Week 6: The Imaginary Garden

Ok, not imaginary. But (spoiler alert): non-existent.

On Saturday I went out with my labmate and her family to see the Christ Church Rose Garden. My friend had read about it in a guide book and had seen a few posts on the internet describing it as beautiful, especially at this time of the year. Since Saturday was the first day that it wasn't raining in about two weeks, we figured that the flowers would be in good shape, so we headed out. 

The garden was supposed to be near the edge of the city, near the top of a pretty steep hill. We took two subways and a bus to reach it, then climbed a steep and ENORMOUS hill on foot. Seriously, we saw several cars struggling up this hill. It took 20 minutes or so to reach the top, but in the end we found the Christ Church from the name and..... it turned out that the garden has been closed since 2009. 

Luckily for us, there was a beautiful view of the city since we had climbed so high!

We stopped in a park to eat some lunch, and we met a friendly American who lives in the neighbourhood and had brought his son to the park to play. He confirmed that the garden is long gone, but suggested that we head over to a nearby shrine since we had come all that way. He also told us about all of the edible mushrooms and stuff that grow in Hokkaido, and told us about all of the exciting bugs that we were likely to see. Apparently ENORMOUS horned beetles (like this) are going to be all over the place in the next month or so. I think that's pretty cool, unless I start finding them in my bed or something. 

I asked him a million questions about all of the bugs and plants because there are a lot of things that look similar to North American species, but with a twist. I keep seeing something that looks alarmingly like giant hogweed, but he didn't know anything about it. He did say that he's seen a few huge bears around, though, so I guess that's something to keep an eye out for. There are rumors that a bear or two live in the woods at the research station, but the most I've seen is a few foxes. Oh, and there was a golden eagle swooping around the door to the lab the other day. 

Anyway, we didn't end up actually making it to the shrine that this guy told us about, but we did find a cute neighbourhood shrine near the bottom of the hill that we'd climbed when we tried to find the garden. 

The Japanese maples make it look like autumn.

There are really a million bugs here. I caught some lady bugs and beetles with my friend's daughter. She is really not afraid of bugs at all (except for bees and wasps), so she will definitely be coming to my apartment if I ever see an enormous spider. 

My labmate's daughter and I are pals now because I had some yarn and I cut a piece so that we could play cat's cradle together. She taught me some kanji while we were waiting for the bus home, and I had a good kanji quiz from the pillars on the way into the shrine, which is good because I didn't actually work on my kanji this week outside of that >_> I DID read two Harry Potter books though, so I figure that's just as good. Oh, and from my predecessor's lab books (which I have been using to repeat some experiments), I have been learning some useful sciencey words in Japanese.
抽 = extract
出 = out
法 = rule or law
So 抽出法 is extraction protocol!

My google skillz suggest that this is a boxelder bug. I see them everywhere.

The most exciting news is that there is a caterpillar population explosion in progress. All week I have been seeing hoards of caterpillars all over the place. They like to fall out of trees and land on you while you are outside ;_; And they make incredibly sticky cocoons. I have had a cocoon on my spoke of my bike wheel all weekend which has barely budged even though I've probably ridden 10 km with it. Apparently they will soon be huge moths.

My new neighbour.