Week 40: a plague of holidays!

Happy Foundation Day! Happy St. Tryphon's Day! Happy Valentine's Day! It was an eventful week!! The only one of those days that was actually a day off was Foundation Day, which made for a very nice Wednesday off in the middle of the week. I used my holiday to sleep in a bit.

On Saturday I had a ladies-only party with my friend and her daughter while my friend's husband was out at a concert. We ate some veggies, then did some art together and played some chess and Othello. I am not a good chess player, but I usually can beat my friend's kid, but in the first game we played SHE BEAT ME IN 5 MOVES. Not one of my proudest moments :p I won the second game by the skin of my teeth!

For our art lessons, we did some upside-down drawing from an art book that I brought some home, then we practiced our calligraphy using traditional ink and rice paper. My friend's kid does some calligraphy at school, and she was excited to try some of the kanji from my poor, underused kanji flash cards. She was pretty much just flipping through the deck and choosing characters at random, but when she mentioned that she wanted to bring them to school to show her teacher, I had to talk her out of practicing the kanji for "placenta." Here are some of my extremely important artworks.

Cat

Hokkaido

On Sunday we had a fine blizzard, so it was a pretty good day to be lazy. My brother sent me some pictures from home. I think these guys look pretty lazy, so I used them as my inspiration. 

Week 39: The Canadians were here!!

Whew! This past week has been a whirlwind - just a real whirl of wind (and snow!). My friends came to visit last week!! They arrived on Friday, and I got them settled in by getting lost on my way to meet them so that I was like 20 minutes late. But they stuck it out for some reason!! By the time I found them we pretty much just headed home and I rustled us up some grubs.

On Saturday we went to the Sapporo Snow Festival!!! I had been looking forward to it since I got here and it did not disappoint!!

As soon as we arrived, the first thing we saw was a moguls competition!!! I tried to take some photos but they didn't really turn out. One of the competitors was only nine years old and she was amazing!!

The real attraction was the snow sculptures. I can't express how amazing they were!! We were VERY lucky that we went on Saturday morning because all of the really big sculptures were still in very good shape, but things were starting to get a little melty by the afternoon. It probably goes without saying that my favourite was the STAR WARS SCULPTURE!!

Even the non-Star Wars sculptures were pretty impressive!!

When we were finished at the festival, we took a trip to the Sapporo Beer Museum!! It isn't the real brewery (which is located in the next city), but the old beer factory is located nearby and today is a mall.

Inside the museum was a collection of items explaining the history of Sapporo Beer, along with a diorama revealing that Sapporo beer is actually brewed by monkeys / elves!

There was also a collection of old bottles and cans. I am not sure why there is an egg or a spaceship??

Outside the factory were some very pretty candles!

On Sunday we headed to Otaru, which is next to the ocean! I visited Otaru and wen to the aquarium shortly after I got here, so it was really nice to walk around and enjoy it in the winter. The scenery during the day was nice, and we did a bit of shopping.

But as nice as Otaru is during the day, it was BEAUTIFUL at night. Otaru was having their own ice / snow / candle festival and it was really wonderful.

The festival had lots of things to do, like tubing (my friend and I went while her husband rolled his eyes), and free concerts and lots of games and snacks and drinks. We had a great time!

On Monday it was time for my friends to leave, but we had time to go to a conveyor belt sushi restaurant!! I have always wanted to go but I never really had an excuse to go alone. Essentially there is a conveyor belt running through the restaurant, and you just grab whatever looks good. You stack up your plates and are charged according to their colour and number. We had a feast!

Week 38: The Canadians are coming!

I can't believe that January is already over!! It passed by super quickly. That's a little scary because I don't have a ton of time left to finish up my work (and find another job..) before I leave Japan!

This week I made a big jump forward in my work, which I am very happy about!! Of course that also means that now I have a lot more work to do. Also, one of my labmates got some bad news about his project, so that stank.

This Saturday I went skating again with my friends. The rink was jam-packed, and there were some hockey players practicing in the centre of the rink! It's sort of fun to go back week after week and to see a lot of the same faces. But I am a little disturbed by the fact that, week after week, I have seen the same few (apparently unsupervised) kids flying around the rink at breakneck speed, totally out of control and faceplanting at least once per minute. I admire their persistence, but it seems a bit dangerous to me to have a little 60 pound torpedo with knives strapped to his feet barreling around wildly without any apparent improvement. To me it seems like only a matter of time before he really gets hurt or hurts someone else, but I guess I'm not the Queen of the Rink so there's not a lot I can do about it!

On Saturday evening, my prof invited me and my labmate and her family to his home for dinner!! We had sushi and it was delicious. I actually haven't eaten sushi since I got here! My prof gave us a crash course in how to play shogi (Japanese chess).

On Sunday we had another blizzard, and the streets are once again GLARE ICE, which made for some fun walking! I guess it must have also made for some fun ski conditions for the Sapporo International Ski Marathon(!) which was held in my backyard. I saw a ton (a total of 5) foreigners out and about this weekend as a result. 

