Today I was treated to a special trip with my host family. It started out with them asking if I wanted to go eat some ramen and ended up in an excursion of Sapporo‘s, “hard to get to” treasures.

In earlier posts I talked about the Matsuri. There are tons of different kinds of Matsuri and different ways it’s done. My host family took me to the 2006 Ramen Matsuri in Sapporo. As you could expect, tons of dealers were broadcasting their ramen as “Oishii (good)”. With my ticket, I went to the most vacant stand and ordered a bowl of ramen. I can’t tell you which ramen it was other then the fact that it was good ramen. The climate today (and especially in there) was really dry and the pressure was high too, because I got a small bloody nose while in there which I had to promptly take care of. It is a good thing that Japanese stores bombard you with little tissue packs everywhere you go!

After cleaning up and finishing a fine bowl of Ramen, my host parents asked if I wanted to go to the “jumpu.” “The jumpu?” I asked, “hai, sukii jumpu.” They were referencing the famous Sapporo Winter Sports Museum (札幌ウィンタースポーシミュージアム)　which is in Miyano-mori, Chuo-ku. To get there from Shiroshi (where we were) took about 15-20 min by car through Sapporo‘s tricky and clustered roads. Up the hill we went until we saw the giant ski jump. Chances are that, if you didn’t have a car, you could take a taxi from Odori there but I don’t know how reasonable it would be.

Now, for those who experienced 1972…

If you can remember 1972 and the 1972 winter Olympics in Sapporo, I salute you! For those who did not, here is a brief recap of the ’72 Winter Olympics…

• The 1972 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XI Olympic Winter Games, were held in 1972 in Sapporo, Japan, the first Winter Olympics to be held in Asia.
• 35 Nations competed including: The USSR, United States, Yugoslavia, West Germany, East Germany, Great Britain, and the North Korea, oh and Andorra(?).
• The USSR took the most medals with 16 totals (8 gold/5 silver/3 bronze). East Germany took 2nd with 14 (4g/3s/7b), and Switzerland took third with 10 total (4g/3s/3b). The U.S. placed 5th overall with 8 total (3g/2s/3b)/
• The Banner looked like this. (right)
• The opening ceremony was opened my Emperor Hiro Hito
• It was Avery Brundage’s (84) last year as president of the International Olympic Committee; as the 1972 Winter Games approached; he decided to make an example of Alpine skiing, which had become highly commercialized in Europe.
• Karl Schranz (AUT) was disqualified.
• Yukio Kasaya, Akitsugu Konno and Seiji Aochi gave the Japanese public a triple in ski jumping, on the 70m jump. It was the first Japanese Olympic title in the Winter Games.

Remember now? If do not remember, that’s ok… What matters is the last event, “3 Japanese won the 70m jump“.

To commemorate this victory, forever, the Sapporo Winter Sports Museum holds the actual ski jump used in that Olympic game! There’s a chairlift that takes you to the top, but for some reason it wasn’t running today. Despite the chairs not working, I had a pretty good view of Sapporo from up there and more importantly a shot of the actual jump used in the 1972 Olympics!

We parked down below in a small parking lot and rode a long escalator up to the jump. The actual museum wasn’t exactly “wow” material, because most of it you could find via the internet. However, looking at ski jump was awesome! It’s huge; for things this size it’s hard to grasp the size of this thing until you stand in front of it… Hopefully my picture will help. If you get a chance to come to Hokkaido, Sapporo tries to take a trip to this place!

The second place we went to was the Hokkaido Jingu (北海道神宮）. The Lonely Planet guide describes this place:

Hokkaido Jingu is nestled in a forest (Maruyama-koen) so dense it’s easy to forget that the shrine is just beyond the city. The place is carefully labeled so that you don’t have to ask what that plant is. There’s a shop that serves green tea for free.

That’s about it for this temple. Well I think Lonely Planet could have written a bit more so here’s my review.

First, this place was a shrine (not a temple) meaning that it was Shinto. While we were there, the 七五三 or Shichi-go-san (7-5-3) event was taking place. Shichi-Go-San is an event in which parents celebrate their children’s growth. Typically in the fall months of October and November, 3 and 5-year-old boys, and 3 and 7-year-old girls
are taken to Shinto shrines, where their parents pray for their future. Boys often wear haori, or half-coat, and hakama, or divided skirt, and girls wear a kimono. The practice is supposed to date back to the years in which young kids often didn’t survive long and so these ages were landmarks for children. The tradition stuck and now (most) Japanese families who are somewhat religious take their children at these ages to get prayed for. It is a sight to see! The kids were running around in their kimonos and hakama, and parents and grand parents running around taking their pictures. It’s really no different then dressing up young American kids and taking them to baptism or something. It was all very cute.

