wandering: August 2006

This is it

I have packed up all of my things and am ready to fly out tomorrow. I really can't believe I have been here for a year. That's more than 1/10 of my adult life! It was a really good experience and it hasn't quite set in that it's over. But I guess the excitement of getting back home is outweighing it a little bit. I will get to see family and friends, eat Mexican food, watch movies, go camping, understand everything people are saying to me- it definitely has an appeal. See you all soon!

Things I will miss about Japan

Conveyor belt sushi. The fashion. Sakura. Crazy festivals. Vending machines. The fish selection at the supermarket. Riding my bike or the train everywhere. Getting to know people from all over the world- shoved together in one foreign place. Dodgeball. Conbinis. Rock Scissors Paper. Engrish. Temples and shrines. My students. The chime of City Hall at noon. Karaoke booths. Ramen shops. Fast-food udon. K-cars. Watching train conductors go through their routine. Mugi-cha. Good chocolate. Bakeries. Feeling so safe all the time. Watching women walk in their high heels. Supermarket sushi. Electronics stores. The close-door button on the elevator actually working. Sports day at school. Maples in the fall. Umbrellas. The good Italian and Indian restaurants in Kakamigahara. The sweet potato vendor's music. 30+ choices of tofu. The taiko game. Eiji's magic. Izakayas. Restaurant service.

Too tired to write

I have had some form of going away party or dinner every night this last week- 3 yesterday alone! Anyway, I am too tired to write anything, so here are just some pictures.

The following are from a really nice Botanical Garden in Sapporo.

Hokkaido, pt. 2

*small disclaimer: I obviously still haven't figured out how to format this blog because the template is weird, so the picures may not line up with the captions. Sorry.
I only have 2 1/2 weeks left here in Japan and I am going crazy. I never thought there would be this much to do! But I will take a little time out to post more about Hokkaido.
So after getting to Daisetsu-zan Natl. Park, we had time to relax, so I went to my first onsen (hot spring bath). It was on the 7th floor of a fancy hotel, and it had an outdoor bath that overlooked the surrounding mountains. It was a little awkward at first, because I had no idea what to do, but after some other women came in, I could just follow them. And was it worth it. No pictures, though.
The next day, we went hiking up a peak named Kuro-dake. It was a nice hike, albeit a little steep, with flowers and greenery the whole way up.

These pictures are from the hike.

This is the sign at the peak with the elevation in kanji (1984m). I realized I need to stop doing the peace sign for pictures. It's become habit in Japan.

This was (disappointingly) the view from the top, but only when the extremely cold wind picked up enough to move some of the clouds away.

The hike was really nice, even if my knees were about to give out at the end. It was a really pretty area, and I want to go back to do some more hiking in the future.
The next day, we rode bikes around to see some waterfalls before we had to catch our next train.

And then it was off to Sapporo.

Hokkaido

The only bad thing I can say about this trip is that it was expensive. And maybe not long enough. Hokkaido is really an amazing place. Every once in a while, you'll be reminded you're in Japan, but it's easy to forget. On the trains, sometimes I would get lost and think I was on my way to Yellowstone or somewhere in Alaska. The scenery is completely different than anywhere I have been in Japan. Everyone that I have told I was going to Hokkaido kept saying "Oh, it's so wide!" or "It's so open!" and now I understand what they meant. I realized how much I had missed open space.
Anyway, I went up with a friend for a week and feel like we were able to do a lot, despite the amount of travelling we had to do on such a big island. This picture (not a great example of the open space) is the "top night view" in Japan. It was in Hakodate, a city they compare to San Francisco in its feel. It was refreshingly cold that night and we were able to eat some good food, including some delicious squid jerkey. Yumm.

This was a very un-Japanese looking church in Hakodate. There were a lot of buildings like this, cobblestone roads, old brick warehouses and hills, which is why it was easy to see why it's compared to San Francisco.

We saw this crab at the morning market- it's still alive, but didn't look very comfortable.

Onuma National Park. We took a bike ride around the lake and actually had a few hours where we hardly saw any other people. It was nice.

The same lake- there were several small islands in the lake, and they built bridges to a few of them.

This is the view from the train when I got confused and thought I was in Idaho.

This was in Daisetsu-zan National Park. I'm not sure what the arrows are for, but we think it has something to do with snow. It was a beautiful area.

And that's all for now. More on the trip later.

Fireworks

I just got back from Hokkaido last night, but don't have time to write about it yet. So instead, here are some pictures from the biggest fireworks show I have ever seen. It was like a 1 1/2 hour grand finale- there were 300,000 fireworks. A lot of people dress up in summer kimonos to go to the festivities, so that's what we did.