When you’re sick there’s nothing really you can do except sleep, drink tea, and watch t.v.
Someday I’ll do one or two blog posts on Jap t.v. but I thought this was halarious when I saw it. Apparently the Suntory the company that makes Boss coffee roped Tommy Lee Jones into being their mascot. So after looking through you tube I found it.. check it out
~J
I don’t know what it is that I got, but it’s bad. two days ago is when I noticed it. My voice began to change ache with every drink of water, food ate, word spoke. It didn’t really hit hard though until yesterday morning. Yesterday I went to school and when I was talking to my friends I had that voice you get when the day earlier you drink too much whiskey. Ya know that low graspy voice. It hurt like heck when I talked. I was about to spit for home and take a break when our international councilor person caught me walking off and said, “hey you’re supposed to meet the elementary school today.” The way she phrased it made me think this was some sort of century old trick to make foreigners who can’t speak good Japanese to do what they want.
Some other time I’ll do a post about it, but to wrap up.
Today I’m down and out my voice gone and ache like crazy. I played hookie at school and drinking tea. My nose drips like a leaky fossit and my head is cloudy. I hope Japanese colds die off as quick as American colds because I’m sick and tired already of being sick and tired. Plus the medicine that the host family is giving me is in Japanese so I don’t know what they’re giving me.
Before we left for Otaru we had to get bait. Near the edge of Atsubetsu-ku is a tackle and bait shop. For the most part of my stay here, most stores are pretty small and often don’t have what you’re looking for. This tackle store, however, was huge and had all sorts of fishing lures, bates, rods and poles (bamboo, wood, glass, graphite, etc.), outfits, rod holders, boots, waders, watches, knifes, tackle, and tackle boxes that would all blow your mind. I guess Hokkaido is a fishing place!
While June was getting the stuff to fish, I was meandering over all the Japanese fishing goods. It was obvious Japanese people take their fishing seriously. 20 minutes later June was ready, he had bought me a pole, bate, line, you name it. We were prepared for war against the fish. It was time to roll. 
This was the first time I had been on the open road in Japan. Highways here are supposed to be convenient and this one didn’t fail. This highway only went from Sapporo to Otaru. What’s different (well I guess different from Portland) is that you have to pay a toll to get on and a toll to get off. In exchange for a small toll of 400 yen you get a clear two lane highway (fast and slow). 
The speed limit on the highway was 80 kph which if you do the math (80 x 6= 480 then drop the last digit) equates to 48 mph. That might seem pretty slow, but people usually do 100 kph (60mph) here plus Otaru is nearby so the trip was pretty short.
The weather for today in Otaru was mostly cloudy with a chance for rain. Maybe the weather man was asleep because once it started raining, the wind blew hard. When the wind blew hard, the rain came down harder. It all just made for a soggy adventure.
June says that when it’s clear the fish bite a lot and it’s a lot more tolerable. Standing out there, I felt like I was back in Portland, maybe somewhere along the Columbia. It felt good to feel wind and rain. Weird eh?
Fishing Japanese style is similar to fishing off of Huntington Beach. You can’t cast without a license, but you can drop hooks without a license. We did what was allowed and dropped bait laden hooks into the murky waters of the Japan Sea.
June reminded me of a passage in Ernest Hemmingway’s Old Man and the Sea. Watching June was a sight to see. I was able to catch this photo of the Fishing Sensei in action. From watching him and other Japanese guys fish it looked like, through all the modernity that is slowly fading old Japanese traditions, this activity seems like it bonded the man with his roots. I guess this isn’t mutually exclusive, all cultures probabally have some activity that has transended modernity and when one or more people do it they too are connecting with their past, it was all kinda spiritual in a way. Perhaps, I’m wrong and it’s just that fishing is fun, and June was showing off his honed skills. Whatever the case, he made it fun to go out and fish in those harsh conditions.
So for some unknown reason, him and I started traveling the Hokkaido countryside enjoying the scenery and taking in the fresh air of the less traveled part of Hokkaido.
We got out and saw a lot of people kite boarding, windsurfing, and salmon fishing. The view from the beach was beautiful. The Hokkaido Mountain ranges were in the 
background and the Japanese Sea seemed like it streached for miles.
