Next Stop... Sapporo

Sapporo Time

After a relaxing and "action-filled" (Ethan's choice of words) time in Niseko, we were off to Sapporo for the weekend.  More action, relaxin', fun, and food!

We stayed at a hostel in Sapporo called Ino's Place.  Kids were very excited about the bunkbeds and the owners were very friendly, but as I overheard conversations of the mostly 20-something travelers, I began to wonder if I might actually be too old for hostels.  Naaahhh, not possible, right?  Right?

Our room at Ino's Place hostel

Winter Sports Museum

Silly skiers...

Our first Sapporo adventure was a surprising amount of fun.  We went to the site of the Okura Ski Jump from the 1972 Winter Olympics held in Sapporo.  Having just spent hours and hours watching and talking about the 2012 Olympics, this was fresh in the minds of the boys.  We rode the lift to the top of the ski jump and were amazed at how incredibly steep it is.... great view of Sapporo as well.

Next door to the ski jump is the Sapporo Winter Sports Museum.  Here, there were all sorts of winter sports simulations.  We all had a ball.

I did have to channel my non-Japanese self (which is not hard to do) when the man working the ski jump simulator told Ryan that he couldn't try the ski jump because you have to be 6 years old.  Kevin first tried the "I don't understand what you're saying" strategy, but that didn't work.  So, I had to go all 'assertive American' on the poor Japanese dude and explain "He's been waiting in line patiently, he knows how to ski, it's not a problem, please, may he try?"  It worked.  Of course I was probably cursed by him for the next 7 days for making him break the rules, but sometimes a mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do.  And then oh-so-thankfully, Ryan, the 4 year old who was technically not allowed to try the simulation, jumped 125 meters - which is a very good jump, more than Ethan and Kevin (though not me, but I only got 6 meters further, and I know that's luck because I can't ski at all in real life- though maybe I missed my calling).

From Ethan: The second time we did bobsledding, mommy and I did really well.

Ryan on the ski jump simulator with a score of 125 meters!

The boys on a cross-country ski race - Ethan proclaimed this
his favorite!

Introducing....the Narimatsujayne Bobsled Team!

And the winner is......

Odori Park

Spent an afternoon and evening wandering (read: eating street food) around Odori Koen, basically Sapporo's urban central park.  It was a hive of activity as they were preparing for the Hokkaido marathon, that started the next morning.

The Sapporo TV Tower

We also happened upon some serious star-watching enthusiasts with HUGE telescopes hooked up to laptops, taking amazing pictures of the surface of the moon.  They were very excited to share their hobby with the boys.

Historical Village of Hokkaido

This place was fascinating!  It was set up in 4 distinct sections to showcase the history of old Hokkaido.

• town village
• fishing village
• mountain village
• farming village

Each of the 4 sections had an assortment of original buildings, donated and transported to the site.  They were decorated in the style of the era and the function that they played.

A town house - THIS is EXACTLY the kind of house I was hoping to
live in when we moved to Japan.  Only likely to happen if I move
to the Historical Village of Hokkaido, I suppose.

A fishing village - up to 40 fishermen lived here during herring season

The wooden fishing boats - can you tell most of the interest was in
the fishing village?

Another fishing village house (you can see the fishing nets in the back).
I would have lived here too...

We had made our way through the town and fishing areas and were just starting to explore the farming village when ...... we walked into an old building and found a woman spinning silk from the silkworm cocoons!  Seriously.  It was so unexpected and so amazing.

There was a shallow rectangular crate filled with leaves and atop the leaves, were hundreds of silkworms poking their heads up and spinning cocoons.  The little thimble-sized white cocoons were scattered all around the leaves.

The woman would take a handful of the cocoons at a time, put them in a pot of water (the water makes them easier to unravel), find the end of the silk strand, attach it to the spool, and then pump this wooden contraption that slowly unspun the silk from the cocoon and spun it back onto a larger spool.  Each cocoon consists of about 800 meters of silk thread.  I was downright mesmerized!

The woman spinning silk from the cocoons. The finished spools are in the foreground,
and the silkworms are on the right...

You can't see so well in this picture, but these are the worms and their silk cocoons

The cocoons are the pot of water,
and the wooden contraption is spinning the silk.

Feeding mulberry leaves to the silkworms

Off to the mountain village!  Here I was impressed by the thatch roofs.  Leave it to the Japanese to make a superior thatch grass roof - it was at least 2 feet thick!

