Real NorNorCal

South Lake Tahoe :)

I still haven't been able to wrap my mind around the fact that it's 2013. It's kind of like.... what. What do you mean it's already 2013. Oh crap, I totally just wrote 2012. Let me add a little loop to the bottom to make it 2013.... just curve the end around a little bit and FIXED.

I'm going to be doing that for months. Sigh.

Winter break was too short. Way way way too short. Despite it being like, third week into the quarter and over halfway through January, I'm still like "what do you mean, winter break finished?" Sigh.

It probably felt like that because my family was all over the state. I went up with my dad and brother to Tahoe, picked up my grandparents and sister from Reno and went skiing. Lots of fun, but I fell so many times. So. Many. Times. We skiied the whole time at Sierra-at-Tahoe, close to South Lake Tahoe. My brother and I went three times and oh man. Skiing uses a completely different set of muscles. I hurt so much after the first day, despite only getting four runs in, because skiing is like doing a squat the entire time you have your boots on since you're generally unable to stand up straight. Also I haven't skiied in over three, four years. ...and I'm out of shape.

It was absolutely beautiful though the first three days we were there. Blue skies, sunny, fresh snow. Got a bit cold, but with enough layers that wasn't much of a problem. The weird thing is that when I was in Japan - with equally cold weather - I wore waaaaay more clothes and had layers upon layers upon layers, even when I was riding my bike and walking to work. So "but you're constantly moving and will be warm that way" wasn't really like, a thing, especially since whenever you ride on the ski lift, you're sitting still for a good while anyways.

My brother probably wasn't the right person to get back into skiing with. He's the kind of person that's like "so what, you fall down, you get back up. You're going to fall down, so whatever, take risks" kind of dude. Which is cool. I wish I was like that sometimes. But I'm not. Not when it comes to things that are painful like falling down mountains (or falling in general). That's kind of why I never really wanted to learn how to snowboard, and why I walk so freaking slow on ice and snow. I don't want to fall. It's not afraid so much as overly cautious.

Maybe a little bit afraid too.

The "warm up run" my brother allowed me to do wasn't the nice easy bunny slope I wanted to remember how to ski on. Oh no. We went to the second highest ski lift and took the beginner green runs the whole way down. About half way down, the trail splits from the "EZ way down" course, Sugar and Spice, to this ridiculously annoying, full of turns run appropriately called Corkscrew. I can't turn for crap. D:  My approach to that run was "come to an almost complete stop and then kind of very slowly turn" that occasionally turned into "fall down so you don't fall off the mountain, then get back up and turn" turn.

SNOW DINO

The whole "fall down and then turn yourself manually" turn is something I've gotten quite good at. When my sister finally joined us on the slopes two days later (my brother and I took a day off to uh, recuperate. I made this super rad snow dinosaur, since making a full blown snowman seemed like way too much cold at that point since I was barefoot lol.) we - still at Sierra - decided after my sister had gone a few runs to go "exploring" some of the other runs since my brother was getting bored of Sugar'n'Spice and Corkscrew. He managed to get me to go down a blue medium slope, since it wasn't *too* terribly steep, so I figured, why not try this other one. It was called "Upper Sleighride" and we figured, "how hard could it be?"

I think I was stuck at the top of the incline for a good 15-20 minutes. We came out of this rather pleasant area with some hills, and then BAM it was like HELLO SHARP STEEP HILL. Like those kind where when you're at the top and you look out and you can't actually see the rest of the run. There was another section across the way that looked vaguely less steep (but still pretty steep) so after running into some ski patrol guys who offered the solution of waiting for 45 minutes until the slopes were closed and the run clear, I figured that perhaps this way would be an alright way to go down.

