The Return of Otaru

Hello everyone!

So Tuesday it was a national holiday so no one had any classes. So instead some of my Japanese friends put together a trip to Otaru for everyone! We met bright and early at school to board a bus that was ordered just for us. About 32 people went on the trip. It took about an hour to get to Otaru and once there we visited a couple of different places.

The first stop was a sake factory. It was a small factory where we got to see how sake was made and even see people making it. It was pretty neat to see and we all had fun walking through the factory. Outside was a fountain that apparently had some of the best water in Sapporo, it tasted pretty regular to me, but who knows.

The next stop was the streets of Otaru. We all got some free time to explore the city and check out different shops. I went with some friends to a glasswares shop and then a music box shop, the two things that Otaru is the most famous for. They were all pretty neat and it is interesting to see what people can do with glass an music boxes.

Next we went to a cliff overlooking the ocean. It was really cold and windy, but still cool to see the view over the cliff and the ocean. There was a lighthouse near by, but no one got to see that except for three guys who went running up the hill to go see it.

The final stop was to Kihinkan. This is a building in what used to be Aoyama Village. Now it is a historical spot that is owned by the family of the friend who put the whole trip together, Ayami. She took us to the building and we were given a tour of the whole place and told about it's long history. It was all pretty interesting and very fancy.

And as if the building was not fancy enough, we then got a very fancy lunch. There was a lot of different foods and it was all nicely prepared. It seemed to be fish/seafood themed and was all really good. While eating we had to give a self introduction so everyone could know who we are and what we like, there were a lot of people I did not know very well. This was all done in Japanese, so I am not 100% who everyone is or what exactly they all like, but I understood most of it.

After eating five of us then went to play a quick game of frisbee. Then it was time to board the bus and head back to Sapporo. Today was a lot of fun and it was great to hang out with everyone and also get to hang out with a lot of people I haven't really been able to hang out with much before.

Wednesday was also a lot of fun. For lunch I went with Mal, Euna, Emily, and Eric to a soup curry restaurant. You can probably tell by now that we all love soup curry. I tried the seafood curry which was pretty good, but I think I like the chicken better, chicken is cheaper too.

Wednesday night was movie night. Mal and I met my friend Shun at school and we then went to rent the movie "Frequency." This is an American movie that I saw a few years ago. It is pretty good and is apparently one of Shun's favorites. While in the movie rental shop we kind of got distracted looking at all of the movies, the place actually has quite a lot of foreign movies, maybe more than a place in the U.S. It was pretty surprising. But because we got distracted we were late to meet up with Emily, Eric, Kazuma and Natsumi. The movie party was at Kazuma's apartment and we walked there after picking up some snacks. Then we all watched the movie and tried to explain parts to each other, it is a somewhat confusing movie. The party was a lot of fun and we all had a great time watching the movie and hanging out.

Today it was back to school, it was kind of strange going back after not having class the past two days and doing so much. This weekend should be pretty exciting too. My friends and I are thinking about going to the historical village of hokkaido. It is this village that has old fashioned buildings and old activities that you can do. It should be pretty interesting.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Stephen

Harry Potter and the Deathly Tako

And I'm back!

This weekend was a very fun filled weekend. Full of movies, frisbee, and takos.

Saturday I went to play frisbee with my friends, Mal, Emily, Eric, and Kimu. We went to a park in Odori where we just passed the frisbee back and forth to each other. Kimu is the sensei of the group so he was teaching us all different kinds of moves. It took me a while, but I finally got one of them down. Frisbee was a lot of fun, but we were all beat afterwards. Pictures: Left (Mal and Kimu) Right (Eric, Emily, and Mal).

After frisbee we all went to get a small lunch and then met up with Euna, Bethany and Yumoa at the movie theater. We also ran into our friend, Ayami, surprisingly. She was working at her part-time job when we went to see the movie. Once everyone was accounted for it was off to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. We saw it in IMAX so it was slightly expensive, but it was definitely worth it. The movie was great. It followed the books pretty truthfully and was easy to follow. Unfortunately it was only Part 1 and I have to wait until the summer before I can go see part 2.

After the movie a lot of us then went to do Purikura. Purikura is basically a photo booth. However in Japan you try to fit as many people in it as you can and you take pictures in front of a green screen where the background can change. Once you have taken your pictures you can then decorate them with different pictures or write things. They are pretty neat and very popular here in Japan. Once they are done they tend to look something like this:

After purikura, yes we did a lot today, Eric, Emily, Mal and I went to a soup curry restaurant for dinner. The soup curry was pretty good and really spicy. Then we went to find the big Christmas Tree in the building. The tree was decorated and the lights would change colors depending on the song that was playing, it was pretty neat. Not many Japanese celebrate Christmas as a holiday, but they definitely get into the Christmas spirit.