The mountain village house - inside

Mountain village house - outside

Our time at the Hokkaido Historical Village also stimulated several conversations about the Ainu people of Hokkaido.  The Ainu are the native people of Hokkaido, and Ethan was very interested in learning about them.  We ran out of time to go to the Ainu Museum in Hokkaido, so we may have to explore an Ainu exhibit in one of the Tokyo museums.

Another favorite of the kids was the childrens' playground that had an assortment of old toys for the kids to try.  They had wooden stilts, much like the ones at Ethan's school, but none of us were very good at it.  They also had circular metal rims that kids pushed along with a stick and Ethan and Ryan's favorite, the old-fashioned spinning top.  A kind man showed the kids how to wind the string and spin the top.  We got them each one as their Hokkaido souvenir, and they have been hard at work perfecting the art of top-spinning.  If you happen to be on skype with us anytime in the near future, Ethan and Ryan will most certainly beg you to watch them spin the top.

Sapporo Beer Museum

OK, the Sapporo Beer Museum was nothing to write home about (though I guess I am, by including it in this blog).  It was, at most, 15 minutes of entertainment.  But the all-you-can-eat-for-100-minutes Gengiskhan next door made up for it.  More on that later...

Our trio of fresh samples...

Most interesting part was the timeline of Sapporo history
as seen through the beer posters.

Sooooooo wrong, but so cute!

Random Sweatshirt that I Just Have to Share

So, I've mentioned in a previous post about the "r" and the "l" switcheroo in Japanese pronunciation.

But, imagine my surprise when I see a man in Sapporo wearing a typical looking college sweatshirt (and why he was wearing a sweatshirt on a hot day, I will never understand), grey with blue lettering, large circular emblem in the middle, name of the college encircling the emblem.  You know the kind of shirt, I'm describing, right?  Only this one said:

IRRINOIS STATE UNIVERSITY

I had to look twice to make sure I had read that right.  I laughed out loud, right there in the bus station!

Holy Moly Hokkaido... First Stop, Niseko

Beautiful, beautiful Hokkaido!  So, so, so much fun.  And so, so, so much delicious food.  I think I just might have to split this into 2 different posts - one for all the fun we had and one for all the food!

As we were trying to figure out our summer travel plans, we were looking for 1) a few days escape from the heat and humidity of our first Tokyo summer, and 2) a way to recreate the nature adventures we used to have in Tahoe.

Last August, the boys and I were lucky enough to spend a whole month together in Tahoe, and I look upon this time so fondly that I was itching to try and re-capture some of that.  Or maybe just get out of the city for a few days, but either way, we had a grand time...

Mt. Yotei in Hokkaido - we were able to see this beautiful
mountain every day!

We knew that Hokkaido is typically cooler than Tokyo, but I must admit, I think the clincher came when Kevin learned that there is good golf there.  Whatever works, I suppose.

Anyway, we got some travel advice from the family of my English student, whose great-great-grandfather was one of the original settlers of Hokkaido 150 years ago.  So on their suggestion, we headed to a place called Niseko - and we loved it!  Found Freedom Inn in Niseko online, a hostel in Sapporo in the Lonely Planet guidebook, cheap flights and we were set!

Hokkaido is the northernmost island of Japan, and it has been said that it is the least "Japanese"of all the Japanese islands.  It is 20% of Japan's land area with only 5% of the population.  It feels very rural, almost back road North Carolina style - farms, fields of corn (it's a "specialty" of Hokkaido), rusted-out tractors, dilapidated buildings, and not very many people in most of the places we went... We felt right at home - and worlds away from Tokyo.  

Niseko is well- known as a ski resort in the winter.  Supposedly the best powder around, especially for Australians.  But we were happy to explore it in the summer when there were far fewer people around... in fact, we hardly saw any "foreigners" the whole time we were in Niseko.  Most of the tourists we saw were Japanese...

On our way...

Unfortunately, the cheap flights were early in the morning, so imagine the 4 of us at 4:45 AM trekking to the train station with 3 roller bags, 3 backpacks, and 2 car seats.  Despite the time of day, we were all in good spirits as we started our adventure.

At our Gakugeidaigaku train station headed to the airport...