It generally involved falling every time I tried to turn on my right foot (so turn... left?). Personally, I think I would have preferred to have a snowboard at that point, since at least with a snowboard, you can turn the board horizontally and kind of feather your way down; at no point is your board pointing straight down the mountain. You can also face down the mountain and kind of slowly make your way down (I watched another woman do that. She told me that normally that run wasn't as steep, but for some reason that day it was extra steep. Hooray). Skis on the other hand, when you turn, at some point in time, your skis are pointing directly down the mountain. It's fine if you can turn them in time (though you still pick up speed I think) but I generally... can't, which leads to a few terrifying seconds of OHMYGODPICKINGUPSPEEDAHHHCAN'TSLOWDOWN in the case of my right turns, and OHMYGODPICKINGUPSPEEDAHHHHHCAN'TGETFOOTALIGNEDAHHFALLING falls on left turns. My brother claims that skis are easier, and to some extent, yes. But for steep slopes, I would have to disagree, especially since my weak point (or well, one of many) is having control in going down steep parts. Barreling down is kind of dangerous, not just for yourself but for others as well. With skis, sure, you can take up the entire run to criss cross your way down, but at some point in time (every time you turn really) your skis need to point down, and you pick up some speed. There are a bunch of other points too but yeah... for me this is a big one. I've always heard that skiing is easy to learn, hard to master, while snowboarding is the opposite; hard to learn, (relative to skiing) easy to master (as easy mastering things go anyways, which is never simply "easy").

Not-so-great skiing conditions

Our last day of skiing was right as the winter storm was hitting Tahoe (we drove out in the middle of the winter storm. Smart...). So while the day started out alright, it quickly was reduced to a super crappy visibility with a lot of snow and wind. So much wind. But I mean seriously, how are you supposed to be able to ski and like, not hit people/trees/know which way to turn for runs/not fall off the mountain when your visibility looks like a huge patch of white?



I spent some more quality time contemplating how cold I was and how to get down the mountain during that run. I had better visibility diving in San Diego (which has really really bad visibility because of all the sand that gets kicked up). I think I contemplated taking off my skis at one point, since I did not want to miss a turn and end up tumbling down the mountain... but I don't really remember how I got down. Lots of "AHHHHHHHHHH" and probably a significant amount of swearing and praying. Also, lots of going really really snow. Good control work I guess?  My brother said he almost was going to ask them to send a search crew for me, it took so long.   (._.);  I felt kinda bad too, since both my siblings were waiting for me at the bottom for like... a while.


Hooray, sibling bonding. After that though, I think they did one more run while I sat in the lodge, since I decided that I liked living and disliked stress. They did agree though, that we were ending the day early due to the ridiculous amount of snow and wind. I did discover at least, that Sierra actually has really good mochas (and chili cheese fries).

Actually, I'm going up again next weekend with a bunch of people from my housing area. Stanford really seems to like planning ski trips (which I guess makes sense since we're pretty close...ish...) but I swear, most of the mailing lists I'm on are like "SKI TRIP" or I keep seeing things for "DORM SKI TRIP" and I'm just like... dang. We didn't have anything like that at UCSD.

...then again, we didn't have PE classes like Polo and Equestrian (though, I think we had rec classes for surfing).

Reminders

Today, after sitting on my butt for a good two... three... quite possibly four hours (and by sitting, I mean laying in bed) I decided that I needed to get out of the house and do some walking, since this whole "walking" thing wasn't something I had done in-

Wait. Waitaminute. I walked on Friday. On Friday I was at my special needs school with the elementary school kids, year six. Every friday, they have ”やまあるき” or "mountain walking." Since the place is pretty much built into the mountains, there's ample space to go walking up there. It had been a while since I had last walked, so I was actually pretty excited to go up.

Little did I know what awaited for me. We did our usual route at first, which took us past the cowshed and chicken coops, past the kiwi groves (how random is that), then down to where the golf course and the information... cabin thing is. Inside they have a mini map of the area, information on wildlife, and, more importantly, restrooms. So we usually walk to there, and then turn around and walk back since I mean, these are elementary school kids we're talking about.

