Maruyama Zoo!

Whoa! Fixed the internet thanks to some trans-oceanic tech support from my brother. I'll update the previous post with a few pictures, but I thought the zoo deserved a post of its own.

So. The Maruyama Zoo. The setting is beautiful; the zoo itself is nestled among a bunch of smallish mountains, near the edge of the city, in a park. There's a baseball stadium in the park and I could hear a game for most of the time we were at the zoo :) It was a nice, clear day, but it was also pretty darn chilly in the shade. I was wearing a coat and a sweater and I was cold most of the time. 

Some parts of the zoo were really great. There was a joey in with the kangaroos and he was drinking milk from his mother (though sadly I think he was too big to get in her pouch). The giraffes were cute and they kept making hilarious faces as they ate. The red pandas were ridiculously adorable!

He never did eat that strawberry..

Some of the animals were being pretty lazy, probably because it was around lunchtime and some of them had clearly just eaten

A tiger with a small child for reference. 

The Japanese macaques were having a great time eating bugs out of each other's fur and occasionally screaming. 

Canada was pretty well-represented. There were polar bears and wolves and prairie dogs and a mystery beaver who had an enclosure but who was not home while I was there.

There was a mynah bird who refused to speak for some reason, despite hoards of children (and adults) screaming "O-HAY-OOO! KON-NI-CHI-WAAAA!!!" every few seconds :p

One bird was in jail but the other was free in the tropical bird zone.

There were also some FLUORESCENT flamingoes! Maybe I've just never seen flamingoes before (likely) but these guys were seriously bright.

Based on some propaganda at my friend's daughter's school, we had been led to believe that there would be some sort of an exhibit about the tapirs, but we didn't see anything special (though it's very likely that we just were unable to read the programs and figure out if / when there was some sort of a demonstration).

He sure was a tapir!

The chimpanzees really stole the show. There were several young chimps who were riding around on their mothers' backs, and some wise old men-chimps who were staring at everyone (which was sort of disturbing).

Because it was Japan, there were also some intentionally and unintentionally hilarious signs.

I'm not sure if "buzzard" is really an ornithological term...

Ok this one was clearly on purpose but we really enjoyed it (and also when we looked up there really was a monkey sitting on some mesh RIGHT above us...)

I also learned about a hornet that I saw outside of my window the morning I went to the zoo! They kill 30-40 people a year in Japan and can cause random people to go into anaphylactic shock. I'm pretty sure this is the type of hornet that stung a friend of mine once O__O Also I am never going outside again. 

They were no joke 3-4 cm long ;__; 

Sadly, as I mentioned in my previous post, some of the animals were in some pretty pathetically-awful cages. Considering that most of the zoo was pretty good, these were truly shocking to me. I'm really hoping that the situation for these guys is on the list of planned improvements for the zoo expansion that was under construction.

A mangy-lookin' raccoon with a rat tail, who was pacing back and forth frantically.

This is the snow leopard who was in leopard jail, while his buddy had a huge and more appropriate enclosure right beside him. I assume that these guys take turns being on alternate sides, but this was really not great. He was also pacing angrily and people kept knocking on his glass. He made a motion like he wanted to eat a little girl at one point.

I'm not sure if cement floors are a lion's natural habitat.

In the end, as a noted hippie, I wasn't blown away by the conditions of the animals in this zoo but I was mostly not completely disgusted, either. I don't have any grand plans to go back while I'm in Sapporo but I don't feel gross for giving these folks 600¥. 

Week 2

I feel like I'm settling in to Sapporo pretty well. One minor / major hiccup is that this weekend my computer decided that it hates the Internet. My tablet can connect, but not the computer. That kinda stinks for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that I can't post many pictures!  Also, please forgive any weirdo spelling / grammatical / autocorrect issues.

Oh well. Just in general, I expect that this blog is going to be pretty quiet during the week. I usually just go to work and then come home, although I did have an adventure on Friday finding a 7-11 close to me (which required a hybrid of Google maps and 7-11's Japanese website). I needed 7-11 because they have 24-hour bank machines, and my bank (and its ATM???) are only open until like 5pm. Anyway, that turned out to be exciting because Google maps is in Japanese in Japan. I suppose that makes sense.

On Saturday I went shopping with my prof and his family. I had met them previously, because they came to stay with my current prof when he was a visiting scientist in my former lab. His wife is super sweet and very helpful, and his kids are adorable and very well-behaved. 

First we went to Costco, which had a TON of imported Western stuff! Near the entrance there was a woman demonstrating a Keurig, which must be new in Japan because people were flipping out over it. When the lady saw me she kept telling my prof that Keurigs are really popular in the US and telling him to ask me for confirmation :p

I didn't buy a ton of stuff, because of course the sizes were ENORMOUS, but I did get my hands on some peanut butter!!!!!!!!!

