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