Now as you enter the Shrine grounds you have to pass through the front gate called a Torii (left). This particular torii was huge and worth noting as you pass through. As you walk down the path towards the main entrance there’s stone lanterns the line the path on either side. As you approach the shrine, there is a basin with running water for purifying yourself. The water is very pure and I saw people drinking from it. After the water basin is a large gate that you pass under (gate 2). In the back of the site is the shrine where the kids were getting prayed for. In front of it is the worship area where you pray. There is not a secret to praying (no secret handshake or set prayer) for commoners and there isn’t some bouncer (usher) that asks for a Shinto membership card. Anyone can pray and pray for anything. After praying my host mom (Na-chan) took me over to the oracle box. For 100 yen you could grab a fortune and then read it and then put it on a communal prayer stand to pray for it to come true. So I tossed my 100 yen and grabbed a fortune from the “foreigner’s box” and read my fortune “Luck fortune.” I can’t recall what all it said, because I tied it to the prayer stand after I read it. I’m chalking it up as experience that I will ask for forgiveness for… later.

The Shrine’s grounds are very pretty to walk around in. We spent a good amount of time walking around the park there where I took a couple of shots of the scenery. I find that Shrines and Temples usually have the best spots for scenery shots. Walking in and around them isn’t a problem either. The routine is pretty much like walking into a big catholic cathedral… Taking pictures and stuff is allowed and most of the time there’s a little gift shop nearby. I tried my hand at photography again and came up with some “ok” shots.

When we were finished with the Shrine we went to a Kisaten or Coffee shop. The place we went to was called Lloyd’s Coffee or something and it was pretty small and quiet. I liked it a lot while we were there. I noticed that in many coffee shops the general music is classical. It really is all about the atmosphere in places like these, because the coffee is the same everywhere and usually costs 400 yen a cup. In spite of the price, I come to relax at these places. It was a good ending to a great tour. I really appreciated seeing Sapporo beyond the Subway and Bus restricted areas.

Ok so if y’all have a chance… put the temple and the museum on your “check this out” list, Ok?

~J out

It’s been pretty busy around here lately. I’ve been keeping up at school, as well as, planning for a big after Semester trip. Today I bought the Lonely Planet Guide to Japan (EN) and started making out a rough Itinerary for the trip.

Yesterday I had kendo where we practiced the “Kata” kendo form. Kata is not exactly “beat the man down” form of kendo. It’s more of the ritualistic form or the 道 (do) of 剣道 (kendo) (“do” meaning the way of ~). A better description can be found on wikipedia:

There are 10 nihon kendo kata (Japanese kendo forms). Performed with wooden swords (bokken/bokuto), the kata include fundamental techniques of attacking and counter-attacking, and have useful practical application in general kendo. Occasionally, real swords or swords with a blunt edge, called kata-yo or habiki, may be used for a display of kata.

Kata 1–7 are performed with both partners using a bokken (long sword) of around 102 cm. Kata 8–10 are performed with one partner using a bokken and the other using a kodachi (short sword) of around 55cm.

During kata practice, the participants take the roles of either uchidachi (teacher) or shidachi (student). The uchidachi makes the first move or attack in each kata. As this is a teaching role, the uchidachi is always the ‘losing’ side, thus allowing the shidachi or student to learn and gain confidence.

Nihon kendo kata were drawn from representative kenjutsu schools and tend to be quite deep and advanced. In some areas the regular training curriculum does not include nihon kendo kata.

In 2003, the introduction of Bokuto Ni Yoru Kendo Kihon-waza Keiko-ho, a set of basic exercises using a (bokken/bokuto), attempted to bridge this gap. Bokuto Ni Yoru Kendo Kihon-waza Keiko-ho is intended primarily for kendoka up to 2-dan, but is useful for all kendo students.

So we have practiced the first 3 forms of Kata, hopefully we’ll get to practice the other forms later.

~J out

With a score of 4 to 1 against the Chunichi Dragons, the Nippon Ham Fighters won their 5th and final game to take the Japan league Championship. “I can’t believe it,” said Trey Hillman (American coach for the Fighters). “It’s a blessing to have an opportunity to work for this organization and to manage this group of men.”