Next we went to a regular grocery store.  My prof's wife got rally excited about teaching me to make miso soup, so she helped me find all of the (fish-flake-free!) ingredients.  She was amazingly thourough and patient. It was really great to have some help knowing which brands of stuff I can actually buy! She also helped me find yeast and flour (so I can make bread!!!) and my prof "suggested" that I should buy a bag of rice of a cultivar that was developed at our research station :) (I acquiesced).

Finally, and most importantly,  we went to a second-hand shop and I got a totally sweet ride! I got to test it out right away by biking home since it didn't fit in the car. 

Mine is the blue one in the centre. It has a bell!!! And a headlight!! And a seat that's low enough for me!!

On Sunday I went to the zoo with my labmate and her family. My friend's daughter had been getting the hard sell at school all week about a special tapir exhibit, so we went to Maruyama Zoo (which, unsurprisingly,  is in Maruyama Park, where we went last weekend). Despite the fact that the tapir exhibit appeared to just be, y'know, the fact that the zoo has tapirs, the zoo was pretty fun. Most of the animals' enclosures were ok - I had read online that a lot of them were pretty bad but there were only a few that were unacceptable to me (most notably a very mangy-looking raccoon who was pacing frantically). These was also a very upset snow leopard with the same problem, which was confusing because right beside him was another snow leopard withal perfectly fine cage?? It was like he was in leopard jail. Also the polar bear did not seem impressed. However, the zoo was clearly working on a huge new area for some of the bigger animals like the giraffes, so hopefully the raccoon and the others might be able to take over the old space. Anyway, I would rate it as non-horrifying but mildly upsetting. 

When we were done at the zoo I went grocery shopping with my friend and her family. Apparently I cannot stop grocery shopping.  However, I guess as a person who always cooks every meal and is used to having a cupboard full of dried beans and other stocks, going from that to literally nothing (no spices?!) was a bit of a shock, so I feel like I'm always scrounging. My labmate's husband made the pot that maybe it's a good idea to check where the veggies were grown, because maybe it's better not to buy stuff from Fukushima just yet. Maybe a good point. 

Anyway, I made a huge curry with my vegetables and I finally have a cupboard full of dried things (like adzuki beans and mushrooms and seaweed) so maybe I can stop grocery shopping every second day or so :)

Odori park and Maruyama park

Sunday was another exciting day in Sapporo!

First, I managed to do laundry. Laundry isn't nearly so annoying when the machine is a) right across the hall from your front door, and b) free! I definitely pressed some wrong buttons because when I heard the machine beeping that it was finished, it turned out that I had soaked my clothes instead of actually washing them (i.e. they were in several feet of skunky water when I went to get them). I pressed a different series of buttons and eventually ended up with clean-smelling clothes, so something went right. 

After that I went for an adventure with my labmate and her family. The first thing I did was fall into a ditch. Luckily, things got better after that. The weather was also much nicer than yesterday; it was warmer and it only rained at the very beginning and end of the day. My friend and her family showed me the alternate road out of the forest (I was waaay off, as it turns out), and they also pointed out that the closest subway station has not only a big department store, which I knew about, but also a big 100 yen store AND a big grocery store!! Way to go Linda on noticing things.

The first place we went was the former Hokkaido government office. It was really beautiful, with tulips and lilacs and lots of huge trees! There were also ducks and pigeons and ENORMOUS carp. 

Also, ravens in Japan are huge. HUGE! Apparently they are also not afraid of people, because my labmate told me stories about seeing them stealing hot dogs from children and such. One almost flew off with my friend's daughter at one point.

Next, we walked through Odori park. Likely because the weather was better, today there was music and food stalls and tons of people. I never made it to the tulip festival but I think this was the next best thing.

After that, we took the subway and headed to Maruyama Park, a huge, beautiful park that houses a zoo, a mountain, and the biggest shrine in Hokkaido! We walked around the park for a little while, then made it up to the shrine. There was a wedding going on inside but I didn't really take photos (I'm not THAT much of a creepy weirdo).

By then it was getting late and it had started to rain, so we headed back. Along the way, two Mormon missionaries on bicycles came to a screeching halt when they saw us (because we are white) and started witnessing to us and handing us flyers. I had heard that there were a fair number of missionaries hanging around to prey on foreigners but I was pretty impressed to run into some on my first weekend! My labmate's husband was much nicer to them than I would have been. 