Before leaving I was trying to plan my route there. I had subway maps and city maps opened up on the table trying to make a good route. June said, “What are you doing?” “Planning my route” I replied. “No, no, no, you should take the JR Train to Sapporo Station and then walk there.” I wasn’t sure about this idea, I had looked at prices to ride the JR train and they’re pretty spendy, except they are fast. “Here, use my pass to get there” June said. So it was set, thanks to June-chan the route was pretty straight forward: 1st get on the train, 2nd walk to the factory (15min walk).
Densha de GO! (Let’s ride the train)
Honestly I had never ridden in a commuter train before. I’ve been in other trains like from Portland to Seattle, but it was not quite like this. I rode my bike to Oasa Eki (above pic) in Ebetsu-shi and used my pass to get into the train station.
I asked a nice person just which train to take and then waited for the train to arrive.
In Japan, the trains travel the same way cars do in Japan (opposite from America). This little fact I didn’t know or atleast forgot on my way back home which cost me 15 minutes to figure out.
Once on the train I was headed to Sapporo Station. Sapporo station is pretty big by comparison to the other stations in the greater Sapporo/Ebetsu area. It’s like the grand central of Hokkaido. All of this was pretty cool to look at, but a station that big made it easy to get lost or at least mixed up on which way was south and north.
My first impression was that this was a real old antique looking place. It had all the elements of a German style pub/brewery yet with a hint of old Japanese to make it a truly unique place.
I was unsure as to how to proceed, so I went into a building and the lady at the front escorted me to the museum section (how Sapporo beer started, is made, etc.). The tour was very interesting and cute. Everything about mass beer brewing was explained in detail according to some ancient method developed about 100-150 years ago. According to the tour, Sapporo Classic Beer is made with hops and brewed like all beers are usually brewed. The results taste the same as most beers do with slight variations between the quantities of each batch. 
Supposedly, Sapporo has found that beer magic to make each batch as good as the next. Who cares really, it was obvious people were eager to get to the “tasting room.” Some of the tour was cool, in the beginning Sapporo beer was distributed in wooden kegs and the advertising for the beer was usually some geisha girl drinking Sapporo beer. Also Sapporo beer has had many name changes over the years: Hokkaido Beer, Nippon Beer, etc. A final interesting tidbit is that the Sapporo Company produces Green Tea, Water, Sports drinks, cola, and a lot more. Beer is only what Sapporo is famous for but, the factory produces much more then just beer. They’re latest beer product is “draft one,” it’s supposed to taste like draft beer only it’s in a can. It’s alright, they’ve done pretty good, but nothing really beats draft from a tap.
Knowing that, I was headed to the tasting room. The tasting room looked like an old beer cellar. It was lit with these old lamps and the walls were made of brick. I ordered a draft beer (200 yen) and just sat to enjoy this place. What an experience this place was. If anyone was to visit Sapporo, then I’d recommend the Beer Museum. The tour is about 15 minutes long, it takes about 15 minutes to get there by walking from Sapporo station, and it’s awesome. 
Admission is free to get in, only the beer tasting costs money.
The rest of the museum is spread out in a big campus with beer gardens and cafés everywhere. The Genghis Khan is nothing more then a grown up barbeque with beer for a lot. That night, June cooked up a big meal for us that resembled the Genghis Khan with draft one beer.
The next day (they day we went fishing) it rained. 
For anyone planning on coming to Japan, an onsen trip is a must. There are pretty much two kinds of Onsens, natural hotsprings and simulated ones. The one we went to was a natural hot spring.
To begin our adventure, our intentions were to get on a bus and ride it the aprox 70min. to the resort town of Jozankei then pile out and enjoy the relaxation of the pools. 
What really happened was far from that.