We flew into New Chitose airport, rented a car, and drove 2 hours (part of it along the coast of the Sea of Japan) to our home away from home, the Freedom Inn in Niseko.

Roadtrip! Our Hokkaido-mobile... small, just like many other things in Japan...

Our basic m.o. for our 4 days in Niseko seemed to be:

1. Big breakfast at the hotel - kids were in 7th heaven because they could have cereal and fruit everyday (to be honest, I was actually starting to miss the rice and seaweed we often have for breakfast at home)
2. Outdoor activity of the day
3. Naptime in the afternoon
4. Wake Ryan up from his nap to go to dinner
5. Fabulous feast!
6. Food coma...

How is it that I am talking about the food in Hokkaido AGAIN?  That will simply have to wait for its own blog post...

Here's a sampling of our Niseko fun...

Whitewater Rafting

Rafting was Ethan's First Choice of Things To Do.

And I think we're all glad that he wanted to do it so badly because we all had a lot of fun.  Unfortunately, there are no photos as we were camera-less on the river.  But, that's probably a good thing because there is simply NO WAY to make those helmets look cool.

Weather was ideal.  Scenery was beautiful.  Reminded us of kayaking the river behind our house in Tahoe.  

Rock Climbing

 A rainy day forced us to a cafe that doubled as an indoor climbing wall.  Kids couldn't resist, so Kevin and I got our first lessons in belaying and harnessed 'em up.  It was Ryan's first time to try it, and Ethan's second (he had gotten an expert rock climbing coaching session by Uncle Mike last summer).  It was a fun way to spend an afternoon (and resulted in niiiice, looooong naps afterwards).

Apparently, the rules of rock climbing are in English, as the instructor told them to say "tension" when they wanted us to bring them down with the ropes.  No matter how many times we told them this, both Ethan and Ryan insisted on yelling "Attention!!" every time they wanted to get down - as in "pay attention, mom and dad, get me down from here right now!"  It sorta backfired as I was too busy laughing to maneuver the ropes very quickly, but alas...

Fishing

Fishing was Ryan's First Choice of Things To Do.

In fact, he's been asking us to take him fishing for a couple of years now, so I was quite pleased that we were finally able to make it happen.  Except for the small problem that Ryan didn't catch any fish.  And Ethan did (after having his rod in the water for only 2 minutes).  It was a tough lesson in the cruelties of life and fishing... Ryan has bounced back and was eager to explain to his yochien teacher that he ALMOST caught a fish and that the fish ate his bait.

Ethan was beyond excited about his fish.  It was a small rainbow trout, and it's almost all he has talked about when he tells people about our trip to Hokkaido.

Getting schooled in the art of fishing...

Ethan's Big Catch

It was a feisty little thing...

Ryan looks on longingly...

His own special fishing style...

A little quiet time on the river

Leaving the river fish-less... sadness prevailed for Ryan...
but it was nothing that a little ice cream couldn't cure...

Hiking

I must admit, hiking was my First Choice of Things To Do.  We got in a very nice hike, after a morning rain storm, only a few minutes from the front door of our hotel.  Couldn't be more perfect than that.





















We hiked along a wooded trail, crossing several small rivers along the way, ending at the wetlands and a small pond.  The scenery all around us was green and lush and actually reminded us of the North Carolina mountains more than Tahoe (Tahoe's mountains and scenery are a lot more rocky and dramatic whereas NC is more gentle and rolling).

 

Hot Springs

On the recommendation of our inn host, we headed to the Goshiki Onsen for a truly traditional onsen experience.  Again, no photos because a) they are public baths, and b) I'm guessing that taking pictures of (or near) naked strangers might not be the best idea...

At first look, the onsen is basically a glorified shack on the side of a beautiful mountain road.  Once you go inside, it still looks like a shack, but we were prepared for that.  We put our money (600 yen) in the little ticket vending machine and we were on our way.  

Kevin and the kids headed to their onsen and I headed to mine. The water comes straight from the earth and is very hot coming out of the pipe with a slight smell of sulphur (remember the black eggs cooked in volcanic sulphur water from our trip to Hakone).  It is not treated in any way and we heard that the color of the water "changes from creamy white to green depending on how angry the volcano gods are."  They must have been in a fine mood the day we were there as the water looked very much like... ummm, well, water. 

