Hokkaido!

After a year and a half in Japan, I finally ventured off the main island to the land in the North- Hokkaido!

I took a five day excursion to the cold, snowy island to see the 66th Annual Snow Festival. The Snow Festival, or Yuki Matsuri, is an attraction which brings an estimated two million people to the city of Sapporo every year. The city is adorned with Christmas lights (called illuminations in Japan) to light up the city at night and everywhere you turn the snow is molded into sculptures ranging in size from a tea cup to a three story building! The festival began in 1950 when high school students built 6 snow sculptures in Odori Park, a long park in the heart of the city. Over the years the snow festival has grown to include hundreds of small sculptures and several massive sculptures and even other attractions like free style skiing! Now, the Snow Festival is one of the most well known winter events of Japan and attracts visitors from around the globe.

Here are some of the sculptures and attractions I saw!

On the left, "I won't quit!" not sure what clever group was inspired to create such a sculpture... On the right- Olaf, a character from the wildly popular Disney film "Frozen"

Reminiscent of an old style bath, my favorite of the small sculptures!

A famous cartoon family, embodied in ice for the festival!

"Snow Miku," a special image of Miku, a holographic idol. This electronic entity actually has a fan base in Japan.

A couple artists retouching one of the small scultptures

The Manila Cathedral of the Philippines, with a group of Philippinian dancers performing traditional dances on stage

This year's main event- STAR WARS!

I visited the park at night as well, where the main sculptures were illuminated for the optimal night-time viewing experience.

Looks even cooler under lights at night!

One of the coolest attractions set up in Odori Park was a huge man-made ski slope. Yuki Matsuri featured several freestyle skiers who slid down the slope and did amazing tricks off the ramp all day and evening. I could stand there and watch the talented, airborne skiers do their cool flips and spins for hours!

Hokkaido Specialties

Of course, I sampled my share of Hokkaido's signature dishes while I stayed in Sapporo. There are four specific meals that Sapporo is famous for and I had them all! First, was grilled lamb. I enjoyed a feast of grilled lamb and fresh Sapporo beer at the Sapporo Beer Garden on my first night in Sapporo. The food was good and the fresh beer even better (surprise!).

Old beer advertisements in the museum

The next meal I sought was Hokkaido's special parent and child dish. In Japan, Oyakodon is a delicious and popular dish made of stewed chicken and eggs (hence the parent and child) served over a bowl of rice. Hokkaido has its own signature take on this Japanese classic- made of sashimi salmon and salmon roe over sushi rice! I think I could eat this dish every day for the rest of my life and be happy...

Another dish I tried is soup curry. It is a creative fusion of cooking styles that has only become popular in recent years. This soup was also incredibly tasty!

The last dish I had to have before leaving Sapporo was the classic ramen. Of course you can get ramen anywhere in Sapporo (well Japan, for that matter) but I decided to go to Ramen Yokocho- known as the original ramen street. Ramen Yokocho is a small alley in the Susukino district which is packed with 17 different original ramen shops, each of which only seats 10-12 people. The hot and hearty ramen and gyoza I had there were phenomenal.

The Father of Whiskey in Japan

There is currently an NHK drama in telling the story of the Japanese man and his Scottish wife who started the first whiskey production in Japan in 1924. After working as a distillery executive for a company where he initially started whiskey, Masataku Taketsuru branched off to create his own whisky company in 1934. He and his wife traveled to Hokkaido where they opened their first distillery in Yoichi, a town about an hour and a hald from Sapporo by train. I took an afternoon trip to Yoichi where I toured the brewery and sampled their whisky and apple wine. Like much of the architecture in Hokkaido there is a strong Western influence at the Nikka Distillery. The red roofed, stony brick buildings looked beautiful against the snow.