It started out ok we found the right bus and paid the 750 yen it would take to ride all the way out of Sapporo to Jozankei. However, as soon as we got on the bus we were not totally sure what stop to get off at. Our only guide was this small paragraph in the Sapporo tourist pamphlet that said to get on this stop and get off at the Jozankei Stop and that it’d take 70min. Hah! So we stayed on that bus a whole 70 minutes and then we got concerned. We didn’t know if this place was or wasn’t the infamous “Jozankei” we read about. So gleaming over maps we decided that at (what we thought was) stop 25 we’d get off check the map and try to find this place. So we did, stop 25 came up and we got off. Too bad that after 10min when the bus had left we realized we were about 2 kilometers from Jozankei. “Oh” my friend said, “2K isn’t far, why when I was in the military….” Yeah right we said. Almost like clock work we were peering over the bus time table at the bus stop we were at. We were 3 American guys, and a British guy trying to figure out when the next bus came. So after 20min trying to decipher “the code,” we were almost at a loss when a bus showed up. Naturally everyone set aside their arguments about what bus to take or if this meant 2 minutes or 2 hours. The bus took off and we were on it, my friend said, “the bus should take a left up here” … it didn’t. “ok, ok, it’s somewhere over here!” nope. “Man, ok well it’ll turn left just you see.” Well, 20 minutes passed and eventually it did but as soon as it turned, it stopped, “Everybody out, last stop!” The bus driver bellowed. We were puzzled, the place he dropped us out at didn’t look a hot spring at all. In fact it looked like the bus has taken us to some farm village in Costa Rica. The four of us asked, “is this Jozankei?” at this, the bus driver looked at us and laughed, “no, sorry.” He closed the door and there we were in the middle of no where, far from Sapporo and with out a clue as to where “Jozankei” was. 
So we sat at the bus stop waiting, and waiting, relaxation at that point was far from our minds. 15 minutes went by with no sound of a bus. We were confused, anxious, you name it. My friend and another guy decided to walk to a store near by to ask for directions. As they were walking off, I saw that same bus, the one that dropped us off in this mystery land, come back the other way. I ran out and stopped him and asked, “hey, just how do we get to Jozankei?” the bus driver squinted at me and replied, “sugi no busu wa norimasu” which we took to mean the next bus was the one we should take, but when did that come? It was nearly 3:30pm and we had left at 1pm so we were pretty skeptical about *just waiting* we asked the driver for a timetable and at this the bus driver hesitated and then preceded to rumble through hundreds of timetables like he was some master of the Japanese Transportation Time Space Continuum. It was hopeless, he didn’t know, we didn’t know, we were lost and we were miles away from any kind of English help. Hopes were low as the bus driver peered over tables of numbers, as he did, I heard the faint rumble of diesel as a lazy bus emerged from the corner of a building. The bus driver perked up and pointed to that bus like a hound finding a bird, “that one!”
We jumped, and ran like the wind to get on that bus, waving and thanking the bus driver as we hustled to the other bus. We had made it at last. The bus rumbled off towards the mountains and with in another 10-15 minutes we entered the resort town of Jozankei Hot Springs. The ordeal in our minds were over, we were exhausted from the whole thing, now it was time to rest.
The Spa experience…
Nothing makes you feel more like a foreigner then an Onsen Spa. Like most everything here, there’s a kinda of ritual to relax. First you can’t enter the onsen with out a towel. There was a minute mart nearby so we all bought a small towel. The spa was roughly 1050 yen (about 10 bucks) with a towel. The experience… Priceless! After paying our fee, we were escorted to lockers in the lobby where we were given a key to put our shoes in. In this locker was a pair of (small) slippers. We put the slippers on and the lady escort asked that we give her the key. In exchange for the “shoe key” we were given another locker key for the dressing room. She escorted us to the dressing room where some of us had to use the bathroom. However, in Japan, the bathroom has a separate “WC” or “Toilet” Slippers. So off with one pair and on with the other, then off with those and on with the other. We were then escorted to a group locker room where we were instructed to put our bags, coats, etc in. So we did. Then standing there we were unsure where to go next. A nice man in the locker room showed us to another room with a bunch of cubby holes. We were to strip down to nothing and then proceed to the spa. 
This is where it got weird. I felt that I had just gone back to high school track and field’s locker room. We figured, when in Rome… yeah… so into the spa we went, 4 naked white guys without a clue as to what we were walking into. We saw a washing station and so we went there. The room was huge.. There was about 7 or 8 huge pools with varying degrees of mineral water all around. The bathing section was traditional Japanese style i.e. rinse, soap, rinse, shampoo, rinse and then your good to go! As you may imagine there was plenty of giggles and laughs from all of us. Soon we had got over the humility naked thing and were ready for the Japanese experience.
Not sure as to how to proceed now that we were clean, the four of us started testing every pool, moving from one to the other with only a small cheap towel covering us up. The pools were divided between different temperatures. The first we went into was said it was about 40-42 degrees Celsius, others were around 36-39 and then one really hot one. There was also a sauna and a “cold pool” in case you got too hot you could chill out so to speak. With in minutes we had forgot our ordeal and we’r
e relaxing Japanese style in these pools. It was glorious, we just put all our minds at rest and relaxed.
