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.

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.

Let's Cooking! (Omurice)

Today was full of all sorts of awesome, a nice way to the end of an otherwise crappy week. Firstly, I went to my handicap school up in the mountains of Niimi. There was snow, and not the icy, "oh crap I'm gonna slip and break something" kind, but powder snow that had freshly fallen. It was absolutely gorgeous, and I spent a good twenty minutes frolicking (yes, frolicking) out in the HUGE yard area that was just a large soccer filed sized blanket of mostly fresh snow. I was like a small child getting to play in the snow for the first time. I think I did everything a kid would do, short of making a snow angel cause that would have made everything wet and cold and sad. It was kind of amazing. :) I haven't had that much fun in a while; and I'm not just talking any kind of fun, but that kind of childish abandonment of any adult concepts where you can spin around giggling and then turn around and run off with a laugh. Quite refreshing, really.

On top of that - here's more proof I'm a kid - our kyuushoku (school) lunch (which is normally very not bad, but other places have lunches that sound like all sorts of awful) was spaghetti. I nearly started jumping with glee. It was pretty decent lol.

For dinner tonight, I made omurice with the leftover rice I had from the night before. My only regret is that it wasn't that much rice so I didn't get to have that much. But oh man, it was awesome. And it was... well, I don't know if it was healthy. but it wasn't particularly unhealthy?

I'm writing the "recipe" here so I don't forget it. <3

Omurice!
Use as much rice as you want. I eyeballed it, so there's no set amount. However much you want to eat/however much is left.
A handful of frozen veggies from a bag, ie, however much you want to eat in your rice. I guess for me it's like, a quarter or a third of it.
One hugeass clove of garlic, or two cloves, minced.
Sriacha, to taste
Lawry's season salt (a dash).
Ketchup.
Oil for cooking.
2 eggies seasoned with salt and pepper.
Cheese

Cook the frozen veggies. By cook I mean warm up in a pan. Add the rice once the veggies are warm (about two minutes or so). Add garlic and lightly coat the rice in lawry's season salt (or another season salt) and stir around for a little bit, making sure to break up the rice. Then add ketchup and sriacha until your rice is evenly coated and red. Cook this for another minute or two, closer to two than one. Mostly it's just to warm up your stuff. Oh, I also add pepper cause I love pepper.

Once this is done, transfer this to a plate. Now to make the top. Crack the two eggs into a bowl and add pepper and salt and mix like you're making scrambled eggs. Add a little more oil to the pan for cooking. Tilt the pan away from you and pour the egg in so that it kind of pools at the bottom. Use a chopstick or something not metal to stir around the egg so that your egg cooks but still forms in a nice shape. Stirring it occasionally lets you stir up the cooked egg at the bottom so that uncooked egg can take its place. Alternatively, you can do the "pull up and tilt so the raw egg goes underneath it" method. Stop when it looks like most of egg is cooked and it's set. Then, either using a spatula or mad cooking skills, flip the egg/omelette onto the other side and let it cook for like, another twenty seconds. Turn off fire. Coat rice on plate with cheese and shape. Cover in omelette. Drizzle ketchup or sriacha (or both) on the top so it looks all pretty.

CONSUME.

Brrrr It's Cold (In Here)

I said there must be some playas in the atmosphere~

Please don't hate me for making that reference. I already kinda hate myself for it. But haters gotta hate. :<

I've been really bad about typing/journaling/making newsletters/blogging lately. At the start of the new year, I told myself, "Self, it's a New Year. You should write at least one post a week."

And have I done that yet?

No. No I have not. So I'm going to try to be better about that. And not just posts like this one about how "oh, I'm bad about posting" but actual stuff. Starting now.

I've never lived in a place this cold before. Even when I was out traveling, I don't think Shanghai or Hong Kong ever was this cold when I was there during TSS. Other than that, I've lived in the bay area or San Diego. Sometimes I visited Tahoe, and I was in DC when it was snowing, but it's never really felt as cold as this. It's definitely... interesting, to say the least. My electricity bill is SUPER expensive. It's stupid. But how else am I supposed to stay warm? I've been using this reasoning to justify paying for my trips into Kurashiki or Okayama; at least then, I won't be paying to keep my house warm.

I'm sure forgetting about my kotatsu and leaving it on does not help at all.

Oh, speaking of that, I forget that before I came to Japan, I had no idea what a kotatsu was. Basically, it's a table with a heater underneath (that never gets hot enough to actually burn you really, with most models) and a removable top (so that you can put a blanket underneath it).

It looks a little like this picture:

Note, that's not actually my kotatsu, but I don't have any good pictures of it right now. Maybe I'll put some up later or something. but it keeps your bottom half/legs sooo warm and sometimes I like to crawl in underneath and lay on my belly with my head poking out. So freaking warm. It's quite lovely. I might get a better, thicker kind of carpet/blanket thing to go underneath if I keep doing that. I've fallen asleep under it quite a few times as well haha...

Right now I'm huddled under a blanket with three layers, sitting at my kotatsu. I'm thinking of crawling in sometime soon, cause it's what... about 7C in my house. Cold. T-T

Hm, also today, I got to use the observatory at my school for the first time. Yeah, my school has an observatory on top of it. It's actually in quite a good position; the school is on a giant hill, so it overlooks most of the city. The view from the observatory is absolutely wonderful, just as good as if not better than the view from the hike to Bitchu Matsuyama Castle since there are no trees to obstruct the view. The observatory has a giant telescope and can rotate (!) and they finally got it fixed. I noticed that the observatory was open when I was wandering around campus, so I wandered over to where the observatory was and the sensei in charge was kind enough to let me look around and told me to come back at quarter to six, when it actually was darker.

