So about a week or two ago I decided to go to Sapporo city on the Northern Island of Hokkaido over the weekend to see the famed “Sapporo Snow Festival.”

If you’re unfamiliar with the festival it’s simply the biggest winter festival happening every year in Japan.  So famous that if you just said “yuki matsui” (snow festival) to anyone in Japan chances are good that they would know exactly what you were talking about.

What makes it so famous then?  It’s that this particular festival is huge! it takes up the entire city with snow and ice sculptures. Some in Odori Park (Sapporo’s central park area) get as big as a two or three story buildings. Additionally there is also ice sculptures in Susukino (Sapporo’s drinking district) that  are as elegant as marble statures one might find in London, or Paris.

Suffice to say that if you’ve never been to Sapporo’s Yuki Matsuri its just a fantastic event. Unfortunately it happened this year in a bad time and probably will happen again next year at a bad time as well. February has sort of been the month with little to no breaks. There was one holiday (a Thursday) a while ago we had off, but no holidays during the festival that could warrant me more then a weekend. Luckily I could get to Sapporo in a day, but even so I had more or less than 20-24 hours to see everything before having to go home which sucked.

During my stay I was very lucky to reconnect with my host mom from back when I last stayed with her and my host family in Hokkaido as an overseas student at Hokusei Gakkuen University. It was good to just reconnect and catch up on all that had happened in the last four years (which was a lot )

Overall I was surprised at how much everything had changed since I last lived there. There’s some landmarks I still remember… mainly Odori Park, the TV tower, and the giant 100th anniversary monument out in the distance. However, Sapporo seems to be trying to spruce up its image and make itself more of a high class city. Somehow they’ve got an approval to put in a bullet train from Hachinohe (the current end of the bullet train line) through Aomori city which is remarkable. I saw in Sapporo they were even building a big Bullet Train Station. I think it’s good the city is trying to get more connected with the rest of Japan. It’s good for the economy of Hokkaido and will probably bring a new source of business to the area…

I still like Sapporo, but lately I don’t feel like I’d want to move there for good. Lately I’ve been thinking somewhere more south would be a better transition from… cold old Mutsu. Somewhere like perhaps Osaka or Kobe? Or Fukuoka… ahh now there’s somewhere warm…

Good Trip… Good Trip… Very nice weekend get away… well worth every yen spent.

~J out

It’s a sunny day here in Mutsu for a chance… lately it’s done nothing but snow every single day with varying levels of intensity. It’s hard to describe sometimes… especially since I’ve never lived in such a place before.

When I used to live in the Northwest we used to joke at all the terms the weather man used for rain intensity. I believe there was the “Oregon Mist”, “Slight Showers”, “Drizzle”, “Down-pour”, “Heavy Showers”, and “Partly Cloudy with a chance of sprinkles.”

Here on the Shimokita Peninsula, I suppose from what I’ve seen, there would be “Partly flakey”, “a slight flurry”, “a Light Dusting”, “The Artic Blast”, “Free-jeez-ezing Frost”, “The B51+1 Bombarding Blizzard”, “Zah To-ta-RU (the total) BOnZaI White Out” amongst others.

If it’s not apparent, it is really cold here. The weather today is was considered balmy and it reached around a modest 8°C (46°F). The rest of this week is supposed to get better with highs in the 10’s maybe. Yet, it’s hard to truly believe…
That said, there are a handful of good things about the weather I do like. The snow and Ice here, for all the problems it causes, does make things very pretty. I’m always amazed on my drives to other schools just how pretty it is to look around and see snow cling to branches of pine trees and ice work it’s way down from roof tops to form massive columns to the ground below. Here, everything has that “snowy Christmasy” charm… so, if Christmas is your favorite time of the year and you really really want to enjoy a 5-6 month stretch of “white Christmas” drop in and I will be happy to show you it… not really…

~J out

(If you want to just know about how to use your Japanese Credit Card skip down to Using a Japanese Credit Card.)

I’m pretty excited to say that I purchased a new couch yesterday. Since back when I first arrived in Mutsu I’ve gotten these “stories” about the couch in my apartment. It’s an old beige sofa that probably didn’t look bad when it was new, but it’s long since been worn out.

I started looking around for a couch locally, but the used couches I found either were over priced or not what I wanted. Asking around people told me of a place called “Nitori.” Nitori is sort of like a Japanese IKEA, but without the hype or the size. The store actually pitches itself as a “Home Fashion” store rather then the store chain “Sunday” which is a home improvement store.

So on people’s recommendation I drove down to Aomori city which is about two hours away and found this Store tucked in with some other big box stores. The store itself is very nice with three floors of furniture ranging from kitchen wares, to sofa’s and dining sets, to bedroom and office furniture.

The sofa’s were on the second floor and there were a lot to choose from. There were your basic fabric models, leather models, reclining models, high back models, folding bed models, and floor level futons. After sitting in basically every one I more or less had to choose between two leather sofas. One was a model just discounted (perhaps last years model) and one was a cushy newer model for $100 more. Both had similar feels though the discounted one was a bit stiffer. I ended up buying it anyway because I’m hoping that with use it’ll soften up.

To buy a sofa at Nitori was shockingly easy. It’s good (I suppose) if you’re buying something big to get the stores membership card before you buy something expensive. Luckily they ask you if you want to be a member. Anyway, so each furniture item has a ticket. You take the ticket to a clerk who will then print you out a receipt that you take to the register. This is time too to ask about shipping options. With me being so far away from Aomori, I’d thought this would kill me but it only ended up being $30.

Once you’re done and have your receipt you can either continue to shop (I happened to go to the first level and buy a lamp, and a coat rack..) or go to the register to pay.

Using a Japanese Credit Card

Now, if you’re using a credit card from Japan it’s important to know what you have. I happen to have a credit card from JAL, but it’s an “IC” card just like a lot of cards from other places (Tsutaya, Lawsons, 711, etc.). The “VISA” stamp just means it can be used anywhere world wide. If you already have one, you know that to get it you had to link it to your bank account. This is because when you get “the bill” it’ll just be a statement of the money that they’ll automatically withdraw each month equal to the amount you charged the month before.

Thus when using the card, unlike a US Credit Card, you need to tell the store you’re using the card with how much you want to pay each month. This is very different then charging on the card then paying it off in minimal payments on your own. Also this system puts the burden of payment on the store so technically if you had no money then the store would take a loss, not the bank. So it’s a simple mistake to think that you’ll just pay gradually on your own or that when the bill that arrives it’ll ask  you how much you want to pay each month. In fact, the way my card is setup if I charge 30,000 yen (~$300) on it then the next month the Credit Card company will take 30,000 yen out of my bank account. Therefore, credit cards here are more like “delayed debit cards” rather then actual “credit” cards.

A useful phase then is to say to the store clerk/or look for on a website…:

～回払いお願いします。

~kai barai onigaishimasu

“I want to pay this debt in ~ number of times please”

Where “~” is the amount of times. This tells the store that you don’t want to pay everything in a lump sum the next month, but rather you want the store to charge you a set number of times each month. This is vaguely like a scheduled layaway plan, but you get to take the stuff home.

Be careful then that you know this before going out and charging 200,000 yen (roughly $2,000) because you might not have any money the next month for rent.

~J out