Hello Again Everyone!
Hope all is well, don't forget to let me know what you're all up to as too.
So here is another update from the land of Sumo and Sushi. I hope it's not too boring but I don't have too much to do at work at the moment as it's the school spring vacation. Unfortunately in Japan teachers are expected to come in, even during school vacation, unless they use their annual leave. I don't have a great deal left so I'm coming in without too much to do really. I hope reading this can dwindle away a bit of idle time at work for you, just as writing it has for me. Anyway it's been another busy couple of months since my last email and a lot has gone on so here are some of the highlights.
Just after my last email I went up to the northern island of Hokkaido with about 40 other JETs from my prefecture, to go to the famous Sapporo Snow festival. It was a brilliant long weekend. We took an overnight ferry from a city called Sendai. On the boat we had one big tatami mat room for all of us and the there was a nice restaurant, bars and karaoke onboard so it was a great way to start the trip. We arrived in Sapporo in the early afternoon and had a few hours to check into our hotel rooms and relax a little bit before we headed to the Sapporo beer factory. Unfortunately there was no tour of the brewery but we did have a huge cavern style room booked for 2 hours tabehoudai (all you can eat) nomihoudai (all you can drink) yakiniku (Korean style indoor BBQ) You cook the food yourself on tables of about 8 with a big hotplate in the middle. The food was really nice and the waiters replenished the food and drinks as fast as you could finish them. It was a great atmosphere which was obviously somewhat alcohol fuelled. After the beer factory we stumbled past some of the snow sculptures before finding our way to an Irish bar. Ireland were playing in the 6 nations rugby, but the game didn’t start until midnight Japan time, so by the end I was the only one left. I had got chatting to an absolutely huge Australian detective, earlier on at the bar. He must have been close to 7 ft and apparently my best drunken Mick Dundee impersonation hadn’t impressed him all that much, nevertheless we still sat and watched the end of the game together over some more beers.
The next day we went to see some more of the snow sculptures. Some of them were enormous, and amazingly intricate, I’m not sure my pictures really do them justice, but you can get an idea from the few below. We spent most of the day looking round and enjoying the festival and we were lucky to have brilliant sunshine all day. There were also some pretty cool freestyle ski-jumpers doing some really impressive jumps off a temporary snow ramp they had constructed in the middle of the city. I’m not even sure I could have bettered them on my snowboard, ha ha! That evening we stayed in smaller groups and 5 of us headed for a slightly more civilised but also quite expensive meal. The famous food in Hokkiado is crab, so we thought the restaurant with a gigantic crab on the wall would be a good place to go. There were big rock pools inside and outside the restaurant filled with huge live crabs, so we could have a preview of what we were about to eat. In fact everything in the restaurant from the lamps to the ash trays were decorated with crabs. It turned out that the only thing on the menu that didn’t contain crab was plain rice. This didn’t work out too well for Tracy as she is allergic to crab, but she said she wasn’t too hungry anyway. The rest of us tucked into every different type of crab imaginable. We had raw crab, crab stew, crab brain, crab noodles, crab soup, crab pate and much much more. By the end of the meal I was well and truly crabbed out but it was good to try a local delicacy to the full. After the meal we took a walk to look round the ice sculptures at night. These were on a lot smaller scale than the Snow sculptures but no less impressive. Actually in my opinion some of them were even more impressive. Some of the artwork and detail was incredible, and we got to see one of the sculptures at work. They start with a chain saw to carve the main shape and work down to a tiny ice pick for the finishing touches.
Later on we headed to a couple of ice bars and had some hot baileys, which was really nice in the cold weather. I also met up with a friend that I had met when I first arrived in Japan at the Tokyo Orientation. He has been living in Hokkaido since then so it was good to hear what he had been up to. He showed me the way to a funky little underground bar, and I proceeded to lead a group of about 20 of the JETs from Fukushima there. We took the bar over a little bit and it turned into a bit of a wild night, involving a lot of bar top dancing and free drinks being poured down throats. The next morning it was time to return home. Needless to say the return trip was a little more sombre. I was travelling for about 18 hours before I got back pretty shattered at about 11 at night. Unfortunately the rest of the week was also really hectic at school and it was a bit of a struggle to get through it.