So I did, and wow. It was so cold! BUT IT WAS SO COOL. They had fixed the telescope and were looking at Jupiter; you could see Jupiter even during dusk because it was so bright. When I looked at it through the telescope, you could actually make out a couple of salient features, as well as the four Galilean moons (Io, Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa). I even had a student tell me in English about this. :) It was sooooo amazing. I was practically dancing as I left the observatory. That's probably one of the coolest things I've done in Japan, and it makes me like my base school that much more.

Seriously, if they split my position up again into its two original ones... Niimi and takahashi, I'd have a damn hard time picking where I wanted to live. I used to be bitter about having to commute to Niimi all the time since the trains suck and it takes an hour and a half to get to Okayama (and there are so few trains to begin with). But, I love being at Kenko no mori and Niimi South campus, AND they have kyuudo. I love going to kyuudo club. The kids there are so awesome.

On the other hand, Takahashi High school isn't that bad. The teacher are really cool. I know more of the teachers there. I'm part of cooking club. Most of the kids are nice. There are monkeys. Wild monkeys. And an observatory.

It would be a difficult choice. Thankfully, it's not one I have to make, though admittedly, when I first got here I was really frustrated with having that many schools and being split between two cities.

I'm alright with that now though.

Current feelings about recontracting: 65/35 staying/going

(Fish) heads

〜♪Fish heads, fish heads, rolypoly fish heads, fish heads, fish heads, eat them up, yum〜♪! ♪

I've had several interesting discussions on the topic of heads that are still attached to the creatures we eat. In Japan, the majority of people are perfectly fine with not only fish that still have their heads attached, but also, for small fish, eating said heads. If I remember correctly, it's a delicacy of sorts, or the famed "best part of the fish."

But, based on the reactions of my friends here in Japan so far, American and British alike (though granted one is a vegetarian), fish heads fall under the category of "kinda gross. Do not want." Personally, I don't really like to eat fish heads (or small fish!) but if it's still attached to the fish I don't really mind. I just pick my way around it. But I know plenty of people who feel kinda queasy and sick when they even see the fish head. I blame my immunity to this on growing up with a Chinese family; big dinners usually had some sort of whole fish (that I usually did not eat lol).

This topic actually came up because someone asked me about being served a whole pig, head included, in American culture. Other than Hawaiian luaus though, I couldn't remember a time when we had non-Asian food that had something resembling a head. I couldn't. Most of the non-Chinese food I had never had a head at all. Even fish that we caught ourselves were generally beheaded by the time that we ate them.

Oh wait! I lied! It wasn't someone asking me about being served whole pig. It was because the meal I was eating had these tiny tiny fish that looked a little like worms, and I felt the urge to explain that it wasn't the presence of a head that grossed me out (though it did a little bit) but the fact that the whole body was there to eat and stuff. And THEN we started talking about heads.

The most interesting thing that I found out though, was that the Japanese people I was talking to told me that for them, while fish heads were fine and dandy, animal heads, like cow, pig, chicken, duck, and goose, were really disgusting. I was kind of shocked by this, especially because one of the quintessential "chinese food store" symbols in Oakland was the duck or geese hanging in the window, all brown and defeathered and tasty looking. And I was asked that if, for turkey or chicken roasts, if people were ever disgusted by the fact that you could really see the body of the animal.

I asked a second Japanese person and found the same thing; fish were okay, but animals and birds were a nono. "Fish aren't animals," he explained to me. Having the heads on the animals made them seem more alive (and thus, gross). Nevermind that in Japan, some places give you freshly killed things, and images and motifs of live creatures mean that it's really really really fresh. hell, some places even give you things (albiet, seafood only) that are still alive.

Japan is weird. Not in a bad way, of course, just different. :) It really makes me wonder why this is the case though.

あけましておめでとう！

Happy New Year! :D

It's been a while since the last post I made, but, I have a very good explanation of it, kind of. It's funny, because I haven't actually had any classes to prep for or do since classes finished pretty early for the winter vacation, and I don't teach any extras over the break. Yet, I've managed to find ways to keep busy (most of which, generally, aren't facebook, though, I will admit, I've spent probably more time than I should at work on facebook!). I've studied up on my Japanese, and I've been reading and also studying for the GRE. I haven't signed up for a test date yet, but I will soon. I need to buy an up to date version of the GRE book. >_< Of course, it's going to be slightly out of date soon with the if my scores aren't very good.

Oh yeah, btw to anyone who's applying to grad school, they're changing the test to a different format. It's freaking out a of people, but I'm not super worried about it. I'm just worried about the test itself in the first place! lol.

My new years resolutions of this year? a. Eat better and try to balance cooking and eating out. Save money, but also set some aside to travel with. I'm thinking 50/50 on that one. :)
Also, I want to try to write in this more often (and keep up the once a month newsletters). Exciting things might not, or rather, will not, happen everyday, but I'll try to write more about pictures and stuff. ^_^ that should be fun. I have a whole ton of pictures.

Over the winter break, I didn't have very many days off. The winter break holiday in Japan is the 29th through the 3rd; anything else and you have to take days off. Otherwise you sit in the teacher's room (or office if you're a municipal JET, aka elementary/middle school JET and you work out of your board of education versus JETs like me who are prefectural JETs. In our prefecture anyways, because we're prefecture JETs, our Board of Education (BOE) is located kinda far away so we work out of our base schools).

However, I did manage to make the most of it. :) We visited Kyoto, Osaka, stayed in a capsule hotel, and I went up to Chigasaki (near Yokohama & Tokyo) for a bit and stayed up there for new years. It was pretty awesome. I'll write about that and Tomo no ura in the future, but I should prooooobably go to bed lol.

After all, I'll have a bunch of free time on my hands tomorrow.