PO-TA-TO

Among the many things that I've seen or had or experience for the first time since coming to Japan, potatoes, yes, potatoes are up there. Along with mushrooms, they seem to be the thing that makes you go, "holy crap, Japan has a crapton of different potatoes WHY ARE THERE SO MANY." Like seriously. So. Many. Types. And not the same ones that the states have. I've yet to see a russet or yukon or small red potato here. Though, apparently, they do exist (according to the blog thing below, linked). The red ones anyways.

In addition to your regular, small brown dirty potato, there are four families of potatoes, or -imo (Satoimo, satsuimo, jyagaimo, etc) in Japanese. Within each of these families, there are a billion different potatoes. Yes, a billion. A lot anyways. Japanese classifies taro as a type, yams as another, sweet potatoes as another, and potatoes as the final family. I suppose yams are similar to potatoes. They're a root too. but yeah. Potato heaven.

Side note, in the winter, the purple sweet potatoes (satsuimo) are super popular. People bake them or heat them in aluminum foil and then they double as handwarmers. You eat them plain, and there's even a truck that sells them that will come around occasionally. I blame this for my gradual acceptance of sweet potatoes in non-french-fry form.

Your guide to Japanese Potatoes since it's all written here, I'm going to redirect you to this site to learn more about fabulous Japanese potatoes. No sense in rewriting something so well written (with pictures!).

Mmm, this is making me hungry. I don't know why I do this to myself.

Sapporo, Day 2: What would YOU do for some chocolate?

Sapporo, Day 2: New Friends and Chocolate Factories

Apparently, it turns out that Sapporo has not only a beer factory, but a chocolate factory as well. We started off the day intending to go to a Salmon museum and then hit up the beer factory, but finding the Salmon museum proved to be rather... challenging despite having free access to a computer and an iPhone 4 (which, might I add, was not mine since I don't have one). Then again, I wasn't really the one who wanted to go to the museum in the first place, and I have since learned about myself, that if it isn't something I really want to do or are are invested in (like if I'm apathetic towards it) the chances of me doing the legwork to get it set up, found, and mapped out with directions or reservations or whatever drop drastically. Basically, if I'm not the one keen on going there, I probably won't try too hard to find it or make reservations for it.

So we ended up not going to the Salmon museum.

But, we learned instead of a chocolate factory that we could visit instead. And us girls decided, hell yes, we want to go to a chocolate factory (though it turns out it's more of a cookie factory, almost). The guy who told us about it, our Australian hostel friend, went with the one boy in our group to the beer factory early; they were going to have a little pre-party and drink a bit while we went to the chocolate factory, and our plan was to meet up with them in like, an hour or two.

The chocolate factory turned out to be more interesting than we thought. I think we spent three or four hours there. We also had to find it in a mini snowstorm-blizzard-thing. Being from California, I have no idea whether or not it was a blizzard. I just know that there was a HUGE amount of snow, we could barely see 50 feet in front of us, and I could hear the snow hitting my jacket. The fur lining was pretty much frozen by the time we got there, and I ended up pulling out my ski goggles/mask and wore that as we walked so that I could actually see/open my eyes.

Woo, ski mask came in handy! I had felt pretty silly about spending themoney on it before (I had bought it so that when I rode downhill to the train station at 7 am and it was below freezing or close to it, my eyeballs wouldn't freeze). Now, I feel like that purchase has been justified.

Oh, a picture of two of us after we finally found the chocolate factory.Yeah. We were pretty covered in snow. You can see my ski mask. I look like I'm going to trek up a mountain and through a snowstorm with a dogsled or something. That would have been sweet. But you can hardly tell it's me under all that hahahaha.

That being said, I was warm at least. Only my mouth/cheeks were kinda frozen. I felt rather well prepared. :D

Oh, the lovely lady on my left is Caroline, from the UK. She's also teaching in Okayama Prefecture with me. :)

If ice pants weren't so cold (and didn't melt) having jeans with the bottom part in ice would look super cool. Literally.

The chocolate factory was pretty awesome though. It was kinda random, this Victorian style house in the middle of Sapporo. Hokkaido, as a whole, has some pretty random European style buildings, including an aquarium that's in a Dutch castle (which we went to).

The chocolate factory also had a cafe. It was a hard decision: chocolate fondue, or chocolate parfait. I chose the parfait. Love those things so much. It had brownies in it.

The sad news though, is that we spent so long at the chocolate place that by the time we were ready to leave, the boys were sufficiently drunk from the beer place and had left to look at the snow sculptures at night (when they were all lit). So instead of heading to the beer place, we went to have lunch (pasta again) and then headed over to the sculptures to meet up with them.

