Last of Hokkaido

Our last day in Sapporo was a bit uneventful. Aside from the hangovers we had, we were just exhausted. Our trip to Hokkaido was wonderfully jam packed from head to toe, and we were ready to go home. Noone wanted to decide what to do. We did, however, enjoy a few more bits of Sapporo before heading back to the airport.

This is a covered street which runs through Susukino, a very popular entertainment district. There are all kinds of things to do and see, and places to eat everywhere. It was a cool place. We went into an arcade, and a vintage clothing shop where a used ralph lauren knit sweater cost over 15,000 yen!!!! That's about $150 people!!! I couldn't believe it! Vinage and used apparently have different meanings here.


We decided we had to have one more round of Sapporo ramen before we left and decided the best place to do this would be at a place called Ramen Street. However, we were wrong. There were better places we could have gone, even the airport had better ramen.


But, I suppose the experience was cool. We walked down a street lined with po-dunk ramen shops. The guy that served our Ramen did so with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, which had been perched on his mouth during the cooking of this ramen. He was nice enough though.


Oishi ramen, Marta? We were tired, hungry, and a bit hungover (not to mention cold), so it tasted good all the same.


At the train station, on our way to the airport, I noticed these magazines in a convenience store window. You wouldn't believe the hype here about Obama. I can't imagine what it'd be like back home. The title here reads, Big Comic.

More of Sapporo

I really enjoy blogging on this website, however it's kind of a pain in the ass to put pictures on here. I am trying to figure out the easiest/fastest way of doing it. I thought this was going to be a faster method, but it still is taking too dang long. So, if any of you bloggers out there have some advice on adding pictures... please indulge me!

After we went through the beer museum, we saw that they were having a buffet (including beer) later that night, with crab!!!! So, after signing up for that, we went to this park. It's called Maruyama Koen and is a symbol of Sapporo. According to sightseeing pamphlet, this park features a virgin forest. I'm not exactly sure what that means.



The park was gorgeous! There was untouched snow everywhere. It was so bright! If it hadn't been so early in the day and we had much more to see and do, I would have made me some snow angels, or a snowman. But, it was so beautiful untouched.



Next, we went on a gondola ride up the side of Mt. Moiwa. It was just after sunset so as we rose up the side of the mountain, we were able to see an amazing view of the city, with the lights on. It was SOOOO cold, but I'm so glad we found it.


The city just went on and on. According to the recording as you ride up the elevator for TV tower, Sapporo is the fifth largest city in Japan.


After our trip up the mountain in the gondola, we made our way back to the Sapporo Beer Factory for a delicious meal of crab legs and sushi. We drank as much beer as we could stomach with our bellies already to max capacity.


Next, thanks to a referral from someone we met on the couchsurfing website, we found this random bar tucked away near the famous entertainment and restaurant area of Susukino. The owner is a 30 year transplant from California. (He's lived in Japan for 30 years, the transplant description is his own). Do you remember when I collected beer caps for so long back in college? This is something I would have liked to have done with all the caps... It was really cool.


The guy has over 300 different beers in his bar from all over the world. More importantly, he had all kinds of beer from OREGON!!!! Mostly Rogue brewery, but it was like a small piece of home tucked away in the streets of Hokkaido. I can confidently say that going to that bar was a favorite of all of us. We spent hours there.


Keep in mind that we started drinking when we went to the beer factory the first time, early in the afternoon. Then had our short break as we went up the mountain, to go back to the factory for dinner and more beer, to finishing it off with a cool guy from California, drinking microbrews.



The bar was covered in cans and bottles of different beers from years and years ago. Phred is definitely a packrat!!! But, it looked great in there.
Jeremy loved the Olympia wall hanging. His dad is a big fan of Oly... So, we had to take a few pictures to show Wade back home.


We had a great time!!!!

Sapporo

Considering that I am now almost two months behind in the blogging, I feel as though I must speed it up a bit. Especially because we have been doing some really great stuff over the last few months and I want to get it up here before I forget some of that greatness!