Today though, since I was with the older kids (last time I was with the first years, a boy in a wheelchair and a small but very very very energetic little girl) I got to go in group one. Group one, since it was only ten o'clock (we started around 9:30) when we got to the cabin (must have walked too fast) was going to do the "marusaku course" and I didn't really think much about the name at first.

Turns out that means "the course where you walk up a giant-ass hill." I mean like, this was no small hill. I think we walked around the circumference of the golf course, because when we got back we were pretty much 100m away from the cabin we started at. We kept losing kids along the way as well, since some of them got tired (it was a really really long walk with a good half of it uphill) so they'd refuse to move, so one teacher would kind of hang behind and coax the kid (or wait for the kid to give up). Eventually, we would be rejoined by that kid, and then some other kid would fall behind.... We even got rejoined by this one kid whom we had left at school, only to lose him again when he too, got tired... Major props to the four kids who managed to stay with the group the whole time.

There was also some leftover snow (from Monday) around the grounds when we were walking. That was fun. That also meant it was COLD, no matter what the temperature was. If it was cold enough to keep snow for a while... yeah, cold.

Anyways though, we got back to the school some time around 11ish. A good solid hour and a half of walking, some of that being hills. I was actually kind of tired.

Saturday, I actually walked back to my place with people rather than ride my bike.

So I dunno what I was thinking when I said I haven't walked in a while. It's not like I'm in the States right now. Yeesh.

But anyways, today, in light of having absolutely nothing to do (...like not study Japanese and not work on correcting papers) I decided to take a little walk before video chatting with my parents (with my brother as a surprise guest). I've been meaning to start doing like... routine walks up the giant hill/mountain behind my house, for at least like, 30 minutes or something since it's probably the most outside working out I'll do apart from my daily commute. Plus it's really pretty.

So I started up the giant hill, with the intention of going and seeing the pretty area along the route to the mountain castle... but then I decided to see if the baseball kids were practicing or something (despite it being Sunday, the day when most shops aren't open here, including this adorable cafe I found that is one of my new favorite places in Takahashi).

As I walked up towards the fields, I came across these really cool looking moss covered stairs, and thought "hm, where do these go?" Since it's winter, there is a significant decrease in the chances of encountering one of the dreaded huge black and yellow spiders (or any spider for that matter) and bugs in general. This makes me much much much more inclined to explore places I haven't been to in the mountains, since I actually think it's pretty interesting. Up the stairs I went! I thought I was going to slip and fall, but it was alright, and at the top there was this kind of little grove and something that may or may not have been a path and a bunch of bamboo. I decided to go back down.

It wasn't long though before I reached this little park area that had a little uhhh, not pagoda, but it has one of those roof things, shoot, I swear I know the word, but I just can't... remember it. Terrace? No. It looks like a small hut and it's roundish but more polygonal with straight edges... I want to say bungalow but that's not it either. Anyways. One of those. In this little clearing area with a pond that screamed out "MOSQUITO BREEDING PLACE." So glad it was winter. But there were some stairs there as well, so I figured, why not. I was really curious to find out where those stairs went.

The entire stairway and path to the stairs were completely covered in dead leaves and mulch, as if nobody had been there for a long long while. The first thing I worried about was, "what if there are bugs and slugs and even worse, mukade, hiding underneath these leaves?" So I resolved to look down as little as possible, and made my way up the stairs. About midway, I could see that they led to this kind of clearing looking thing, so despite my misgivings about running into snakes or giant centipedes, I walked up to the clearing.

It turned out that in the clearing area, the path continued up along the edge of the hill/mountain that I could see. Along the path, green knee-high weeds had sprung up, making me slightly wary about finding spiders and spider webs. But so far, nothing.

This continued, with me going another twenty feet before stopping and looking at the path before me and wondering if I should continue down it. By this point, I had traveled pretty far. I could see the baseball field... off in the distance. I wasn't really eager to make my way down the (damp) leaf strewn stairs, and I really wanted to find out where the path went. I mean, it had to go somewhere, right? I thought originally, it went to a clearing or something, but as it turns out, it actually led to a space above the baseball field, another dirt field with this abandoned looking... fountain or something, along with a fenced in set of benches that looked like an observation spot. I was kind of tired from climbing, so I wandered over towards the raised spot where the benches were and as I got closer, I noticed that there was actually more stairs, as well as an actual path with railings and everything.