The next couple of weekends were spent hitting the slopes and enjoying some great powder. I had planned a long time ago to attempt the Tokyo Marathon on February 17th but it was a good thing I’d given up hope of that a while before, because I really wasn’t in any shape to run 26 miles when the date came round.
At the start of March I went down to Yokohama (near Tokyo) for a conference for returning JETs. It was a really useful and enjoyable conference and gave me a bit more motivation to get things sorted for when I leave Japan. Tracy and I had gone down to Tokyo a couple of days early to look round the Odaiba bay area. We took a few ferrys to get there and then a really futuristic monorail across the rainbow bridge on the way back. It was really nice and it was good to see a different side of Tokyo. We also had a nice meal with a fantastic view over the Bay area and the bridge.
The weekend after one of the nearby Ski-resorts held an international sk/snowboard day, where a days pass for any non-Japanese person was only 500 yen (about £2.50) It was a great day and there were over 100 JETs there. They had a fancy dress competition and also offered 2 free drinks to anyone willing to do a run in their swimwear. Never one to turn down a free drink I stepped up with 4 other good mates and we all headed down in nothing but our skimpies. It was good for me to get some more use out of the Speedos I had bought for Christmas day on Bondi Beach in Sydney. If you haven’t seen the video yet, be sure to check it out on my Facebook profile.
It was more snowboarding the following weekend and we hired a cabin locally and had some people from around the prefecture come and experience a couple of the resorts in the more remote area of Minamiaizu. It was another great weekend and although the snow was starting to get a little slushy, the bright sunshine, clear skies and great views definitely made up for it.
This week my parents have come to visit Japan. I met them in Tokyo on Thursday evening and on Friday we headed to see some famous temples in a place called Nikko. Tracy came and met us in Nikko as well and again we were really lucky with the weather. After the weekend they came up to Tadami and met some of my Japanese friends here. They wanted to do a bit of skiing while they were here so we spent a couple of days going to one of the local resorts. My parents weren’t exactly rocketing down the slopes but they seemed to enjoy it, and the weather was very kind again. I also took them to a famous old Samurai village and Aizuwakamatsu which was an important city during Samurai times. We visited a famous spot on a hill where a group of Samurai called the White Tigers thought they had seen there castle burning, and with the shame of defeat decided to comit sepuku (ritual suicide) It turned out the castle wasn’t burning but it was a bit late for all but one of them who survived just long enough to tell the tale.
To try and get some slightly better snow towards the end of the season we decided to take a trip to one of the bigger resorts called Zao a few hours North. It took us a while to get up there as we travelled for an hour and a half on a road that turned out to be closed so we had to return and get on an expressway. We eventually arrived at our lodge shortly before midnight and got straight to bed looking forward to a couple of days early. Unfortunately when I woke up I felt pretty rough and spent the first day in bed while my parents enjoyed the skiing. I didn’t really manage any food that day or night but by the next morning I felt a bit better. The resort was huge with over 45 lifts, and a longest run of over 8km. It was great fun but unfortunately it was extremely foggy so it was quite easy to lose your way. Afterwards we had a really nice sulphur onsen (hot spring bath) and then made the trip back to a city called Koriyama where Tracy lives. When we arrived back in Koriyama late in the night, I started to feel pretty rough again. I spent the whole night being sick and at times felt like I might have to go to hospital. I’m not sure what I had but it certainly wasn’t pleasant. The next day my brother Kirk, who had coincidently had to fly to Tokyo with work, came up to Koriyama and surprised my parents. We had a nice meal, although I still unfortunately didn’t have much of an appetite. Later on my parents headed off to spend a week travelling around the north of Japan. I’ll meet them again before they fly home next week.
The next few weeks should be a lot quieter for me and I really need to work on finding a job for when I leave Japan. My plans are still the same to travel back to the UK through china, before moving out to Melbourne, but I really need to start getting things sorted to make this a reality now!