There is an indoor onsen and an outdoor one.  The outdoor one was the favorite of the four of us as it had large rocks in the middle - sort of looked like a Zen rock garden in the middle of a fish pond with a view of Annapuri Mountain (ok, there are also several naked people sitting in the pond, but disregard that part from the image).  

Gondola up the Mountain

It was our last day in Hokkaido, and so we figured we should do the obligatory gondola ride up the ski mountain.  On clear days, there is an amazing view of Mt. Yotei, but it was a bit cloudy, so we just took the ride up for fun...

The cloudy view from the top...

Headed back down the mountain...

Wheeeee.... roller coaster time!

Some Hokkaido Dairy place...

Can't really tell you much about this place except that many Japanese tourists buy their omiyage here (obligatory souvenirs, often local food items).  We just ate ice cream and played on the random farm equipment scattered around...

Hong Kong - A Land of Contrasts

There's nothing like getting ready to go on vacation that motivates me to do things I should have done months ago. We leave tomorrow for Hokkaido, so here I am - FINALLY uploading pictures from my Hong Kong weekend back in June.  My fabulous Peace Corps friend, Sandy, was in Hong Kong for work and very graciously suggested that I come for a long weekend and crash in her hotel.  I had to move a few mountains to make it happen - but it was worth it!  

That said, don't get me started about the 10 days of work and the 3 single-spaced pages of details that had to happen in preparation for me being gone for 5 days.  And how much fun did I have watching the jaws drop of my Japanese mom friends when I told them I was going away for the weekend without the kids?  They seemed to find the whole idea an utter impossibility.  Of course, that only encouraged me to stir the pot a little more by suggesting that we all go on a girls' weekend.  The sideways eye glances of "is she for real?" was a thing to behold.  We'll see if we can make it happen... I only have a few years to prime the cultural pump, so I better get to work.

Anywaaaay.... yes, Hong Kong was a ton of fun.  It felt like we did a lot in a short amount of time. I got in late Thursday evening and left on Monday morning... so our days were filled with:

• Tram to the top of Victoria Peak, gorgeous views, especially as the city began to light up for the night
• Cold beer
• Ferry to Macau - didn't require a visa, but did require us to go through customs to get Chinese passport stamps
• Cold beer
• Snacking our way through Macau street food stalls
• Exploring the Sao Paulo ruins replica
• Ferry back to Hong Kong and the Kowloon market / Temple Street
• Cold beer (do you see a theme here?  And yes, it was HOT)
• Cable car to Tian Tian Buddha (Big Buddha) and then 300 steps up to it
• Dim sum and random snacks (coconut lotus sago cake, sago pudding, shiu mai)
• Tai O Fishing Village - boat ride, more snacks (who knew you could get a husband for the low, low price of 18 HKD?), more beer
• Light show at the Wan Chai Pier

It's hard to sum up, but Hong Kong does seem to be a country of contrasts.  Beautiful and old and modern and austere.  The water views are phenomenal.  My favorite part was our day spent at an old fishing village.  Of course, part of that joy was the "riverside bar" we thought we were going to, which we think might have actually been a family gathering that we crashed by walking in and asking for a beer.  They happily obliged, along with a bowl of random, chewy, fish parts, and the insistent "no pay, no pay."  It was a crack-up.  We're still not sure if it was a restaurant / bar or just somebody's back porch, but I'm leaning toward the latter...

My other favorite part was all the street food we ate.  Pear in sangria and "make your own" curry soup were favorites - this was in Macau... we had fish balls, urchin and crab balls, and something we thought was tofu but I'm pretty sure it wasn't.  Oh yeah, and the famous portugese egg tarts - yummmm - and the multiple flavors of meat jerky!  We had dinner one night at a VERY local market eatery (it's the restaurant with only plastic sheets for walls in the slideshow), where we had a PILE of PORK, some delicious Chinese cabbage, and some mighty tasty cold beers.  Also, I quite enjoyed watching Sandy have her fortune told, all the while the fortune teller was using a palm pilot to check her birthdate, etc.  Cracked me up!  Just another contrast...

Another "highlight" was exploring one of the many dried goods shops - sort of natural foods shop meets homeopathic medicine.  Here, we were offered a taste of dried scallops but were, thankfully, NOT offered the dried deer penis.  Seriously?  I couldn't stop laughing.  You should be able to identify this fairly easily in the slideshow....