We made it home in the middle of a crazy rainstorm. I thought my labmate's daughter was going to fall asleep in the middle of the street, but we all made it home in one piece.

Dollar store haul

Whee! Today I finally had time to do some exploring!! I really wanted to go and get some kind of basic things that I was lacking (like dishes of my own, some paper, an umbrella, etc).

The first thing I did was get lost trying to leave the research facility where I live >___> In my defence, I've only left twice before (and both times at night!). In retrospect I ALMOST didn't get lost - I just went down a side-street and realized right away that it was not right. So then I remembered that a) google maps actually suggests a different route out of this maze, and b) I saw a labmate heading in that apparent direction when she left yesterday, so I walked to my lab (about 7 minutes from where I live) and then out to the nearest road. Well, that led to several fields and what looked like some mountains, so that wasn't right either. THEN I turned back to where I live and was just starting to get a bit concerned when I saw a car head down a road that I can't see from the building where I live. Huzzah! That finally did lead me to the loong road out to the main street. Oh, did I mention that it was about 5°C, raining heavily, and there were wind gusts up to 70 km/h? So by the time I finally made it here I was already soaked :p

The long and non-winding road.

That road is about a 7-minute walk, and from there it was about a 15-minute trek to the subway station. I headed downtown and made my way to the Daiso 100¥ store (100¥ =~ $1). Holy.Freaking.Cow. This place was seriously amazing. It's 5 stories tall and they have pretty much everything you could imagine (including yarn!!!!!!!!!!!). I was able to get every single thing I wanted to pick up in one place (except for a mic for my computer - though they did have a pretty decent electronics section). I will definitely be back and I will take pictures. My basket was so heavy that it wasn't possible today. Here is the store that was across the street. I like the name because "Book Off" sounds kind of like an insult.

I'm going to start telling people to Book Off since nobody understands me anyway. Not everyone. Just people on the subway who refuse to give up their spot to a clearly disabled person. Not that I saw that today or anything >_>

Anyway, I did a bunch more wandering around between this store, Odori Park (a long, skinny park through the centre of the city where there are festivals throughout the year), and Sapporo Station, which at least to me is the heart of the city. I was kind of hoping to do a bit more shopping, but my dollar store haul was heavy and I was cold and wet so I just headed back home. The subway was jammed because, as it turned out, there is a baseball game today and from the crowds it must have been starting shortly. The Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters play in a stadium that is just up the street from where I live. I really want to get some Ham Fighters paraphernalia because that is the best name ever. 

My Daiso haul includes a clothes hanging rack (because I was warned that the dryer loooves to shrink stuff), baskety things because I have no drawers for socks and things (the plaid thingies on the right), laundry detergent, tragically non-Hamtaro dishes, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Now I am tired.

Arrival and survival!

Whew!! I am in Sapporo, and I just finished my first not-actually-full week of work!

I left Canada early on Monday morning, and because of the time difference arrived in Sapporo at about 8 pm on Tuesday, Sapporo time. My trip went really smoothly! I just missed meeting up with a friend in the Toronto airport completely by chance; she's a prof in Manitoba and was travelling to a conference, and we were actually in the airport at the same time but only realized it right before I stepped onto my plane. On the way to Japan I actually received vegan meals that were really vegan (instead of a cheese omelet, like I got on United airlines once) and the worst thing that happened was that I ended up speaking French on the plane, which pushed my minuscule Japanese knowledge right out of my head. My prof met me at the airport in Sapporo when I arrived, and he drove me to the research station where I'll be working / living. 

My. room. is. amazing. It is a billion times better than I was expecting!! I have a little kitchen area with a microwave / toaster oven (something that I thought was only a legend), a pretty-big fridge, and a gas cooktop. Holy cow is a gas stove ever amazing. I can boil a full pot of water in like 5 minutes!!! I also have a rice cooker and a kettle, and the kitchen was stocked with a few pots and pans. I have a full bathroom of my own (no shared showers!!) and there is FREEE laundry right across the hall from me!! There are only ten rooms in this place and just three are occupied, including my own. One of my labmates actually lives here with her husband and daughter. It's super quiet and it looks out at some woods. It's super nice!

 

Sadly I don't have a space toilet.

