Week 12: History!

Hello blog!

This week I got an indeterminate number of new neighbours!! I ran into one of them, a teenage boy, in the hallway, and we awkwardly said konnichiwa to each other. That concludes my knowledge of my neighbours.

The prof with whom I studied for my PhD sent me an email this week asking me to check on some sites in the city for a particular plant disease, so on Saturday I went on a quest to skulk around the Botanical Gardens. I was indeed literally skulking AROUND them since he specifically asked me to stake out some trees that poked through the fence, so I didn't even need to pay the admission. It was face-meltingly hot and incredibly sunny, which is why these quick phone pictures are blown out. I will be back on a more comfortable day.

I also took a quick walk through Odori Park, since it was on my way, and I got to enjoy the sights of the annual beer festival! Unsurprisingly, Sapporo Beer had the biggest beer garden.

As always, Odori Park was beautiful!

On Sunday, I went to the Historical Village of Hokkaido with my labmate and her family. My favourite feature of the village was the Centennial Memorial Tower, which was built by Sauron to keep watch over Middle-Earth.

I photoshopped out the giant glowing eye.

The village consists of four different zones, each of which has reconstructed or preserved buildings from approximately the 1850's through the early 20th century. Hokkaido was permanently settled by the Japanese in the mid-late 1800's (it was previously occupied by the Ainu). Anyhoo, at this time, there was a fair bit of European influence on Japan, so many of the buildings were pretty European-looking. The four zones were a typical town, a fishing village, a farming village, and a mountain village.You could go into the buildings and see some examples of what life was like at the time. 

An old carriage.

A bunch of fire-starting equipment.

My favourite room: an old photography studio!

You could go on horse-drawn trolley rides. I didn't partake, but my friend's daughter is on this puppy.

An old police box! Apparently it was located in downtown Sapporo and was in use until the early 1970's!

 The whole park itself was interesting, and there was a good amount of English on the signs, and an English version of the map and brochure were available. There were lots of older people working there (I read online that they are volunteers!) who were hanging out in the buildings, and several of them made extremely valiant and patient attempts to explain things to us. 

When we came back, my friends and I cooked dinner together. Now I'm stuffed and tired!! I'm really jealous that Canada has Monday as a holiday :p

Finally, another entry in the "things I wish I would have bought" folder:

A mushroom (keychain??) from this capsule machine.