Stills

The Father of Japanese Whiskey

Casks of whiskey left to age

Fish Markets

Like Ishikawa where I live, Hokkaido is known for its plentiful seafood. I could not pass up the chance to walk around the fresh fish markets while I was there. Of course I also ate in the small shops that are located in the fish market. Since it is winter crab is in season and I ate as much as I could!

Clams

Live crabs, trying to crawl right out of that tub!

Salmon

Otaru Illumination

After leaving Yoichi I stopped in another small town called Otaru on my way back into Sapporo. Otaru is a cute port town famous for a canal going through town and their own adorable winter illumination. Otaru too was covered in snow sculptures but these were mini figures and were more themed around nature and geometric shapes.

Kaitaku-no-mura: a taste of Traditional Hokkaido

Kaitaku no mura is a village outside of Sapporo that is set up to preserve the history of Hokkaido. Several buildings from the Meiji era from around Hokkaido were transported to this area and set up as village for guests to explore. Small houses, large houses, public buildings, commercial buildings, a church, school and shrines are available for guests to see and even walk inside of. After stepping through the old Sapporo station building it was surreal to find myself in a colonial style village.

One of the buildings, an old sake brewery, was opened up by volunteers to welcome visitors. There was a fire in the floor hearth and they offered warm amazake and pickles to guests who could ask any questions they might have. We enjoyed our refreshments and chatted with the volunteers. One gentleman got super excited when he learned that we are from Ishikawa prefecture. Apparently his grandfather came from Ishikawa as a carpenter, and he built houses around Hokkaido for people to come settle there. Also, he showed us a list with the numbers and percentages of people from mainland Japan who settled in Hokkaido during the Meiji restoration. Ishikawa is number 6 on the list of how many people emigrated from there. Apparently during the Meiji era the government gave incentives to people to move to Hokkaido to settle the area, which was already inhabited by the Ainu people. The Meiji government intended to take control of Hokkaido not only to increase the land area of Japan but also as another defense between the mainland and Russia.

Old Sapporo Station

Inside the school

An old classroom

Icy old fishing warehouses

A church

A barbershop with creepy mannequins

Pretty brick koban (police box)!

A farmhouse

And of course, what place in Japan would be complete without a shrine

My trip to Hokkaido was great. I liked it so much, that I actually want to visit Hokkaido again. Although next time I hope to go during summer...

View of downtown from the Station tower building

Valentine's Day 2015

Saturday was Valentine's Day here in Japan and just like so many other young women around this country I was busy making handmade chocolates last week! Actually, Valentine's traditions are quite different in Japan than they are in America.

First and foremost, on Valentine's day only girls give out chocolates- to their friends and to boys. But boys generally return the treat a month later on March 14th, known as White Day. This holiday was actually created by a Japanese chocolate company- a cleverly executed marketing scheme if there ever was one! Anyway, back to Valentine's Day. Like with many things in Japan there is a social system and hierarchy to chocolate gifting.

There are "traditionally" two types of chocolate with even more types being invented in recent years. First, is honmei choco, this is chocolate given to boyfriends, husbands, and boys you really like! More interestingly, honmei choco is supposed to be handmade, not store-bought. It is believed that the care and effort of making handmade chocolate is a symbol of your true love.

The alternative is giri choco, which means obligation chocolate. This is chocolate that is store-bought to be presented to friends, colleagues, bosses and any associates to whom you feel obligated to give chocolate to. As for the purchased chocolate there are even levels to this. Men who are particularly well-liked, have a good relationship with the woman, etc. are given more expensive chocolate. As the relationship with the recipient becomes less important, the chocolate becomes cheaper. Down to the cheapest chocolate that is given to men who are not well liked.

Another type of chocolate is called tomo choco, which means friend chocolate. You guessed it, chocolate that ladies hand out to their friends! Which brings me to my story for the day.

Like for all holidays, I like to make a sweet treat to hand out to my students in class. This year I decided to do a lovely white fudge topped with bright red sprinkles for my student's Valentine treat. Yesterday after work I went to the store to buy a few ingredients and found that the local grocery store had no powdered sugar in stock. So I checked the drug store next door. Then went to the grocery store on the other side of town. Still nothing.