December 26th

After a long bus ride back into the heart of Hokkaido, Sapporo, we settled in to our really nice hotel. I couldn't believe after the Ryokan that we had stayed in at Niseko, that our hotel was so nice. We spent very little on our trip and it was a package deal, so we weren't expecting much. Anyway, this place was like brand new! (Hotel Trinity, check it out ;P ) We all crashed early!

December 27th

We got up fairly early, enjoyed the buffet breakfast from this hotel, and started our day visiting the TV Tower. From the top of the tower, you can see Sapporo very well! We saw the famous ski jump from the Winter Olympics years ago (I think it was in the 70's)


A view of Odori park. At night, it was lit up with Christmas lights. And, in the month of February, there is a big snow sculpture festival that happens there. It's world famous, and from the pictures Ive seen, amazing!!!


A nice picture to reflect my baby's baby blues!


The Sapporo Beer Factory



Next, we were off to the Sapporo Beer Factory. Last year we went there and it was a lot of fun, and we thought Marta and Cody would enjoy it.

We walked through the museum, looking at all of the interesting paraphenalia, only to find ourselves spending the majority of our time (again) at the tasting counter, where you could get 3 glasses of beer, and a snack for 800yen. We got 2!


These posters were really neat. They were poster ads for Sapporo beer from the past years. Some of them were really cool.


The beers were all really good. My favorite was the Yebisu Black (Yebisu is a subsidiary of Sapporo)


Marta and Cody seemed to beat us :) I guess they did, actually.

Niseko

Niseko is a ski resort area, near Mount Yutei (the Hokkaido version of Mount Fuji). It is famous for its powdery snow. It is also an area that is full of Australians. So, it's a foreigner friendly area. There is lots of English, Western style food and other goods. It's about a 2.5 hour bus ride from the captial, Sapporo. Our plan was to stay in Niseko for 4 days and then go spend 2 days in Sapporo, before coming back home.

December 23rd

We arrived in Niseko, checked into our hotel, and figured out where we were going to rent out stuff. It was a snowy paradise! We rented our gear, got it all sized up and ready to go, and I went to the vending machine for a can of ice cold, liquid courage.

Marta has, I think, been snowboarding for 10 years, so she is really good. Cody has been doing it for about 2 years, and he picked it up pretty quickly from all his years of skateboarding. And then there's Jeremy, who also picked it up quickly last year while we were on the mountain. So, needless to say, I was a bit nervous. To be honest, I was terrified of screwing up. Jeremy LOVES snowboarding now, and I really wanted to learn so that it could be a hobby we enjoyed together.

The liquid courage helped a little, I wasn't so tense when strapping the board to my feet for the first time. Also, I didn't drink enough to feel buzzed, so I wasn't being stupid.

The first time wasn't so bad, I fell down a hundred times and wanted to give up more than I remember. But, it was okay for the first night. We were only out there a couple of hours.

On the hike back up the hill, we spotted a pizza place that looked good, so we stopped there for dinner. It was SOOO yummy!

Then, we went back to the hotel, had a few drinks, and after that I experienced my first Japanese onsen experience. Perhaps the 'onsen' explanation should be a blog of it's own.

December 24th

We got up somewhat early and had breakfast. The hotel fee includes a buffet style breakfast. I'm not a big fan of having fish and mushy scrambled eggs, but there were a few things that I could get down, like some miso soup and rice.

Even though it was like 10:00 in the morning, I still had my can of liquid courage before going down the hill. I did better this time. Marta and Jeremy both tried very hard to teach me a few things. The thing is though, it's hard for someone to tell you how to do it. It's more learning through practice that gets you familiar with where to put your weight and so on. So, I got a little frustrated. I also felt bad for keeping everyone from going up the mountain, by having them stay on the little baby slope with me.

This day was good though, I learned a few things. I felt more confident, but I was SOOOO sore. I don't think I was sore from falling, I think I was sore from trying to get up. It's hard to stand up, in the snow, with your feet strapped onto a board, at an angle without just falling back on your ass!

We ordered pizza to be delivered from the same restaurant, and hung out in the room, until midnight when they let off fireworks from the top of the mountain for Christmas. Too bad it was snowing so hard you couldn't really see the fireworks.

