felt a little vertigo (a rooftop Ferris wheel?!) but mostly enjoyed myself.

Then our tour was over.

For dinner, eight of Tony’s friends (American, Canadian, and Japanese) joined the four of us at a soup curry restaurant nearby. Soup curry involves a bowl of curry with meat and vegetables in a soupy sauce that you eat with a plate of rice. It’s really delicious; I just wish I had asked for one a little bit spicier. (Can you believe it?)

Later, we joined even more people at a bar called TK6 that apparently is the hangout place for foreigners in Sapporo. It was narrow and two-storied, decorated like any Western bar and so full of non-Japanese people that I felt I had been instantaneously transported back home. We didn’t stay long, though, because the tables we were sitting at were reserved for 10:00 and because everyone wanted to go karaoke-ing. So karaoke-ing we went! It’s always fun to lock yourself in a room with ten ex-pats and sing 80s songs for 90 minutes . . .

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 13

Brian had to leave on Sunday, so Peter and Tony and I hung out by ourselves. We had another ramen breakfast—this time ba-taa kaan (butter corn) in a miso base—for me. Then we visited the Sapporo Clock Tower—glowingly famous for being the first Western-style building in Japan, and for being number three on the list of Japan’s Most Disappointing Tourist Attractions—and went browsing at a couple of stores before hopping the train bound for Otaru. Otaru is famous for its narrow canals, now in February filled with icy water and surrounded by mounds of snow.

The sky had been full of icy snow clouds all day, and by the time our train arrived in Otaru—its route took us directly beside the roaring, breaking, freezing ocean, but I couldn’t get a good picture of it—the snow was coming down heavily. Our whole purpose for going to Otaru, besides the canals themselves, was to see the candles that had been placed in the snow. The lantern light was beautiful, but the snow was coming down thick and quick, making me just want to go someplace warm.

Peter had been there once before, so he led us on to a German brewery a few blocks away. The restaurant was spacious, its rows of long wooden tables circling the giant vats of beer in the middle of the floor. We tried a couple types of home brewed beer—even a “smoked” kind, which was both delicious and strange. It was so nice to sit wrapped up in the flannel blankets the waitress gave me, sipping a dark beer and eating a hot doughy pretzel, after having been in the cold whiteness for so long. I almost didn’t want to leave, but we needed dinner.

We wandered the streets of Otaru looking for the perfect sushi restaurant, not too expensive, but still good, before settling on one. Peter and Tony both ordered huge plates of sushi, but I was still full from my pretzel so I just ate crab soup and scallops. I had a bite of Tony’s sushi, though, and it was delicious! Maybe I should have gotten that instead. Next time.

We took the train back to Ebetsu and watched Back to the Future: Part II before going to bed.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14

Valentine’s Day! The day Japanese girls give their friends and boyfriends chocolate!

Tony and I spent a lovely morning studying Japanese before heading to Maruyama Park to visit Hokkaido Shrine, looking beautiful in the falling snow. It was the most magical-looking place ever!

For dinner we found the Genghis Khan restaurant (lamb, onions, and other vegetables roasting over a hot plate over a bed of coals) in Sapporo. We squeezed in the tiny restaurant, which was one U-shaped bar, and left half an hour later full of lamb and smelling like smoked meat. It was pretty delicious.

Back at the train station, I shopped for omiyage for my co-workers and friends, and Tony looked around the foreign foods store for some good American meals. At 8:00, we left Sapporo and went back to Puu-san in Ebetsu to meet Tony’s Japanese friend from the BOE (I forget his name). The three of us sat around Puu-san drinking and talking in an English/Japanese mix until almost midnight, when we caught the train home. Before we left, though, I asked that cute わたる nan sai datta—yeah, he’s 19. (Shudder!)

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15

9:00: Woke up

9:45: Left Tony’s

9:57: Caught the train to Sapporo

10:30ish: Caught the train to New Chitose Airport

11:20ish: Checked in to the airport

1:10: Flew out of Hokkaido

3:15ish: Landed in Tokyo

3:30ish: Train to Hamamatsucho

3:45ish: Train to Ueno

4:05ish: Train to Takasaki

6:30ish: Arrived in Takasaki

7:00ish: Dinner

9:00: Bedtime

Thank you for a fun time up north! I can't wait to see it again in the summer!

In From Hokkaido

Tomorrow it's back to Gunma for me! It's been a fun experience to visit Hokkaido--I saw a couple of cities (Sapporo, Ebetsu, and Otaru) and experienced a lot of Canada-like snow (including a magical stroll through a magical forest) but now it's time to go back home. I'll write a nice long post about my trip soon. Now off to bed--it's another 9-hour traveling day tomorrow!

Off to Hokkaido

I'll complain about this once, and then I'll shut up.

The Sapporo Snow Festival takes place February 6-12. My original plan was to leave Takasaki on Wednesday night, enjoy the festival Thursday-Saturday, and come back on Monday. Yes, there is a 3-hour ALT meeting/conference/get-together to talk about lesson plan ideas on Thursday afternoon, but I figured, I've gone to everything else and I can skip this one thing. I bought my plane ticket.

Big mistake.

As it turned out, neither my JTEs, nor the Vice Principal, nor the BOE supervisor wanted me to miss this training, so after a few passive-aggressive email exchanges, I cancelled my Wednesday afternoon flight. Unfortunately, the next flight I could get was on Friday. Night. At 6:50. This means I'll get to Sapporo around 8:30 on Friday night, just in time to enjoy the last few hours of the Snow Festival before they close up shop (?). I know it's not that big of a deal, but I still feel frustrated that I'm missing three days of it for one three-hour workshop.

Oh well. I'll be up north Friday-Tuesday, staying with a friend from Oregon and another Gunma JET who will also randomly be up there. I think it'll be fun to fly domestically, see a ton of snow, and eat lots of yummy food. It should be a good trip!

Also, I've learned (from this my own and from other experiences that happened to my friends) that work always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always comes first. Always. And don't you forget it.

Now. Off to pack!