Still determined to treat my kids, I decided to drive to the next town over to buy sugar.  I finally got started with my fudge making at 9:00 p.m.- way later than I had intended. But I realized that I was mistaken and had a surplus of regular chocolate bars, not white chocolate like I had intended to use.

Although I was disappointed because I had planned to do white fudge, I accepted that it couldn't be helped and chose to make regular fudge after all. I began to make it and everything started fine but when I was beating the cream cheese and powdered sugar my beaters died! I had to hand mix it the rest of the way. And then, it turned out way too thick. There was no way I could spoon it into the little aluminum heart cups I had bought nor even pour it into a pan to cut later.

Disheartened, I wanted to abandon the whole thing. I thought to myself, "Ok I will just make it into a chocolate cheesecake for the potluck dinner party I am going to on Friday." I decided to heat it a bit to attempt to spread it easier- to my delight with just a bit of heat it turned into a silky, smooth liquid! I realized I could after all continue my fudge project for the students. So I made 70 little fudge cups topped with dried strawberry sprinkles to hand out to all my students and teachers at school the next day.

At school on Friday I was so spoiled by my students! During lunch break several of the girls all gathered outside of the teacher's room to see me. I stepped out of the office and was immediately greeted by a chorus of "Be My Valentine!" -a phrase which I had taught them earlier during our lessons. Hand after hand reached out to offer me a pretty little packaged, handmade sweet. My students made me feel so special and so loved!

"You is the love." 

Harajuku: A Tokyo Trip

I<3原宿

Do you want to see instrumentalists, dancers, artists and extraordinary fashonists all in one place? Go to Harajuku! Harajuku is one of the most famous wards of Tokyo. It is full of shops targeted at a young, fashionable audience and full of interesting people. This Fall I took a trip there and spent a long awaited day enjoying the eccentric happenings of the area.

After arriving with the Sunday morning crowd at the little Harajuku train station we wandered towards Yoyogi Park. Yoyogi Park is one of the biggest in Tokyo and is a gorgeous place to spend several hours. Paths trail throughout the park surrounded by gorgeous green lawns under a ceiling of tall gingko trees, which were displaying their beautiful, golden fall leaves!! Yoyogi is specifically famous since it is a place where people go to practice and display their creative talents. Musicians, artists, dancers and more go to Yoyogi every weekend to have fun and perform for any passersby.

As we approached the plaza in front of the park we were met by a group of 50's greasers who were swing-dancing up a storm. I felt as though I had stepped onto the set of Grease! The men and women dancing clearly loved it and kept dancing for hours. Even when we left the park three to four hours later, they were still there dancing into the sunset. Later I realized this group was in fact the Tokyo Rockabilly Club, who go to Harajuku every Sunday to get down to their Rock and Roll.

Just outside of the park gate we noticed a group of young men doing something so peculiar we were compelled to stop and watch for several minutes. At first we casually stood around to discreetly watch the guys, but soon gave up our ruse and sat down on the bench across the path to openly stare at their antics. The guys would line up, yell and carry on like cave men, then the leader would lead them in a caterpillar train walk, over and over. After several minutes of watching them in confusion, one of my cohorts finally recognized the routine as a traditional ritual from old Ireland or Scotland. What better way to bro-out with your guys on a Sunday morning...

Just inside the gate for the park grounds we saw a mime! He was adorable and completely expressive with his silent show. After ten minutes of different routines he thanked the crowd who had gathered around for watching him. He spotted our group (five American women) and approached us speaking in perfectly conversational English! Company man by day, mime by weekend, かな？

We walked through the park enjoying the cool weather and Fall sunshine and met several artists along the way. First, we came to a group of men beating on some tribal drums. Intrigued by their exciting beats, we sat down to enjoy it for a few minutes. After a while, we were moved by the beat and had to get up and dance in the sidewalk. Then, a toddler who was walking by with his parents spotted us and felt moved to dance as well! And then, another lady joined the dancing circle, too. It was a beautiful moment of several complete strangers enjoying a dance together without any words nor reservations to hold anyone back from sharing in the experience.