I spent my first full day in Sapporo (Wednesday) running around with my prof doing administrative stuff, like mailing off forms to my funding agencies and getting registered at the municipal office (so that when the next crime spree starts, they'll know who to blame). Then we began a 4-hour adventure to try to get me a bank account. Apparently you really need to be in the country for 6 months before you can get a bank account in Japan, which seems a bit weird to me.. although to be honest, maybe there are similar rules in Canada (my prof mentioned that he was only able to get a weirdo student account when he was a visiting prof in Canada a few months ago). Anyhoo, we went from bank A (who straight up said no and cited this rule), to bank B (who said yes but had some archaic rules about minimum balances and junk), to bank C (who had some REALLY strict rules about minimum balances and a million fees and junk). Then we went back to bank B, who were suddenly very concerned about the 6-month rule, and then FINALLY back to bank A where we begged them and they hemmed and hawed and finally said yes. So now I have a bank account!! This whole ordeal made me realize how much I love my PC bank account. I never have to interact with humans and there are no fees for anything. It's win-win!! 

By that time it was so late that my prof had to go and pick up his kids from school, so he dropped me off at my apartment and assigned a student from the lab to take me grocery shopping. It was actually pretty helpful to have a ride because we went to a larger grocery store that was a bit far from my apartment and was at the bottom of a long hill, and since I had a ride I was able to buy rice and other heavy stuff. So now I have food!!

On Thursday and Friday I started doing a bit of actual work in the lab. I had a sit-down with my prof to hash out the project, then I got my bench space and I started preparing some samples and growing up plants and stuff today. My labmates are all super nice and very helpful but there is definitely a language barrier. My prof has mostly been encouraging them to speak English with me (because it's good practice for them for conferences and stuff), so I haven't practised my Japanese very much. The one exception is when I was left alone with a girl who told me that she really didn't speak any English, so I said in Japanese "I understand a little Japanese but I can't speak it very well." I heard her telling a few people that I speak pretty ok Japanese but I think they think she's making it up haha. Other than cruelly bewildering my labmates, the main thing I have used my Japanese skillz for are reading signs while waiting in banks and offices. My amazing kanji skills mean that I can read almost everything on a toilet (big flush / little flush)!! And fire extinguishers (fire pour vessel)!! Sadly I can't read the laundry machines. Or the kettle. Or the rice cooker. Or any of the documents I signed >_> But I do know that the post office will let you send someone an aspara-gift (of asparagus). I did not make that up. 

I want to mail everyone an aspara-gift but sadly I don't think they ship well.

So far the worst thing that has happened is that I saw the biggest non-tarantula spider that I have ever seen in my life. It was no joke bigger than anything I saw in Costa Rica. Luckily it was outside and I was inside but still ;________; I was talking to my prof when I saw it and I was like "UH is that really a spider??" And he was like "Oh yeah, those things are everywhere!" and my neighbour labmate told me that her daughter catches spiders in their apartment ;;;;;;____;;;;; so I guess I'll either have to a) get a really big cat to eat these enormous spiders or b) recruit my labmate's daughter because I am certainly not doing c) grow up and either smash it or catch it and bring it outside. It was bigger than a black widow. I would have taken a picture but I couldn't fit it in the frame. 

This weekend I'm going to go shopping because I have no running shoes and I need some basic things like dishes (although my prof did lend me an amazing Hamtaro bowl), and on Sunday I'm supposed to go to the lilac festival downtown with my labmate and her family! 

Sooo so far so good. I miss everyone (especially the cats) but things have been going well, and I've been so busy that I haven't really been lonely. Hooray for amazing adventures!

Little hamsters, big adventures, HAM-HAM-HAM-TARO!

Re-revival!

Whoo! I am leaving for Japan in less than a week! Maybe I should try again to again have a blog where I can post pictures and stuff without annoying everyone on facebook.

So. I leave in less than one week. I have been acquiring vegan household items (e.g. seven bars of soap, vitamins, crap from Lush, etc) for the past few weeks. I don't generally spend a lot of money on myself, and I don't consider myself high-maintenance, but man. Seeing all of the personal hygiene products that I'll use in one year is a little alarming. And expensive. I am aware that things like deodorant and soap exist in Japan, but my logic is that it's hard enough to get my hands on vegan items in Canada so I don't want to set myself up to make a mistake that I'll feel gross about later (especially since I'm the kind of person who sometimes goes to brush her teeth in the morning and remembers that I finished off the toothpaste the night before. Ew).

Because everyone who knows me is very concerned about this subject: the cats are staying in Canada. They are kinda sometimesish ok with car rides, but three flights (or two flights and a 12 hour train ride) is probably a little unrealistic for them. Also, someone who will remain unnamed MAY be too big to be carry-on. And also I would need to convince another person to fly to / from Japan with me if I did want the cats to be carry-on. So the cats will be staying with their grandparents, which is fine with them because they like stairs, crackers, windows that look out on squirrel highways, and meat, which are all things that my parents have that I don't.

My junk is currently unpacked and is strewn across my parents' entire house. I should probably start really packing, this time for real.