We were in that pool for about 1 and ½ hour when we decided we were properly relaxed. We then began the ritual of wash and rinse then proceeded to the changing room when we got to play the slipper/locker game. Rested and Relaxed we found a bus stop and like clock work the bus showed up and we were on our way back to Sapporo.
The Jozankei Onsen was quite the experience. I’ll have to do that again sometime. I know other onsens are different and now, after doing one, I’m game to try some others around here.
~J out
Comming up is three posts I’ve wanted to share with you… stay tuned!
Today a big typhoon rolled in and everything is in chaos. I think it’s the reminents of the big Kyuushuu Typhoon so it’s not full force. Still it nearly knocked me off my bike today!
-J
Please don`t think I`ve forgotten to blog. I have three posts in the workings. The usual place and time I post is at my Host families house usually in the afternoon. However, most recently (2 or 3 days ago) the families internet just went down. I pinged microsoft, google, and yahoo and only got timed out messages. Today I was able to access the internet from school.
Japanese keyboards are a little difficult to use (they are NOT exactly like American keyboards). So if I cannot get the internet tonight I will bring my laptop here to school and post the 3 adventures. If you`re wondering they`re:
Again sorry for not posting earlier. It`s funny how connected you get to the internet, and then when it`s gone you begin to freakout a little. So if not tonight, look forward to tomorrow.
TTYL
J
Meet the Shachō (社長)
For those who don’t know, 
prestigious colleges here in
The visit wasn’t long, he introduced himself and welcomed us to Hokusei (all in Japanese) and then asked us to introduce ourselves (all 25+ of us) then we took a group photo and that’s was it.
Japanese business men are all business down to exact minute, yen, and meter, it makes you want to gag sometimes. He had a nice office though.
~J out
P.S.
*A note about colleges here in 
I don’t know if anyone else thought this, but I thought this guy look remarkablly simular to this guy… Maybe all happy asian men look the same to me…
Yesterday I didn’t have any classes so instead of hanging out at home I thought I’d check out this “Odori Park” I read so much about. In a nutshell, Odori is an awesome park for the awesome city of Sapporo. Just because you may have never heard of Odori or Sapporo for that matter doesn’t take from the fact that these great places exist.
Let me set the scene first. As I walked out of Odori Subway station I was greeted by a crystal clear blue sky. The temperature was perfect.
Warmer then Portland, but not too hot or humid. The sights and smells filled the air and I watched as Japanese street venders sold roasted corn-on-the-cob to pedestrians along the side walk. Sapporo has an inspiring “old and new mixed” aesthetic. Walking through Odori you get the feeling that the people here took extra care when they built this city.
An interesting note about Odori park. According to a local, the park was originally created to protect one half of the city from fire. If a fire was to break out (say in Susukino, the party district) the park is big enough that it could prevent the fire from spreading to the otherside, such as what happened in the Great fire of London in 1666. I don’t know if it could really do this, but it’s a cool story.
Here in Sapporo, and I assume all of Japan engrish is everywhere. In a vending machine I found the sollution to you Americans that are just *too happy all the time it’s “DEEPRESSO” no matter how you justify it, it’s just funny to see it everywhere.
To get to Odori I had to walk to the bus stop, then take the train all the way in, then walk around. By the time I was actually in Odori it was about noon so I was hungry. Luckily Sapporo has a secret weapon! ラーメン！(Ramen Noodles). Sapporo is famous for their ramen noodles. They’re a little spendy but well worth it. They’re served in huge bowls and usually has all sorts of meats, veggies, and stuff in it. So to eat it you basically take a pair of chopsticks (箸 ha-shi) and a soup spoon (the chinese style) and dig in. As you can imagine, if you’re aren’t good at chopsticks better get to the nearest chinese restaunt and start practicing! There’s no spoons, forks, or knifes at these establishments.
kinda like the red light district. It’s pretty active at night, but pretty sleepy during the day. As I was walking around this place, looking for this so called “Best Ramen,” I saw caberets, bars, pachiko parlors, you name it. It was only after about half hour that I found this ramen sancturary “ramen alley” what you say? Ramen alley? yeah it’s one ally that’s all ramen. From Miso to Squid every kind is represented. It’s the Ramen U.N. (United Noodles). Prices were reasonable I guess. Big Bowl of noodles runs you about 700-600 yen. Good stuff.