Well that is all for Saturday. On Sunday Mal and Euna came over to my host family's house. My Otoosan loves to cook so he made us all Ramen. It was really good and he really enjoyed making it for us and taking to us while we ate. Okaasan and Daisuke also ate with us. Unfortunately we didn't get to see Otoosan make the ramen, hopefully we will be able to learn how to properly make it another time.

After lunch it was time to make tako, kites in Japanese. First you take four long wooden sticks and tie them together to make a rectangle. Then you take two more sticks and tie them in diagonally followed by one more through the middle. Once you have them all tied together they should look something like this or hopefully better:

They you need to design the paper for your kite. Daisuke helped me come up with the kanji for my name. So I used my calligraphy skills to paint my kanji name onto the kite and then further decorate it with colorful lines. Beautiful. Mal and Euna were very artistic and drew neat pictures on theirs. Theirs turned out really well. Once you are done decorating your paper you then glue it over the stick frame. Then it is time to add more string so you can control the kite in the air and then you add some newspaper tails. They should hopefully turn out like this in the end:

Once we were done making our kites, it was time to take them on a test drive. That is a lot harder that it sounds. We went to a nearby park and tried to fly them, but none of us could keep them in the air for very long. They would always come spiraling down and crash. We were all attacked numerous time by our out-of-control takos. So eventually we gave up. But we had a lot of fun trying to get them to work.

So we went back to my house and enjoyed some roll cake, cake rolled up with cream in the middle, and tea. Then it was time for homework.


Well that is all for this weekend. Tomorrow it is back to school, but on Tuesday it is a holiday so it is off to Otaru for the day!! I am really looking forward to this and I am sure I will have a lot to blog about when I get back.

Stephen

Himawari

Hello everyone!

Thanks for coming back to read my blog!

So the past few days were not as busy as the last few weeks, but I still did a lot and had fun, but I also got to relax.On friday after class I went to a shodo demonstration. Shodo is calligraphy. In the class I was taught how to write different strokes and then how to make different characters. I used a bamboo brush and ink to write the characters. It actually is a lot harder than it looks. You have to hold the brush a certain way, use the right amount of pressure, and move it in very precise directions in order to get the character to come out the way you want it to. I was eventually able to do it pretty well, but I still need a lot of practice to get good. Not to mention we only learned how to do block calligraphy. There is also semi-cursive and cursive shodo as well.

After the shodo class I then went out with some friends for okonomiyaki. Okonomiyaki is basically a Japanese pancake, but made out of cabbage, batter, and many other things you may want (meat, fish, vegetables). It is then topped with mayo and special okonomiyaki sauce. It is really good and pretty easy to make, so I may try to make it at home.

After eating some of us then went bowling. Bowling is the same as in America, same rules and everything. But the interesting thing is that each lane had a camera that would tape you when you bowled, so after you bowled you would get an instant re-play. It was pretty funny to watch how we all act when we bowl. I didn't do very good, but luckily no one really did that good either.

On Saturday I basically just relaxed and did homework most of the day. Then I went out for dinner with Okaasan and Daisuke. We went to an Italian restaurant where we had a course meal. It was all really good and seemed like very fancy food. I got a type of seafood soup, and lasagna.

After dinner, Okaasan and I went to a violin concert. The performer was Taro Hakase. He is a violinist that puts on concerts with his 7 member band. He seems to be very famous in Japan and this was his 20th anniversary tour. The music wasn't really classical either, it was very pop oriented for some songs. I actually really liked the music and Okaasan gave me the CD as a present. One of my favorite songs was himawari (ひまわり)-sunflower. It is actually the theme song for a 15 minute drama that Okaasan watches everyday, so I was surprised to hear where it came from.

On Sunday I went to church with Mal, Euna, and Charlotte. Thursday is Charlotte's last day in Japan so we had a party for her. The party was actually an okonomiyaki party where the people at church made okonomiyaki for us. It was pretty good, too much okonomiyaki is never a bad thing. After the party it was back home where I had to study for an exam and do homework.