December 25th

After calling our family to wish them a Merry Christmas Eve, and having the yummy hotel breakfast again, we realized that the weather wasn't as great as we would have liked it to be. It was kinda raining and some of the snow had melted a little. The bunny slope was kinda icey. But, we went down anyway. I finally had the courage to go up the ski lift, but failed to ride down the steep part at the top. I unstrapped the board and slid down on it like a sled. It was fun :o)

As the day went on, the weather got better and I was starting to get excited about my progress. Marta, Jeremy, and Cody went up the mountain a bit and ended up on some black diamond courses that were, from what I hear, pretty scary. But, I think we all had a great time.

That night, for dinner, we found a Nepalese restaurant and had Christmas dinner there. We were all so sore and exhausted from the 3 days of snowboarding. Cody had fallen while on one of the black diamond runs so he had a really stiff and painful neck. Dinner was great, the restaurant was new and really neat, it was in a yurt style building. The owner said it had been imported from Colorado.

After dinner we spotted this really cool ice bar. We went inside. The drinks they were serving were made of ice. The drinks were a little expensive, like 1,200 yen for the first drink and the glass, and then 500yen for refills. It was really cool. Everything was made from ice, even the chandellier.After that, we stopped at the convenience store, grabbed a Christmas cake, and headed back to the hotel for a little more wine and some R&R.

December 26th

Before I go on, I have to mention the toilet. We stayed in a Japanese, Ryokan style hotel. The room itself didn't have a bathroom or a shower. You had to bathe in the Onsen area, and you had to use the toilet in a community bathroom. So, this toilet was literally two inches from the wall in front of it. I don't even think a tiny Japanese person would have been comfortable in there, but you should have seen me in there. I'll leave out the descriptions. It's better in verbal story form anyway. But, it was horrible and hillarious.

That morning, I had Christmas cake for breakfast.

We went out for our last day on the mountain, and it had snowed SOOO much the night before. And, it was very cold and blizzardy, so it was hard to see and stay warm. I was so tired, so I only made it down one time before calling it quits for this trip, I found my way to this awesome bar, and had a nice buzz going by the time Cody, Jeremy, and Marta were finished going up and down the mountain a few times. It was a great place, and the food was so yummy! I wish we had found that place our first day there!

All in all, snowboarding was a blast! I am so glad I tried and I'm looking forward to the trip we are taking in February with Kyoko and Tadahiro! We will have a great time!

By 5 o'clock that day, we had turned in our equipment and were on a bus to Sapporo. Niseko was great, I'd love to go back for a third time.

On our way to Hokkaido

December 23rd

For Christmas, we decided to go back to Hokkaido to try our new hobby, Snowboarding, again. We went to the same place last year and just barely got familiar with what to do. Actually, last year, I skied and Jeremy snowboarded. This year, we both did snowboarding. We also had a couple of friends go with us this time. Marta and Cody also enjoy snowboarding. In fact, Marta has been doing it for years, so she was really excited about going as well.

We got a really great package deal to go up to Hokkaido for 5 nights. We spent 3 nights, up at Niseko (a ski resort known for it's abundance of Australians), and 2 nights in Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido. The five nights, plus the bus to and from the Mountain, and airfare, were about 60,000 yen (less than $600) It was fan-friggen-tastic!

I'm going to back up just a bit to tell you a story about Jeremy. The night before we left for Hokkaido, I had invited my Japanese family over to make cookies with me. I teach the little girls and the dad and aunt, once a week. I wanted to share my family tradition of baking cookies with the little girls. They loved it. We made, Chocolate chip cookies (in the microwave/toaster oven), no bake cookies, and marshmallow treats (with corn flakes because I couldn't find rice crispies). Anyway, while we were making the cookies, Jeremy was entertaining the rest of the family, all while drinking some shyochu (Japanese rice liquor) that they had brought us. He didn't think that he drank as much as he must have because when we had to wake up the next morning at 6am to pack and get ready to go to the airport, Jeremy spent a fair amount of time hugging the John. You should have seen him on the train to the airport.