I'm a little sad about not going to the Sapporo beer factory, but I'm told that there's a Kirin one somewhere here in Okayama. I'm not overly fond of Sapporo beer anyways (or Japanese beer, for that matter - it's okay, but I don't really prefer it especially if I have to pay 500 yen for it). The chocolate factory also had a really random gramaphone museum as well as a nostalgic toy/stuff section. They had stuff from when Kennedy was president, as well as a whole bunch of Nasa stuff and Star Wars figurines and pokemon things and Superman dolls. It was kind of amazing.

There was also a kind of entrance hall with this amazing double sided staircase that had a red carpet lining to it. Oh man. It was like something out of a fairy tale. I would pay moneys to be able to walk down the staircase in a formal evening ballgown (and I would pay more if, in the center, a good looking gentleman in a suit or other formal wear met me and took my arm and continued the walk down with me). :) Hahaha. Maybe I've watched too many Disney movies and read too many books. But think about it. That'd be so super sweet.

So basically, if you ever go to Sapporo, the chocolate factory is definitely worth a visit. :)

Oh yeah. The sculptures. We met back up with the boys and took pictures of the sculptures during the nighttime. And this time, I remembered my camera.

At night, they were all lit up and it was pretty sweet. This one was one of my favorites. The owl was AMAZING. There was a theme going on about relationship with China, or as the festival people put it "Traveling the world/China without having to leave Sapporo."

Actually, I like the owl so much that I'll put up a close up picture of the owl. It had the coolest eyes. The owl and foxes are supposed to be symbols or mascots of Sapporo, I think. Also, Sapporo is known for their salmon, which, I am very sad to say, I never tried. The downside to having vegetarian friends and eating with them, bless their souls.

There was also a giant jump platform and we got to see some snowboarders do some sweet tricks on it (though we kinda froze in the process). A lot of my pictures also ended up being of butts, since that's just the way the snowboarders happened to face while they jumped. A lot of my shots turned out really blurry (stupid moving things) but a couple turned out a little clearer. I was pleased.

There were a lot of sculptures of Chopper (from One Piece) and of rabbits (since it's the year of the bunny after all) in addition to the loads of Chinese things. All in all, it was pretty amazing to go to. There were also random dinosaur large ice/snow sculptures too that were all lit up, as well as an international snow sculpture competition. We got to see them as they were being built. That was pretty sweet.

Sapporo

Day 1: Sapporo

Sunday, 6 February 2011: 6:00am

This is the time that we left for the airport. Actually, I think we left some time before this, since we got to the airport before 6 am, since it was still closed when we got there. That was... fun. But, that being said, I'd rather be there really really early than really close to being late.

So our flight from Kobe left sometime around 8 am and got in sometime around noon. Despite California being a little bit larger than Japan, strangely enough, it still took longer to get from Kobe to Hokkaido than it does to get from San Diego to San Francisco. To be fair, it also takes longer by car I believe, but who knows if that's because of terrain or speed limit or what.

But either way, we reached Sapporo safe and sound, and set off on a train to our hostel. And reach... SNOWPOCALYPSE. Seriously. So. Much. Snow.

I will summarize the rest of our day in a few sentences.

1. The only kind of snow that is awesome is powder; everything else sucks.

2. Especially when you have to walk on it and you keep slipping despite there being tread on your boots.

3. Finding food to eat with vegetarians in Japan is kind of tiresome after a bit, bless their hearts.

4. Snow can be built into huge, giant things of awesome.

We found our way, after dropping off our stuff and checking in to our hostel, to where the yuki matsuri, or snow festival, had been set up. Of course, I forgot my camera in my backpack at the hostel (I brought my purse instead). Wow. Stupid me. Stupid stupid stupid. I took pictures on my phone instead. Eventually those will get uploaded. Eventually.

It was cool though, because there weren't as many people at the festival since it didn't officially start until Monday. (Oh man, the difference between the two days was AMAZING. There were SO MANY PEOPLE. O_O )

Wooooooooow snow sculptures are amazing. I kind of wish I lived in a place with more snow so that I could try doing this. Because those things were absolutely amazing. There were sculptures of all different sizes, though the smallest ones were around person size (mounted on a large block) and the large ones were.... large. Huge. Building size. There was one of the Lion King, which was pretty freaking awesome. I practically was jumping with joy. IT WAS SO AWESOME. It was for the Lion King musical, which is currently showing in Japan (I really want to see it).

I could go on and on and on and on about how amazing the snow festival was, but it's getting late and it's already ten past eight. I haven't eaten yet. Again. Oops. That's the bad thing about winter; I tend to get sucked into the warmth that is my kotatsu and then I don't move for a long time and neglect everything else. Sigh.