This week won't be too eventful either. On Wednesday, tomorrow, I am going to kaiten sushi with some friends. Kaiten sushi is a sushi restaurant where sushi goes around the restaurant on a conveyor belt and you just grab what you want to eat. Then on Saturday I am going to go see the new Harry Potter movie. Don't worry it will be in english, but with Japanse subtitles. Next Tuesday is a holiday so I don't have school. So I am going back to Otaru with some friends to look around some more. Some of these friends live or have been in Otaru before so they know the best places to go and what to see. It should be a great time.

White lovers and soup curry

Hello! I am back!

So the weekend that I was saying I didn't have any serious plans wound up being very busy and a lot of fun.

On Friday, after school we had an Ikebana demonstration. Ikebana, if you remember, is the Japanese style of flower arrangement. You get a bowl of water with a small spiked pad that you sick flowers, branches, and leaves into. It isn't very difficult to do, the difficult thing is to make it look good. For my Ikebana I had to use these sticks with these puff ball things, flowers, and some leaves. I think mine turned out pretty good at the end.

So after Ikebana a couple of friends and I went out to a restaurant for soup curry and then went to karaoke for a  little while. It was a lot of fun and for soup curry I increased my spice level to level 7, the highest of our group. It was pretty spicy, but really good. 

Saturday became what everyone called a "Steve Event." That was because it was my idea and I had to go through all of the fun of organizing it and figuring out how all wanted to go. So we wound up going to 白い恋人パーク-->しろいこいびとパーク-->shiroi koi bito paku -->white lovers park. Shiroi koi bito is a famous chocolate that is made in Sapporo. We went to the Park which was like an old fashioned town with small houses and mechanical people. There was also a bunch of museums that we went to that should the history of the company, how the chocolate is made, and other neat things. We also got to see the factory and the people making chocolate which was pretty neat. It was basically like Chocolate World at Hershey Park, only bigger and better.

There was also a point were all of the mechanical people in the town came alive and started dancing and singing. A ton of bubbles were also released, it was pretty cool and a lot of fun.

After enjoying the park we all went to a near by field and played frisbee for a while. It was a great time and everyone had a blast playing. We all were exhausted afterwards.

Once we were all tired of playing frisbee a lot of people went home. But Me, Daiki, Euna, Yosuke, and Charlotte were hungry so we went to Sapporo station to eat Ramen. The place Daiki took us was this huge floor of only ramen shops. It basically look like an old fashioned town where the shops only sold ramen. I don't know how you chose which one to eat at, but some how we did. The ramen was really good and I was stuffed afterwards.

Sunday of course involved eating even more food. Mal, Euna, and I were invited to go over to my friend Daiki's house. Yatsu also came as well as Daiki's friend, Gaku. At Daiki's house we played some Japanese PS3 games and also watched some movies. Then it was time to cook. Today Daiki was going to teach us how to make soup curry. We have all come to really like soup curry so being able to finally figure out how to make it was great. It doesn't seem to hard to make, but it does take a while to cook everything. You put a ton of vegetables in the soup, you have to cook the meat, and you also have to make the soup as well as adding the amount of spice you prefer. It turned out very good and was delicious. We had a great time making the soup curry and hanging out at Daiki's house. I got to meet his mother, father, and younger brother as well which was nice. We probably stayed at his house for about 6 hours. We had a lot of fun.

Monday was back to school where I had three hours of Japanese followed by three hours of Japanese culture. Then it was back home where I ate regular curry for dinner. Too much curry is never a bad thing I guess. I forgot to mention earlier that on Saturday my Okaasan left for Taiwan with some friends for a trip. She came back Tuesday afternoon. So it was just me, Otoosan, and Daisuke at home over the weekend.

On Tuesday I had school again, but after school it was time to celebrate Yatsu's 20th birthday. We went to a Chinese Food tabehoudai, all you can eat. It was a surprise party so Mal, Euna, and I, 5 of the Korean international students, and 8 of Yatsu's other friends all got to the restaurant early to surprise him as Daiki brought him to the restaurant. It was a lot of fun. I got Yatsu some of the chocolate from the Shiroikoibito park. The Chinese food was also very good, but we ate so much. We had to do stretches at one point so we could eat more. The people that we sat with, Yatsu's friends, were a lot of fun. Yatsu seemed to have a great time and was a little embarrassed.

After the party some people went off to karaoke. But I could not go. Instead I went home to welcome Okaasan back home. She told me all about her trip and showed me pictures. She also brought me souvenirs which was really nice. She got me a stuffed animal pig, and a fan that has my name painted on it.

Today is Wednesday, my day off. It is unfortunately raining today so I can't really do much. But I do have a conversation exam that I can study for at some point today.

Well that is all for today.