Because of Jeremy's morning hell of a hangover, and a mix up with trains from our friends, we ended up getting to the airport and having to run, and cut into lines, and run some more, to end up getting on the plane just in time for the doors to begin to close. (It wasn't quite that dramatic, but we really did have to run around the airport with our hearts pounding, thinking we were going to miss the damn thing)

Finally, we made it on the airplane, and by the time we got to the airport, had our first taste of the famous Sapporo ramen, and got on the bus to the Mountain, Jeremy's hangover had subsided and he was starting to get amped up for the powder that was to be on the mountain when we arrived. We all were excited.

A nice Christmas dinner in Tokyo

December 21st
Since Jeremy and I were going to be spending Christmas somewhere else, we decided to celebrate Christmas with each other before our trip. At home, we opened our presents and got all dressed up and headed into Tokyo for the evening. One of my Assistants at school owns a restaurant in Nihonbashi with her husband. We wanted to check it out. It was perfect. I drank some wine, he drank some Sake, we ate a wonderful dinner and talked about the future. It was a special evening and one I'll never forget. I love this man. He may be stubborn and full of ideas that I can't even scratch the surface on, but he has a heart of gold. This night was really special for me. I realize how much more I know him now than I did two years ago. We have come a long way and have overcome a lot together. We have lived through the experience of living in a foreign country, with a foreign language. We have been together through experiences dealing with death and new life. I have seen him grow and he has taught me so much about the world, and love, and harmony.

I am looking forward to spending our lives together.

Our Christmas Party

I can't believe it has taken me a month to finally get this one done. Alot has been going on in these past few months and I didn't want to leave anything out. This year (I guess technically it was last year), I decided I wanted us to have a Christmas party for our friends. The anticipation for this Christmas was bittersweet. On one hand, we are in Japan, far away from our families, this year being especially difficult because of Grandma's death. And on the other, we have a good group of friends now, and there is something exotic about sharing Christmas in a different place with different people. I decided that if I stayed busy and kept my Christmas spirit high, it would be difficult for me to get depressed about the hard stuff. So, I downloaded Christmas songs early in the month and started getting into the Christmas spirit early on. We had a party on the 14th for our friends. We had over 15 people in our tiny little apartment. However, I think it was very cozy and enjoyable. There was SO much food. I guess I am like my father in that respect as well. I always worry about whether there will be enough. But, there were like 20 different dishes, some prepared by me, and others that were brought by our friends. Everything was great!

We started dinner with some appetizers, like ants on a log and chips and dip. When I planned the party, I asked people to either bring a dish that reminded them of their Christmas back home, or a family tradition that did. I wanted our Christmas party to be everyone's Christmas party. My familiy tradition that I decided to share was the BINGO that we always play at Grandpa Coles on Christmas Eve. I sent Jeremy to Daiso (like the dollar store) to get some interesting gifts, and because I couldn't find real scratch offs, I bought some make-your-own kind, which ended up being quite good.

We had crackers (poppers) to get the party going. They weren't the traditional style that are done in England, but the idea was there.

Josh brought the wishbone from the Thanksgiving dinner he had. His family tradition was that the 2 youngest get to break the wishbone from Thanksgiving, on Christmas. And, pork tenderloin, that I hear was pretty tasty. And, guacamole that was really good.

Lisa brought Pommegranite martinis. It was a first for her to have to make them though.

Marta and Cody brought tacos.

Vicky brought an italian fruit cake. I think it was called a Panettone. It was good, not like the fruitcakes that we think of back home that weigh like a brick.

Jeremy's tradition was clam chowder, so I made chowder for him.

After dinner we did a white elephant gift exchange that was really fun! Everyone brought silly gifts, I thought it was great. Perfect, in fact!

Then we had the Pommegranite martini's and finished off the night with dessert. I think everyone had a great time, and I LOVED it!!!! We will definitely be having Christmas parties for our friends, wherever we live, for a long time to come.

The night ended with the wishbone breaking, done by the babies... Elizabeth and Cody. I think Elizabeth won. That part of the evening is a bit hazy ;o)