This piqued my curiosity even more, and I found myself once more wandering down the path until I got to this watchtower thing, and then to a map thing that I had absolutely no idea about. It turns out I thought I was on the wrong end. I thought it was showing that I was at the end, but I guess I was at the beginning of it? There were stairs down, so I figured "why not just follow the stairs? As long as I keep going to the left and downwards... I'll probably end up somewhere closer to my house."

I passed a bunch of paths that looked closed because of I have no idea, and these observation decks... or something. It said that it was the university park or something? The paths looked like they were somewhat maintained (as opposed to the leafy path I had taken earlier) so I figured hey... they must go somewhere! This was an area of Takahashi that I hadn't actually explored though, so every time I looked out, I had absolutely no idea where I was.

Eventually, after going down stairs for what felt like twenty minutes, and passing by this really interesting shrine with a bunch of stone figurines, I found myself in someone's backyard area, where they had a garden. Thankfully, there was a stone path towards an actual kind of road thing, which led to, finally, a familiar place, about 200m from where my house was. My legs were not so happy with me, from having to go up, then down, all those stairs. But they were more than willing to walk me the rest of the way home so that I could sit down and drink some tea.

On my journey though, I realized that I had forgotten how freaking gorgeous it is around my place. If I was in the States, I never ever would have been able to just wander off like that and get lost in the woods for forty minutes before wandering back home again. I live in a pretty awesome place. The woods were really pretty (and even better, I hadn't run into bugs). The shrines were old, and screamed out that kind of rural Japan that just made me shake my head in wonder. I mean, you see them and just go "...damn, I'm totally in Japan aren't I."

I love having those moments, even though I've been here for a year and a half, almost. Takahashi, really, is an amazing place to live, now that I've taken the time to explore it and have found restaurants I actually like. The hours suck, sure, but still. I really do love it here. I guess deciding to leave has really... made me appreciate the things I have here more.

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!

Freezing!

I understand now, why Japanese people like to bathe at night.

It's because in the morning in the winter, the pipes sometimes freeze, and then ohnoes, you have no hot water (and sometimes no water at all).

I've been bad; I haven't posted in ages and ages. I haven't worked on the newsletter. Bad Jessica. But it's because I've been working on studying for the GRE and studying Japanese in what spare time I have. Like seriously, I feel like I'm doing as much studying here as I was at home! My week days aren't exciting. I get home. Go on my computer. Get sucked into the black hole of warmth that is my kotatsu. Occasionally crawl underneath the kotatsu for full body warmth. Remember that oh, I haven't cooked dinner yet, and oh, maybe I should eat before 10 o'clock. Study a little bit. Fail to do that because I'm on facebook or watching a show or a movie (or playing my DS). Regret not studying and attempt to study for a little bit. Decide to not feel as bad because usually I study at school or on the train for a little bit. Think about how I should go to bed or wash the dishes. Do the former, but not in bed. Wake up at ungodly hour of night. Crawl back into bed. Sleep. Wake up for work. Go to work. Repeat.

That's pretty much what my week days look like. Exciting, no? Occasionally, I'll even stop at the grocery store or something. Usually, that's on a monday because I'm already out of the house/away from my house, since I dislike having to ride up the hill to my house more than I have to. But the kotatsu... wow, my electric bill is going to be high, but it's so so so lovely to stay under (for the bottom half of my body anyways).

You know, the funny thing is that I'm actually going somewhere EVEN COLDER than here and Niimi at the end of the week.

side note: I can't believe it's February already! I'm going to sapporo on Sunday! O_O This is going to be my first really really big trip (since I don't count going to Chigasaki as a big trip for some reason). Yaaay snow! I'm excited. X) i'm also still debating whether or not to bring my laptop.