Good times!  Sandy thinks we should try out for the Amazing Race ...

A New Kind of Top Ten List: The Similarities Between My Life in Tokyo and My Life in Malawi

Who woulda thunk it? Japan and Africa? The big city of Tokyo is like my little village of Kazuni in Malawi? Yes, indeed, there are some striking similarities...

This may not make sense, much less be even the slightest bit humorous unless you happen to be a Malawi RPCV, but I find it ever so chuckle-inducing, and since I just might be the only one reading this, I'm gonna make myself laugh...


1. In both Malawi and Tokyo, my main form of transport is my bike.  In Malawi, I always wore long skirts while biking, because culturally, that's what women wore in the villages.  In Tokyo, I often wear skirts as well, because my time in Malawi actually taught me that it is waaaaay more comfortable in hot weather to wear skirts rather than pants or shorts.  You get a good breeze when you pedal, I'm just sayin'...

2. I don't have a car.  Therefore, much of my life these days is figuring out how to get from one place to another.  In Malawi, I never knew if there would be any transport at all - I literally didn't know how and if and when I could get out of the bush.  In Tokyo, that is not a problem at all - buses and trains are quite reliable.  But I'm still dependent on someone else for getting me where I need to go.

3.  And though my life in Tokyo has yet to include being crammed into the back of a pick-up truck with assorted livestock as well as 57 Malawians, all hanging on for dear life, I am routinely crammed into a train car, in which I only hope there is enough air to sustain my dear life.  In both Tokyo and Malawi, they have people whose actual job it is, to push people farther into what appears to be a completely full train car or pick-up truck or mini-bus, so that the impossible can occur - even more people can fit in a space which appears to have absolutely no more room.  Defies all scientific principles... but it happens in both Tokyo and Malawi.

4.  I used to be ever so amused by the daily chore at every well-kept Malawian hut of "sweeping the dirt."  Literally sweeping the dirt outside one's hut with a broom made of twigs and branches, leaving it neat and tidy and decorated with the imprint of the twig broom.  Two things are the same in Tokyo: 1) You can actually buy the twig/branches brooms everywhere around here and people use them to sweep the sidewalks.  2) You know those Japanese Zen sand gardens - they rake the sand everyday, which is, in essence, "sweeping the dirt."  Who woulda thunk it?

5.  A smile can get you a very long way.  Now that I am experiencing life as an illiterate immigrant, I am constantly reminded of my first few months in the village when my main form of communication was lots of smiles, some crazy miming, and a precious few words.  I got by.... In Tokyo, I have added the iPhone to my repertoire of communication tools when I don't know the language.  This means that I am constantly using my phone to take pictures of things that I need to buy and then showing a store clerk and asking where it is in the store.  Just the other day, I took pictures of several children's books in English, went to the library, showed the librarian, and then asked her if they had those books in Japanese (when we have the English version, it makes reading the Japanese one approximately 79 times faster and more fun).  Worked like a charm...

6.  Remember in Malawi when every restaurant and every home you entered offered you a warm bowl of water in which to wash your hands?  In Tokyo, virtually every restaurant offers you a piping hot warm cloth to wipe your hands.  But, I haven't been in enough Japanese homes to say if the tradition holds true in homes.

Japanese style toilet

7. The infamous hole in the ground.  In Malawi, it's dirt.  In Japan, it's porcelain.  But, you still have to pop a squat and build your quadricep muscles.  So, in essence, it's the same.

8.  The "r" and the "l."  This cracks me up every time.  In Malawi, I was oh-so-ever-amused whenever I heard, "Feer flee" (that's feel free, for anyone trying to find the humor).   In Tokyo, I can eat runch or lunch and the name of my poor child "Ryan" is pronounced just like "lion."  Ryan and lion are even written the exact same way in katakana, because there is literally no difference in the pronunciation (ライアン.  Fortunately for him, he really likes lions.

9.  MOSQUITOES!!!!! I had no idea that I would have to buy mosquito coils in Tokyo, that I would actually stay inside at times because of the blood-sucking monsters, and that I would seriously consider buying a mosquito net for our bed?  Seriously?  Can you tell how much I hate mosquitoes?  In fact, the boys are allowed to use the word "hate" for exactly 2 things.  Mosquitoes is one of them (the other is throwing up, if you're dying to know).

10.  I love where I am, but I miss my friends and family!