Next Friday, my friends are coming to visit! And so I spent the rest of my time cleaning and getting things ready! I don't have a specific plan for what we're going to do while they're here. Next weekend is the legendary SAPPORO SNOW FESTIVAL which is supposed to be quite the big deal, so I think that we will spend a fair bit of time there. They also mentioned something about a trip to Otaru, which would be a nice change of scenery. I'm really looking forward to seeing them!!

Week 37: Really real snowboarding!

Ok I know that I said that last weekend I went snowboarding for real, but this weekend I went snowboarding REALLY for real!! On Saturday I went to Fu's Snow Area just outside the city! This time there were just four of us (one other beginner, an intermediate-skilled person and an expert).

Here is Ms. Beginner, my labmate / labmate's wife whose name I now know!

Mr. Intermediate, who spent the day trying to learn a new trick

We couldn't have been more lucky with the weather. All day the skies were blue and there was just a light dusting of snow falling. For most of the duration of our six hour lift pass the temperature was about 0 C, so we were mostly too hot! But by about 4 pm when the sun was starting to think about setting it started getting COLD! But because it was such a clear day there was really a beautiful view!

The ski lodge

This was my view for most of the day

Anyway, this time I got to use the real (beginner) ski hill!! On a snowboard, to use a chairlift, you need to have only one foot strapped in so that you can do a kind of awkward shuffle/slide as you move along the line. That's all well and good, but it also means that when you get to the top of the hill, you need to get your board aimed straight, you need to stand up, and you need to slide away from the chairlift with only one foot actually attached without immediately falling over, because if you do fall the lift operator stops the ski lift and you will be highly embarrassed. I was warned that EVERYONE falls on their first attempt, but actually I managed to succeed and not fall on my first try!! I then proceeded to fall on my second try (and then intermittently afterwards when I occasionally got a monkey on my back). As an aside, my Polish friend once taught me that in Polish there is a phrase that translates roughly as "don't make a village" and means something along the lines of "when you're in the city don't act like a villager and humiliate yourself / the people that you're with." Just speaking generally it is very easy to make a village as a foreigner in Japan, and I personally make a village all the time (e.g. once I tried to give the machine at the subway station my zoo ticket instead of my subway ticket). So all of that to say that I made a village getting off of the ski lift several times. 

I also made a village on my first run down the hill when I managed to basically do a faceplant, but other than that the day went well. I learned how to turn in the other direction and I think that my friend / instructor finally believes me that I am indeed left-footed (aka goofy foot) for snowboarding. The two basic things to learn as a super beginner snowboarder involve, counterintuitively, having your board perpendicular to the direction of the slope (i.e. flat across and sliding on the long side, not barreling down with the nose forward). You need to learn how to slide with your board relatively flat, but leaned either back on your heels or forward on your toes. Back on your heels was fine for me, because the balance is easy to find and if you fall you just fall on your back. But balancing on your toes means actually facing UP the hill and leaning forward, so it's a) hard to even get in that position to find your balance, and b) really easy to do a faceplant or to overcompensate and REALLY fall over backwards. But in any case I can now do both. Huzzah! 

Boy that was a lot of words about snowboarding. I am really having fun learning snowboarding! I'm really happy that I bought my crappy board, because it has served me just fine as a learner board and I probably wouldn't have ever tried if I knew that I needed to rent all of the equipment. This is definitely something that I plan to continue with when I come home (which will be sooner rather than later since my funding didn't get extended). 

I believe I may have mentioned it before but THERE IS A LOT OF SNOW HERE. Especially on the way to the ski park, where we were off of the main city roads, you could really see how much has accumulated. The snowbanks beside the road along the highway are now taller than most cars!! Obviously that's a bit of an overestimation because the height is bumped up by the accumulation from passing snowplows, but even still it is pretty impressive!!

Week 36: Mumpless in Sapporo

Hooray! I am almost certain that I didn't contract the mumps after all! At this point I'm sure I would be all mumpy if I was going to become mumpy at all.

This week was a whirlwind of winter adventures!

On Friday I went snowboarding for real!!! Well, mostly. I went to Ban.K ski park with four other people from the lab. One guy is really an expert, one is maybe intermediate, and the other two are a couple who have only been snowboarding once, so luckily I wasn't entirely on my own in terms of my skill level (and lack thereof).

When we arrived, I demonstrated my skill level by sliding directly into a mesh fence :p As a result, I was relegated to practice for most of the time, because that was fine with me. Even though the hill is considered pretty small, it really put Pakenham to shame, and I probably would have died if I had tried it at the beginning. But I learned a LOT, and now I think that I really am ready to try the big girl (aka super beginner) hill next time!

On Saturday there was another unforecasted blizzard! I didn't expect a random blizzard, so I had the bright idea to go to the store to get some towels and blankets and other bulky items because some of my friends are coming to visit in a few weeks. So I had a very fun walk home with an enormous bag in a huge blizzard. It was bad enough that one person got snowed in at school, and the lab door was stuck in an uncloseable position when I arrived on Sunday morning!