It was the second straight year that an American manager has led his team to victory in the Japan Series. The fighters held the Dragons to one run on eight hits while striking out six as the Fighters won their first Japan Series title since 1962!, when they were known as the “Toei Flyers.” The game was non-stop action and with out a doubt it big news for Sapporo’s die hard fans.

I’m sure they’ll be a party downtown this weekend!

Good Job Nippon Ham Fighters! We knew you could do it!

~J out

On a lazy Wednesday I awoke to the cold and peered out my window to gaze at the plethora of fall colors and golden leaves.

Fall has reached Sapporo and is slowly transforming the landscape into a sea of fiery reds, oranges, and yellows. Japanese for Fall is “Aki” but the kanji for fall is this: 秋 the second radical 火 means fire. Perhaps they called this season the fire season because it seemed like all the leaves were on fire. Never the less, the trees looked beautiful. I had an idea to try and take pictures of this season as it developed; I just had to find a place that really showed a full range of fall’s beautiful colors.

It was this idea and a brochure from the subway station that inspired me to take a trip to Hokkaido University (北海道大学) one of Sapporo’s famous college campuses. What makes it famous is it’s age and splendor. The College is similar to Portland State University or the University of Washington, in that it is more then a college; it is a symbol of it’s respective city. I wanted to visit this place, because I heard somewhere that as Fall rolls in, Hokkaido University transforms into a beautiful array of colors.

Hokkaido University is a walk away from Sapporo Station. I jumped on the JR Train to Sapporo Station and walked to the campus (about 10min). The first place I walked into was Hokkaido’s “Elm Forest.” The Campus was huge from this view. Across from where I was standing was a creek running through the forest (Sakushukotoni Rv.). I followed the creek up to a small waterfall that glistened as split into two streams. From a distance, it looked like an old man with a long mustache. I watched the leaves as they floated along. The park was quiet and pleasant; people from all directions were carrying their cameras to catch a glimpse of falls blazing colors. The temperature was cold, but not biting cold like the other days, but I wore a hooded-sweater and a heavy jean jacket, with my gloves and beanie.

I moseyed out of the elm woods and drifted towards the main road where I met a statue of Doctor William S. Clark who used to be the President of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, as well as, the first Vice President of Hokkaido University in July of 1876, back when Mass. Amherst was named Massachusetts Agricultural College and Hokkaido University was named, (The) Sapporo Agricultural College (1876-1907). According to Wikipedia, he was a professor of chemistry at Amherst, but in 1861 went into the military, where he became a Colonel. Afterwards, he became a member of the Massachusetts Legislature, as well as, a member of the ex officio. He moved to Japan for one year from 1876-1877, where “he taught his students not only academic lectures but also Christian principles.

Although it was a short stay, he influenced many students, leading them to Christian conversions. Some of them later played important roles in the field of Christianity, Education, and International Relations in the beginning of Modern Japan. Alumni such as Uchimura Kanzō (Christian thinker and evangelist) and Nitobe Inazo (Quaker) are still well known nationwide in Japan.” ~Wikipedia

According to the University and Wikipedia: “On the day of his departure, April 16th, 1877, Clark is supposed to have said to the around ten students that came to see him off Boys, be ambitious! and a few variations on that theme. One of those students was apparently so moved that he memorized the phrase and later used it in a lecture, making it the famous phrase it is in Japan today.” ~Wikipedia

Past Dr. Clark’s statue is a small rock formation where I tried my hand at a little photography (Click for Full Ver.). I don’t have the best camera, but the one have does make pretty good pictures at times. The model I use is a FinePix A360. I know there are others here, but don’t get the idea that electronics like digital cameras and ipods are super cheap here… because they’re not. If electronics was cheap I’d probably buy a better camera. The editing software I used was Picasa2 from google.com. It’s totally free to download and really easy to use.

Walking around the campus, I found lots of people on bikes that stopped occasionally to take a picture here or there. I spent
a lot of time just looking at the old and new buildings and walking in to see what they all were about. I think that Hokkaido University is also a graduate college only because I found higher education buildings around. I’d be interested sometime in finding out Hokkaido Universities Majors (not that I’m planning for my Masters).

At the end of the main road was a sign, “Model Barn.” It was one of those things that were weird enough to warrant a side trip to check it out. I’ll be honest that I don’t understand why it is really there, but I can assume that because Hokkaido used to be an all Agricultural College; this model barn(s) was there to perhaps represent what the campus used to be, or what barns in Hokkaido looked liked. This is only speculation though.

