JIJ Vol: 012 Already into the New Years

Minna-sama!!! Hontou hisashiburi desu ne?! Agemashite Omedetto!!!
(Hey Everyone!!! It's been a long time hasn't it? Happy New Years!!!)

Well. First off I'd like to apologize for the lack of activity in the past two months. I've been completely busy with life here in japan. The holidays were here, than my short 10 day trip to Tokyo, and then finals during the month of Janurary. Now I am on spring break and am travelling quite a bit. I wish I could travel more, but you can only do so much when you lack funds.

How was everyones holidays? Thanksgiving? Hanukkah? Kwanza? Christmas? New Years?

In Japan, Christmas is probably one of the most romantic times of the year. It's like valentines day but not. Many couples get together and spend the day out, dinner and everything. Well sadly I'm a single girl out here in Japan. So instead I spent my Christmas with some of my classmates. We went shopping. I finally bought a new coat to deal with the cold weather. Then we went to my friends house where we made gyoza, ate christmas cake, and watched a huge comedy cometition on the TV. After that, we went to Kego park and took a look at all the "light up" stuff they installed.

A strange thing about Japanese culture... when an event finishes they're always in a hurry to tear everything down. By the time I got to the station downtown at around 10:30pm on Christmas Day, workers were already beginning to take down all of the christmas decorations and to put up new advertisements and other decorations... new years decorations!

Following Christmas, I bought myself a bus ticket (round trip) to Tokyo to visit my friend Taka and spend New Years with her. I left on the 30th on an overnight bus, arriving on the 31st. I managed to see some of my good friends during my trip. I participated in more... culture events such as participating in the huge new years shopping craze. Visiting the temples, eating New Years food and being lazy. As my friend put it, "New Year's is all about going to the temple, and then going to eat new years food and watching TV" For new years week they have special TV programs that only come up once a year. Then there is the special new years food including vegetables, and seafood. My New Years dinner (I spent with my japanese friend and her family) included a special new years vegetable dish of preserved vegetables, sashimi, and crab from Hokkaido! The crab was so delicious! I actually spent a lot of time watching TV at my friends house during my trip and was constantly learning more japanese. There were some very interesting shows!

I did manage to do some sight seeing. I went to Yokohama with an american friend of mine. We visited Minato Mirai, and the Chinatown, and a little bit of Motomachi before I had to head back. I also was able to visit Kamakura this time and see the large Daibutsu (a large buddha) and other various shrines, and the sea coast. I had a wonderful time in Tokyo.

After comming back for new years I spent most of Jan. finishing up my architecture project and finals. In addition I performed two songs with my Wind Ensamble: Namaoto Club for a music festival at Fukuoka ACROS Symphony Hall. It was a delightful experience and a lot of fun! I'm really glad that I had the opportunity to play at the Symphony Hall. We played two pieces: "Harvest Waves" and "Banzai for Hollywood" It was short, but still quite a lot of fun.

After all of our finals were over... our break started. But this also included me helping out other students in my laboratory finishing up their final projects. They had presentations to make about a week after I was done. So now that everyone is done we are on our vacation. School doesn't start up until April again. So this opens up the opportunity to do a lot of travelling!

Before I came to Japan I made a list of things that I wanted to accomplish (in my mind) when I am in Japan. Such goals include (but not limited to) participating in culture events, seeing some of my favorite japanese bands, visiting all the major islands in Japan, climbing Mt. Fuji, etc. One goal happened to be "Go to Hokkaido for Yuki Matsuri" So Spencer, Jay and I went to JTB and made preperations to go... and I'm glad we did.

Our tour package was a little bit on the expensive price range (actually this was considered the cheapest package out of them all!) but we managed to assemble a 6 day trip to Hokkaido. Lucky enough we were able to catch the last day of the festival! Actually I think that was probably the best thing to do because we were able to see all the festivities being torn down and everything.

A summary of our trip:
Feb 11: we flew from hakata airport to chitose airport. We took the train to Nobori Betsu which is most famous for their hot springs. We spent the day wandering around "Hells Valley" where the hot spring source is and played in the snow. In the evening we spent most of the time just relaxing, going to the hot springs, eating some good food... and going to the hot springs again.

Feb 12: we woke up in the morning to get over to Sapporo as quickly as possible. We got into Sapporo in the early morning and spent most of the day wandering around Odori koen (odori park where the main snow/ice sculptures were). We took many photos. Spencer and I climbed up the TV Tower to catch a great view of Sapporo during the day. About mid afternoon we took the train to Otaru to check into our hotel. After wards we quickly headed back to Sapporo to check out the sculptures being light up. We also went back to the TV Tower to see a night view of Sapporo. After around 10PM the "Light up" festivities were over... and everything was already being taken appart. We found this a good opportunity to take photos of the disassembling and do other silly night time photos. After wards we quickly took a train back to Otaru and spent quite a lot of time and well into the night taking photos around Otaru.

Feb 13: We woke up in the morning for our long journey to Hakodate. Once we got into Hakodate, we checked in and spent most of the time exploring Hakodate (again for me). We wandered on one side of the coast, and eventually walked all the way up to the ropeway station that goes up to Mt. Hakodate. Afterwards we spent the evening up Mt. Hakodate. It was beautiful!

Feb 14: We spent the early morning in Hakodate, we went to Asa ichi morning market, then went exploring the other side of the coast, taking photos and enjoying the cold weather. Afterwards we took the train and headed back to Sapporo. We spent the evening eating spicy sapporo ramen and wandering around the Susukino district for interesting adventures.

Feb 15: We spent the morning checking out the Sapporo beer factory... hey we couldn't help it. It was a lot of fun - we got to check out a lot of scenery and things like that. After that we headed over to Mourenuma koen (http://www.sapporo-park.or.jp/moere/) and watched the sun go down. Mourenuma koen was a lot of fun! We got their kinda late and it was really cold, but being able to watch the sunset and see all of Sapporo was worth it all! We headed back early and called it an early night because we wanted to make sure to catch train back to the airport on time. We actually spent the rest of the evening for dinner and omiyage shopping.

Feb 16: we woke up in the morning, packed up, did last minute omiyage shopping and headed to the train station to get to the airport. The flight took longer on the way home and was delayed by half an hour, but we didn't have any commitments after flying home so it it was okay.

Since returning from Hokkaido, I've been hanging around Fukuoka and not going anywhere. I have been going to rock concerts, working on an online portfolio, and doing things that poke my intrest.

Today Spencer and I went to Dazaifu in hopes of seeing Ume Blossoms, but I think we were a little bit early - so we're going to try later next week. On monday I'll be going to Nagasaki for a day with my laboratory. Then March is going to be a very busy month! March 8,9,10 I will go with my laboratory to Okinawa! This will complete my "Go to every major island in Japan" We're going on this trip as a 'graduation' trip to relax and have a good time. Following that March 13 ~ 23 my father is comming to visit me! I'm really excited! I think we're going to go tour a bit of western honshu - visiting Hiroshima, Miyajima and maybe Okayama. I'm still in the middle of making preparations. Other than that - i'll be uploading photos over time and send those in the next post.