On Sunday we went skating again! My friends are really becoming experts. We have our timing down pat, too: they clean the ice every two hours, so we have worked it out that when we arrive the ice is pristine, and then we skate until they clean it again. 

Week 35: There is really a lot of snow

This week there was a crazy blizzard!! I thought that I knew blizzards, but boy, Hokkaido really puts Ottawa to shame. It blizzarded for about 8 hours straight, with much of that time being total whiteout conditions. I ran to another building to turn on a machine, and in the 2 minutes that I was indoors, my footprints in the snow were completely erased (which was a good thing, because they were embarassing... due to the whiteout, I wandered into a snowbank and almost fell over, so I'm sure that my path made it look like I was drunk). The snow was so heavy that three people slept in the lab overnight! We also got more snow on most of the days that followed; in this week alone we have easily gotten 50 cm, and maybe as much as a metre.

I made a comment to my friend a little while ago that our backyard would probably be a good place to really see how much snow had accumulated, because it's a pretty narrow strip of land between our long building and a strip of woods (and so the snow there can't get blown around too much). She sadi that that would be true if they didn't plow it. I thought she was joking, because why would they plow a backyard? But then they plowed the backyard. RIP snowman that my friend's kid built! So since the plow went by, there is a big buildup of snow outside my window (from the sides of the plow, as well as from the stuff that is always sliding off of the roof), so this isn't REALLY an accurate estimate, but in any case, this is what I saw when I looked out my window on Saturday morning.

And this is what happened when I stepped outside:

This is a VERY NORMAL amount of unforecasted overnight snow!

And this is what the sidewalk on the way to the grocery store looks like:

That's a pretty narrow alley! Later on there was no path at all.

Anyway, in other exciting news, I finally broke down and bought a new computer!! My laptop has been giving me grief of varying sorts pretty much since the day I bought it (I think it was a bit of a Boxing Day lemon). I have been hemming and hawing for a long time, and I nearly bought a new computer before I came to Japan, but today my computer did its effing annoying habit of forgetting that it has a network card, and that was really just the last straw for me.

Buying a computer without being able to communicate very well with the store person was, ironically, much an easier and less patronizing experience than buying a computer in Canada. I usually HATE buying things like that, because I hate the upsell that the salespeople are being forced to give you, and I hate the way that they talk down to you and try to make you consider dumb alternatives. So it was kind of nice for him to pretty much just take me at my word when I said that I knew what I wanted, and I was really lucky that allegedly I got the last one of the exact model that I had been thinking of all along!

It's so purple!

On Sunday I built some snow cats with my neighbours! I only managed to take a picture of the first one because I was frozen solid by the time we finished the second one. I'm sure they will only survive for a day or two before they are bulldozed, but it was fun to play in the snow!

Hm, my phone makes the snow look an awful lot more blue than it really is...

Week 34: Happy New Year!

Happy 2015!!

Considering that this week was a holiday week, I really didn't get up to very much exciting stuff. I got some work done in the lab. I slept in a bit, which was very nice. I read a book and played some video games. I did a bit of snowboarding when the weather was right, but most days were too warm and it was like trying to snowboard through wet oatmeal. 

Part of why the week was quiet is that my friend's kid has the mumps!! Apparently in Japan they don't vaccinate against the mumps at all. There was an outbreak in my friend's kid's class, and even though my friend's kid had been vaccinated, she still caught it. I visited her on the first day of her symptoms (when she had been diagnosed with an ear infection by a doctor who apparently can't recognize the symptoms of mumps...) so maybe I will get the mumps too! Also her parents have been living in close quarters with her (as our rooms are less than 5m x 5m) so they enjoyed a fun week of quarantine, too. That made for a quiet week! I barely saw another soul in the lab during the week, too, despite much rending of garments over our upcoming lab progress meeting and subsequent dramatics about staying in town for the holidays. I think it's good that people are taking time off - nobody should feel like they are being forced to work during a week off!! And I think we all need a break. I am glad that I worked at a pretty lazy pace to get through the things that I couldn't put off.

There is a last gap of holiday-ness in another week, because Monday the 12th is a day off. And now that people will be around again, a few folks in the lab have been talking about a ski / snowboard trip to the small hill here in the city, which will be a fun step up from my little hill!

There is quite a lot of snow on the ground. It's hard to get a good guess of how much has really accumulated, because there are big piles where it has fallen off roofs or been scraped up by plows, but I would conservatively estimate that a metre of snow has fallen, and is probably sitting at a depth of at least half a metre in most places (after squishing down due to melty temperatures). There is a shortcut across a field that I like to use, and if there aren't fresh footprints to step in I can easily go in up to my knee. The other day I made a fresh path through about a foot of new snow, and when I came back the next day I saw that the fox had used my path! I guess he was glad that he didn't need to forge a path in snow up to his chin.