Finally, I found a campus map at the model barn site and I noticed an avenue of trees that I’ve seen all around Sapporo. It’s some famous avenue called “Gingko Avenue.” It was a distance from the barn, but now with a map in hand I oriented myself and walked to the avenue while gazing at the cool buildings and stuff. A couple of minutes later I was there. The avenue had that kind of Sleepy Hollow look with Ichabod Crane types walking about. It looked like one of those classic scenes you’d find in some college entrance magazines advertising their impressive demographics and professor profiles.

While standing At Gingko Ave. I took my 1000^th picture (left) with my camera. It was a straight shot of Gingko Avenue… I’ll admit to sprucing it up a little bit, but it’s a pretty good picture for being my 1000^th.

It was a cool place overall. I wouldn’t mind coming back another time when the campus fades into an even deeper shade of red and yellow.

~J

They told me that Hokkaido gets cold in the Fall and the Winter months. Perhaps I wasn’t listening or perhaps I didn’t believe that cold meant cold. This morning the temperature hovered at around 2.7-2.9 degrees Celsius (about 37 F). Now that was pretty cold to walk in, but the commute, on my bike, today was bone chilling! My feet were so cold that they didn’t thaw until 12:00pm today. I was wearing two fleece jackets, a beanie, fleece gloves, jeans, and a pair of Doc Martin boots. Somehow I make it to school, but man is it cold here!

And… it seems like it’s not going to get any much better in the days to come according to the weather report.

currently it’s: 34 degrees F

Current conditions as of 8:30 pm JST October 24, 2006

Partly Cloudy

Feels Like: 34°

Barometer: 30.39 in and steady

Humidity: 81%

Visibility: 6.21 mi

Dewpoint: 28°

Wind: Calm

Sunrise: 5:58 am

Sunset: 4:39 pm

~J out

For new readers who wanna read older posts, I changed that archive format so you can click on the month (on the right hand bar) and the title of the post comes up. Just click on the title and the blog post should come up.

~J

Well it wasn’t what you’d call a “camp.” It was a two day excursion of southern Hokkaido. It was like the bus tour where they tried to cram too much in too little time. It could of been planned better in my opinion. For starters, the school had us show up late on Saturday (12:30 am) and then the first place we went was to the Ainu Museum where we were whisked around, by the school staff, to different exhibits (in Japanese), but we really didn’t get enough time to really “explore” much less try to understand what the Ainu people were telling us. I really wished that we would have left earlier to check out the museum more. There was a lot of places we didn’t go too and the building we did go to didn’t show a whole lot. They tried to get us to make headbands at the Ainu place, like hand stitching, but again we only had about 45 min or less to do it…. lame.

The school whisked us, via bus, to this hotel which was pretty nice with an onsen and everything; I got at least an hour or so to enjoy the onsen. I think that was the most memorable only because you could relax (for a bit). Dinner that night was served buffet style, because there was about 30+ of us and another group “EASCON” who participated. For 2 hours, in the dark of night, a small group of us went and checked out the town. We saw the “hell valley” and it did look like hell… Creepy. The rest of the night was a blur so… don’t ask ; – ) cool volcano though!

The next day they tried to wake us up at 7am for breakfast, but that didn’t happen… heh heh. At 9am they shoveled us into the bus and took us to this Edo Wonderland. Now, this “Edo Wonderland” was kinda like enchanted forest and an old western town like Calico put into one. However, the shows were so-so and while the buildings and stuff were cool.. it felt dead. I can’t even describe the little buildings they had. For example, I walked into this “ninja house” which ended up being one of those really dumb house of mirrors and slanted floors to trip you out, but I had a (ahem) headache from the other night so some of that dizziness came back… ya know? Not fun.. not much fun at all.

You see they were trying to replicate a (kids) version of Japan before 1868′s “samurai age.” But they were trying too hard and some of it didn’t make since. They had this building that they called the Yoshiwara (read: sex district) that had a “geisha show”, but it was no show. They had a ninja program, but it was totally staged and it had the ninja/samurai exhibits had little to no educational value.

I’d say if you wanted a cheap thrills, then find a happening bar and save your money then to go to “Edo Wonderland.” Sorry.. it just didn’t turn me on. But I did manage to remember to buy my host family a box of bean cakes which they liked.

That was it for that day.. 9:30-1:00pm and then we went home to Sapporo (yeh!). When we got back, I had a coffee with my buddy Nick and then went home… Slightly disappointed. I was only disappointed because they rushed us through the cool educational places like the Ainu museum and Norboribetsu town which had A FREAKING LIVE VOLCANO! and then dumped us in a very boring and un-educational theme park that just wasn’t suited for college age students.