After our exhilarating drum dance, we moved on down the sidewalk and admired the work of several more artists, including two harpists, a speed artist wearing stilts, a shamisen player and more.

We had to snap a picture of our group amid the beautiful leaves!

After spending the whole afternoon in the park, we exited to go shopping on the famous Takeshita Street- where all the young kids go to satiate their sub-culture fashion hunger. On the bridge by the station we found what we had been looking forward to all day- Lolita fashionistas.

Lolita is a fashion culture famous for extravagant outfits which transform the wearer into a living doll. The clothes are inspired by Victorian and Edwardian fashion characterized by frilly dresses with full, knee length skirts. This trend began in the 1980's as a way of dressing to be cute and elegant. Although many people associate the name Lolita to the novel written by Vladimir Nabokov, this fashion trend has nothing to do with sexuality or fetish. In fact, practitioners of Lolita culture consider it an embrace of a more demure and modest sense of style rather than flaunting their skin to be sexy. Lolita fashion quickly evolved to umbrella many sub-cultures such as Gothic Lolita, Princess Lolita and more. If you want to read more about Lolita fashion here is a comprehensive website!

A couple European girls displaying their Gothic Lolita ensembles. Perhaps it has been their dream to come to Harajuku to display their passion in the birthplace of Lolita?

The fashionistas congregate in Harajuku "To see and be seen," and are more than willing to pose if you want pictures!

The girl on the right is a Lolita, as for the guy on left I have no idea what that is.

There and Back Again

There and Back Again

This year I spent my winter vacation visiting my family and friends in America. After a year and a half of separation, I was jumping up and down at the thought of seeing everyone again and spent the last week of work counting down each day. 

My trip started in New York where half of my extended family lives. I flew in to JFK Airport in the City where my Uncle, Aunt, and cousin were waiting to meet me. With a hug and smile of hello we glided off to the train to head into the City center for the evening. 

Since it was the Christmas season we had to go see a couple of the most famous fixtures that NYC purveys every year during winter. First, we ventured into the packed streets around Rockefeller Center to see the annual Christmas tree. Upon seeing it in person I was amazed that a tree so huge could actual be a real, live tree!

Next we strolled down to Saks Fifth Avenue to see the famous Christmas window displays. I expected to see their season's finest products displayed amid a beautifully decorated Christmas-y window. I was wrong. Saks Fifth Avenue employs a staff whose sole mission is to spend the entire year designing and creating the Christmas window displays. There appeared to be two themes this year. The first windows we came upon were inhabited by shining white mannequins dressed in sparkly, elegant 20's high fashion. While walking down the sidewalk admiring these Golden Era windows, we came upon the feature windows which were fairy tale themed. Each window in this series contained moving figures exquisitely dressed in fine costumes purporting a different fairy tale. We saw Little Red Riding Hood, Alice in Wonderland, and more. We even popped inside the store where we found the ceiling area festively decorated with a whimsical reindeer and snowy landscape scene.

After seeing all these gorgeous Christmas displays we ended the night with my first meal back in America- and of course I picked Mexican food! 

After five days of shopping, baking cookies, and spending much cherished time with my NY family I headed back to the airport to begin the next segment of my vacation- TEXAS! 

I arrived four hours later to find my mom and dad waiting for me at baggage claim. I jaunced right up to my parents and started talking about the stark differences between customer service and worker attitudes in Japanese and American airports! The next two weeks I had in Texas were fantastic.