Stephen

The Great Dam Adventure in the Snow

Hello everyone! Sorry it has been a while since my last post, I have been quite busy the past couple of days.

Anyway, I thought I would start off with some pictures of the snow that we got last Tuesday night. I am not sure how much we got exactly, but it did stick and build up quite a bit. It was very surprising to see this much snow and it wasn't even Halloween yet. The house on the right by the way is my house.

The snow actually stuck around for awhile, as you will soon hear about later, and it is possible that we may get even more snow by the end of the week. So, in other news, I had a kanji exam on friday. There were two parts, one part you had to write the kanji for different words, and the other part you had to write the meaning for various kanji's. I didn't think it was too hard, but I was still nervous. Luckily I some how managed to pull of an A on both parts of the test!! So to celebrate I had a super fun busy weekend.

Friday after the exam I went to the American Culture class and carved pumpkins. It was a lot of fun and I got to show Japanese students how to carve a pumpkin. Our pumpkin was the general face, but we put ears on the top to make it fun. All of the pumpkins were pretty neat and creative.

Friday night, Hi-C, the International Club, threw a Halloween party. Everyone was encouraged to dress-up if they went. My friends believe that I look like a Pokemon character, Brock, so all I had to do for a costume was wear brown clothes and jeans, and spike my hair. Unfortunately my hair was a little to long to spike, so it kind of turned into one big spike. The party was a lot of fun. I hung out with my friends and we just had a great time goofing off and playing around in our costumes.

Jump to Saturday- Today me and my friend Mal were free and wanted to do something so I asked my friend Shun where a good place to go to in Sapporo would be. He told me to go to the Okaru Ski-Jump. So Me, Mal, two other international students, Eric and Tom, and my friend Yanbin, all went to Okaru. Shun could not go because he  had to climb Mt. Shukudai (homework). Anyway, the ski-jump was near Maruyama Park, so first we explored to park a bit. We went to Hokkaido Shrine where a lot of little kids were going to for their birthday. It was pretty neat to see the Shrine and all of the little kids in their traditional outfits.

We then went to Maruyama Zoo, yes another zoo. But this zoo we got to go into for free because we were international students. The zoo was smaller than Asahiyama, but there were still a lot of neat animals and some that we did not get to see at the other zoo.

After the zoo we took a short bus ride and then walked to Okura Yama Ski Jump Stadium. This was a stadium that was used when the Winter Olympics were held in Sapporo. It was pretty cool to see and we got to ride the ski lift to the top and see all of Sapporo.

After going to Okura Yama, me, Mal, Eric and Tom went to one of the largest subway stations in Sapporo, JR Eki. Here we went to the Pokemon Center and an arcade. It was a lot of fun and we played a bunch of different games. We then walked around the city a bit before meeting some other friends and going together to our friend, Yosuke's, birthday party.

Sunday was also a very busy day. I had to get up at 6:30 in order to meet up with my friends. We then took a bus to Houheikyo. Houheikyo is a pretty famous place for its natural onsens and it's large Dam. It is also somewhat higher up, so there was a lot more snow here than where I live. When we got to Houheikyo we originally thought that we would be able to take a  shuttle bus to the dam. However the shuttle did not run on sunday's, therefore me had to walk. . .a lot. . . in the snow. . . and in the road. But it was a lot of fun and we all had a great time.

Eventually we reached the Dam. It was really neat. We got to walk along it and explore it a bit. It was alot of fun. The area we were at is where a large part of Sapporo gets their water. The area was also really beautiful.

So after going to the dam we hiked back along the road and then went to an onsen. An onsen, if you remember, is a public bath that is created from natural hot springs. This onsen was an outdoor onsen where you could enjoy the mountain scenery while bathing. It was really nice and really relaxing. After the onsen we had Indonesian curry for dinner, which was very good. It was then time to take the bus back. It was a very long, but incredibly fun day.

On Monday it was back to school where I found out I passed my kanji test! Today, Tuesday, was school again, but at lunch I at with my friend Kimura, the second guy from the left in the Dam sign group picture. We had a lot of fun and found out that we are interested in a lot of the same things. He also wants to get better at english so I help him with some of that and he helps me with Japanese.

Tomorrow is Wednesday and a holiday, but I would have had no classes anyway. We are going out for curry with the BCA group, my study abroad program. Then it is back to school for the rest of the week. I don't really have any serious plans for this weekend, but on Sunday we are thinking about throwing a birthday party for my friend Yatsu.

Anyway, thanks for reading this long post. I will try to write more frequently. Until next time.

Stephen