Since we had gotten up so early, we ended up retiring back to our hostel a little earlier than we would have normally. We were so tired, but we still managed to find the energy to play Bang! (a western, mafia style cowboy card game I brought with me). Also met some of the other people in the hostel, including a Brit dude and an Australian dude who happened to be sharing our dorm style room with us.

Hooray for new friends!

Unhappy snowmen :(

Today has been one day of that miserable stuff they call sleet. It's, as one friend aptly put it, the worst of both worlds. It's cold, wet, not as pretty, and makes everything just a little more miserable. I swear, it's colder here than it was in Tokyo or Sapporo even, though that may have to do with the fact that houses and buildings up there are properly insulated and you're generally walking around a lot if you're outside. Here, I sit in the not-so-well insulated house and freeze, hiding under my kotatsu and layered with sweatshirts and hoods and stuff cause I'm too cheap/lazy/wary about kerosene and it's general stink/unhealthiness. Small wonder I guess that I feel colder here. The heater was always on when we were on vacation.

Ah vacation, how I miss you.

It did snow for a little bit though, during classes. It was pretty to watch the fatty snowflakes fall to the ground and stick (though I did get feelings of dread that this meant it was colder). But later it just kinda petered out to sleet. The weather today even had pictures of sad looking snowmen; I guess this is for the snow that doesn't stick cause the snowman has his sad face on.

The past week I've been putting in miles and trekking across Japan by plane, bus, cab, and train. It's been a crazy, crazy week, and it's taken some time realizing that I'm going to have to go back to work tomorrow. This past week did not help the feeling that I was pretty much in Japan on one big holiday.

It was a lot of fun though. I got to meet some new people, try some new foods, walk a lot of places, get lost a lot of places, and check a couple things off my "to do" list. A lot happened, and I hardly know where to start. I suppose I'll have to get my pictures uploaded so I can throw up a picture with each entry or something eventually. But yeah, seriously, where do I start.

Day 0: Kobe

Kobe, really, was mostly just a place where I could kill time before our flight the next morning. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 8 am. Eight. AM. Early. It takes 30 minutes by shinkansen (roughly) to get from Okayama to Kobe. Therefore, it takes me an hour and a half to get to Kobe from Takahashi. Assuming the least amount of time to go through security and get tickets and stuff, that would mean that I would need to leave Takahashi at 6:00, which would get me there with 30 minutes to spare. This isn't even accounting for the fact that there were four of us who were traveling together and we had to check in together (since one person bought the tickets).

So yeah, we all decided that it would be better to stay the night in Kobe and just wake up early in Kobe and go from there. The other three (two British girls and a kiwi dude) had English camp beforehand, so I decided to head out to Kobe a little bit earlier than everyone else.

I don't think I could list the reasons why I love Kobe. It's a beautiful city, not so big as to be overwhelming, but still with plenty to do and a lovely kind of personality. And the shopping. Oh man, the shopping.

The hostel we stayed at was super chill, close to the train station (both Sannomiya and shin-Kobe, kind of) and I got to walk around a part of the city I've never been to before. It was really interesting, and it killed me that it was on the first day we were there. I wandered down around Tor Street, bought some Crispy M&Ms and bread, and then wandered around Chinatown and bought more food there.

Basically, I ate my way through Kobe. It was wonderful. Chimaki (like zong zi but filled with mushrooms and meat, sadly), nikuman (like char siu bao), xiao lum bao (soup dumplings of delicious) and tasty bread that I can't remember. It was also great, because I didn't have to feel bad about eating meat since my vegetarian friend (bless her) wasn't there yet.

I mean, I don't mind when other people are vegetarians, it's their choice or whatever, but it just gets kinda tiring when my food options (without incurring guilt anyways, since she sometimes offers just to get fries at places like mcDonald's, bless her heart) get limited to pasta and pizza. Swear to god, I've had so much pasta since coming to Japan. Hell, I probably eat more pasta here than I did back at home.

Either way, I digress. I did learn something though, from my visit to Kobe. Or well, some things I guess.

1. They sell pepsi in the vending machine near the hostel we stayed at in Kobe. Apparently, it is hard to find regular Pepsi in Okayama/Chugoku region.

2. It is a bad bad bad idea to go to places where you will want to buy things on the first day of your trip before you've even left for the airport.

3. Kobe has loose leaf puh-er tea. It's ~45,000 yen away by train, 35k by bus. WIN. Kind of expensive to pay for tea, but YES PLEASE.

4. Apparently, being in the city for a couple hours longer than your friends makes you an expert on finding the hostel from the train station that you did not come from.

5. "Will get there around 7 in time for dinner so wait for us" means that by the time we walk back to the hostel and check in and dump your stuff, it will be nearly 9 (or after) and people will be tired and won't want to travel far. If the restaurant you want to go to (ahHEM, Old Spaghetti Factory) is further away than a 5-10 minute walk, go on your own.