Packed full of noodles, I went out exploring the streets, taking pictures, and chilling. Sapporo is just like any other big city. Stores, parks, old town places, and groovy graffiti. The only real difference between Sapporo and Portland is that everything is mostly geared towards, what I call, “the Japanese experience.” Meaning that people here are born and raised in this place and thus, think this is common. It’s the source of culture shock when you take a person from this and put them somewhere that’s not this. Make since?
Sure. I’m an American, but, I’m just not any old American. I’m a westcoaster. And If the topic is culture shock, i’ll be honest. I had more culture shock in the middle of New York City then I have here in Sapporo, Japan. Speaking of Portland. For those conservationists out there I found this kinda funny—> engrish gotta love it.
Too bad Portland doesn’t have one of these next to the 711. It’s a Buddist temple. Often on the major walking paths you’ll find a monk from one of these temples standing with an offering bag. In many ways it’s real cool to see someone dressed in traditional buddhist robes, not saying a word, just standing there. It harkens back to this feeling of the old exsisting with the new is some kinda weird harmony.
Past the temple you find shopping strips. Not strip malls, but a covered street (like fremont street in Vegas) where it’s all shops. One of the better ones is this place (see left) the “real monkey.” Again from the Japanese experience, this is a play on history, when America de-humanized the Japanese durring world-war 2 by calling them monkeys. This store just counters that with size 150+ jeans over a giant American flag. The message couldn’t be more clear…
Don’t get outraged though, we got the drop on these guys. In some ways this store is scary because inside they’re selling Jeans for 50+ USD. All sizes from w28 L32 to w42 to L36. Levi’s 517, 501, 535, etc. yeah.. it’s places like this that kinda makes me wonder if I shouldn’t just buy American Levis and sell them here then try to work some 20 year career at a desk.
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It was getting late so I made my way back to the park when I ran into this guy. No real audience beside me taking his picture after pic of this guy doing crazy stuff on a BMX bike.
It was time to go so on the train I went back to shin-sapporo station. Trains here are really cool. I might just devote a whole blog post to them sometime. Padded seats, heated or ac, digital maps inside. yeah JR trains rule.
On my way, via the bus, I took a minute to snap a pic of this place. It’s the “Homac” or the Home Depot of Japan. It has all the home improvement you’d need AND they’re extremely… EXTREMELY helpful. Walking in, 99% of the time you can guarantee you’ll never get lost and the employees will help you get whatever you need or didn’t need till now!
Today I got to ride my bike to school and the trip was long but worth it. It took about 50 min,
but that’s because I stopped and took pics and checked the map and stuff. Tomorrow I expect to cut it down to 40 minutes or less.
On my way I found, yes, Ma-cu-do-na-ru McDonalds.
Here’s a cool sight on the way home. According to the Historical Museum of Hokkaido:
[The]“Centennial Memorial Tower’ was completed as a part of the undertaking of the centennial commemoration of the Hokkaido in September, 1970. The gratitude of Hokkaido people all the predecessors who built today’s Hokkaido is put, and it is the tower of the steel frame “torasu” structure built as a thing which symbolizes endless development to the future. It is based on the 100th anniversary in Hokkaido, and the height of the tower is 100m. That shape symbolizes development to the future by secondary curve to cross in the height of the infinity in the speck toward the sky. When it is seen in the planar, that shape makes the hexagon of the crystal of the snow a motif.
It can hope for the stores and houses on a street of Sapporo and Ebetsu and the wood of Nopporo from the view room in the height 23.5m.”
from:
http://www.hmh.pref.hokkaido.jp/english/annai/kouen/E_tou.htm
No Joke either. I took this shot from probabally 20-30 miles away. It’s a bike ride away and free as well.
Some trip ‘eh? Tomorrow is friday and I got some Japanese tests to take, but then it’s the weekend. A three day weekend none the less. Monday is respect the elderly day. It a day that the country stops and *respects the elderly for their wisdom and stuff, but if you ask any Japanese what they’re doing on Monday they say, “hey it’s a day off, I think i’ll go shopping, or fishing, or go the baseball game.”
Ok signing off another day…
See ya on the flipside good night! or should I say good morning…
~J out