Well… I’d still like to go back to Norboribetsu sometime and really explore that town. They have a bear zoo! Why on earth didn’t the school take us there? Oh well… Back to home work…

~J out

I told y’all that i’d be going on a big trip this weekend and so I thought I would clue you all in as to where I was going.

We’re going to Norboribetsu City (登別市), it’s a mostly a tourist trap for Japanese and Gaijin alike. The city is famous for some geological sites like: Jigokudani (Hell Vally), Hiyoriyama (Mt. Hiyori), Oyunoyu (Oyu Swamp), and Kuttarako (lake Kuttarako).

Also the town has the Kuma bokujo or the “bear park” as well as a historical town like the old coyboy western towns (only Japanese samurai style). The other famous thing about Norboriebetsu is thier onsens… oh yeah.

If you want to read more about Norboribetsu (before I post about it) you can visit the website (in English) @

http://www.noboribetsu-spa.jp/en/index.htm (flash ver.)

http://www.noboribetsu-spa.jp/en/index_nonflash.htm (non-flash ver)

PS.
btw… injured my foot durring kendo last night, but I took a salt tablet and walked it off. Hey, ya know, if you don’t feel pain, you’re not trying right?! Right.

The other day I got myself new duds for kendo practice. The First is a jacket or “Keigoki” that is made of a real thick fabric and the second piece of clothing is the pants called “hakama”. There are rules and procedures to putting this clothing on:

For the Keigoki, you must put it on and tie the strings in a bow. The bow must face horizontally.

For the Hakama, you must first wrap the forward straps around your waist 1 1/2 times and then tie it in a bow behind your back. Then you must put this doggle from behind into your back strap and then tie the back straps forward in a square knot.

This is the way of the clothes. I feel that as I put it on, I feel focused and charged about doing kendo. Like when a president of some big company puts on a red “power” tie. It’s cool, it looks cool, and feels great.

About the color… most all kendo outfits are indiglo. There really is no distinguishing marks between levels (Kyu) and Ranks (Dan). The ranks and level are better explained in the wikipedia version of Kendo (google “kendo”).

So here you go, Samurai Josh!

What’s coming next is a “tare” or short name skirt that goes in front on the hakama. The Tare is usually personalized with peoples names in Kanji. My friend Nic’s last name is Stone or Ishi which translates ok, but Wheeler translates to “multiple wheels” or something with car and tires. So I picked my own kanji… “Akaryuu” or “Red Dragon” plus the school name and my last name in Katakana. here’s what it’ll look like:

Seeing as my Major in College is East Asian Studies International Relations (EASIR), I want to briefly comment on the UN Security Council’s recent resolution (Resolution 1718) concerning North Korea (DPRK) and their WMDs. This is a big deal, internationally, for a couple of reasons.

1. First, the U.S. and Japan are the most aggressive players, calling for heavy sanctions against North Korea. (Huh? Japan holding an aggressive position? Japan debating a military response? Interesting)
2. Second, China voted for Res. 1718 which binds them to some serious sanctions against North Korea (normally China veto’s sanctions against anyone even Iran or Iraq).
3. Third, North Korea’s actions indicate that they do not care. (the display made my the DPRK walking out shows arrogance and a general disregard for international diplomacy system)
4. And forth, no one knows how far this is going to play-out, so precautions are already taking place in case of the worst.

Some things that are significant (in my opinion) in the actual resolution is that:

· It demands the DPRK to not test/fire another missile

· It demands DPRK is disband every WMD they own

· It calls on all UN States (China, ROK, Japan incl.) to not send direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer military goods or otherwise including luxury goods (something that the DPRK elite often import) (See Paragraph

Other things that are important are that, China is bound by the resolution to carry out what it requires of them. Perhaps this little stunt by the DPRK will convince China of their rogue-state behavior?

I might be wrong, but I also think that the reason the U.S. is cracking down on North Korea is because they want to send a clear message to Iran, basically saying if you go ahead with WMDs, the US will thrown down on you.

Here in Japan, it’s on the news all the time. It’s on people’s minds here, the general opinion is that the North Korean People are good people; it’s just that their leader is not. I’ll simply say that there’s years of history between Japan and the Pacific Rim Asian nations. If you want to see diplomacy at work, I find this N.Korea situation to be the ultimate example of international diplomacy at work… for all of us little people.

More to come later…

~J out