I was able to see my whole family as well as all my friends from University. I even got to catch up with one good friend from high school! I was so happy the entire time that I was back with my friends, reminiscing on old memories and making new ones too. Before arriving in America I had read articles about people who lived abroad and then had trouble reconnecting with their old friends and family. Naturally, I was afraid I would face the same obstacles when meeting up with people. However, I found that I did not have any such problem with even a single one of my friends!  

I did however experience a different awareness of some aspects of America. While eating in restaurants I noticed a fundamental difference in our way of eating compared to that of Japan. In America, we eat large amounts of just a couple different foods at one sitting. The result of this is a meal that feels heavy and somewhat unsatisfying. Since you are eating the same food it gets boring much quicker and I found myself wearied of meal time due to having so many bites of the same food. However, in Japan they generally eat smaller portions of lots of different foods at one sitting. I prefer this method of cuisine because it creates a more interesting and satisfying meal. Plus I am always excited to try "a little bit of everything!"

Also, I found that driving on the right hand side of the road was uncomfortable. And not in an apparent way, rather in a subtle, nagging way that gave me the constant, eery feeling that I may or may not be on the wrong side of the road and I just couldn't feel sure. It was to the point that neither side felt wholly natural anymore. I turned onto the wrong lane twice, the first time with a bus coming toward me. Of course my reaction in that second was bewilderment as to why on earth he would be driving towards me like that! Luckily I quickly understood my mistake and ducked my car into a convenient driveway to let the bus pass before righting my path of travel.

Much two soon my time in Texas was up and I had to make the long journey back to Japan. I arrived in Tokyo on Sunday afternoon where I spent one night before catching my domestic flight to the Noto the next day. (There are only two sets of flights in and out of the Noto per day) Since I had a little bit of time I decided to do my best to enjoy Tokyo for a few hours.

In the evening I visited the famous temple located in Asakusa, Senso-ji. Although it was chilly and dark there were still throngs of people ambling around the streets and visiting the temple for a late Hatsumode, first temple visit of the New Year. During my visit I burnt my tongue on a hot bowl of tonjiru, pork and miso soup, and received an unlucky New Year's fortune.

There are generally four basic types of fortunes: super lucky, kinda lucky, a bit unlucky, and way unlucky! Since last year I had a super lucky fortune I was disappointed at my pick this year. But I dutifully tied it on the rail so that the gods would draw the bad luck away. Cold and sleepy I headed back to my capsule hotel for the night.

This was my first capsule hotel- another Japan specialty experience (remember my night in an internet cafe?). Capsule hotels consist of floors that hold a long room that is lined with one-person capsules along each side. It was actually more comfortable and spacious than I imagined it would be. Each "capsule" was a plastic bed that was approximately 3.5x3.5x6 feet and had a light and tv inside. The end of the capsule closed by just a soft pull down screen for privacy. The women's floor I was on contained capsules built into the wall in two levels. So each guest is only really separated by a few inches of plastic wall. Although the idea of staying in a capsule hotel may seem strange I actually found it to be comfortable and convenient accommodation.

In the morning I decided to go on a pilgrimage in honor of the Summer that I interned in Tokyo. I rode the train to Tsurumi, the ward of Tokyo that I stayed at during my internship. After a minute of hesitation I took the West exit out of the station- a decision which was quickly affirmed when I stepped out to see the familiar plaza and shops there!

I walked along the streets to the company dorm still right where I left it! I was delighted to see that I still knew the way without a hitch. I continued down the road to a store called Life Mart, my favorite shopping haunt that summer! Feeling slightly like a ghost, I headed back to the station to ride the familiar train line back to the center of Tokyo. I am very glad I finally went back to see it all again.

First store I ever went into in Japan- its funny to remember how foreign my surroundings were that summer.

The company dormitory!

My favorite store- home of the best ever Melon Bread!

I spent the rest of the morning shopping and hanging out in a train station cafe until it was time to head to the airport for the last flight of my journey. An hour after boarding, our plane touched down among the snowy trees of the Noto and with that my trip over to America and back again was over.