Anyway if you haven’t died of boredom reading this, here are some photos, Take care and stay in touch!
Bryn
Hope all is well, don't forget to let me know what you're all up to as too.
So here is another update from the land of Sumo and Sushi. I hope it's not too boring but I don't have too much to do at work at the moment as it's the school spring vacation. Unfortunately in Japan teachers are expected to come in, even during school vacation, unless they use their annual leave. I don't have a great deal left so I'm coming in without too much to do really. I hope reading this can dwindle away a bit of idle time at work for you, just as writing it has for me. Anyway it's been another busy couple of months since my last email and a lot has gone on so here are some of the highlights.
Just after my last email I went up to the northern island of Hokkaido with about 40 other JETs from my prefecture, to go to the famous Sapporo Snow festival. It was a brilliant long weekend. We took an overnight ferry from a city called Sendai. On the boat we had one big tatami mat room for all of us and the there was a nice restaurant, bars and karaoke onboard so it was a great way to start the trip. We arrived in Sapporo in the early afternoon and had a few hours to check into our hotel rooms and relax a little bit before we headed to the Sapporo beer factory. Unfortunately there was no tour of the brewery but we did have a huge cavern style room booked for 2 hours tabehoudai (all you can eat) nomihoudai (all you can drink) yakiniku (Korean style indoor BBQ) You cook the food yourself on tables of about 8 with a big hotplate in the middle. The food was really nice and the waiters replenished the food and drinks as fast as you could finish them. It was a great atmosphere which was obviously somewhat alcohol fuelled. After the beer factory we stumbled past some of the snow sculptures before finding our way to an Irish bar. Ireland were playing in the 6 nations rugby, but the game didn’t start until midnight Japan time, so by the end I was the only one left. I had got chatting to an absolutely huge Australian detective, earlier on at the bar. He must have been close to 7 ft and apparently my best drunken Mick Dundee impersonation hadn’t impressed him all that much, nevertheless we still sat and watched the end of the game together over some more beers.
The next day we went to see some more of the snow sculptures. Some of them were enormous, and amazingly intricate, I’m not sure my pictures really do them justice, but you can get an idea from the few below. We spent most of the day looking round and enjoying the festival and we were lucky to have brilliant sunshine all day. There were also some pretty cool freestyle ski-jumpers doing some really impressive jumps off a temporary snow ramp they had constructed in the middle of the city. I’m not even sure I could have bettered them on my snowboard, ha ha! That evening we stayed in smaller groups and 5 of us headed for a slightly more civilised but also quite expensive meal. The famous food in Hokkiado is crab, so we thought the restaurant with a gigantic crab on the wall would be a good place to go. There were big rock pools inside and outside the restaurant filled with huge live crabs, so we could have a preview of what we were about to eat. In fact everything in the restaurant from the lamps to the ash trays were decorated with crabs. It turned out that the only thing on the menu that didn’t contain crab was plain rice. This didn’t work out too well for Tracy as she is allergic to crab, but she said she wasn’t too hungry anyway. The rest of us tucked into every different type of crab imaginable. We had raw crab, crab stew, crab brain, crab noodles, crab soup, crab pate and much much more. By the end of the meal I was well and truly crabbed out but it was good to try a local delicacy to the full. After the meal we took a walk to look round the ice sculptures at night. These were on a lot smaller scale than the Snow sculptures but no less impressive. Actually in my opinion some of them were even more impressive. Some of the artwork and detail was incredible, and we got to see one of the sculptures at work. They start with a chain saw to carve the main shape and work down to a tiny ice pick for the finishing touches.
Later on we headed to a couple of ice bars and had some hot baileys, which was really nice in the cold weather. I also met up with a friend that I had met when I first arrived in Japan at the Tokyo Orientation. He has been living in Hokkaido since then so it was good to hear what he had been up to. He showed me the way to a funky little underground bar, and I proceeded to lead a group of about 20 of the JETs from Fukushima there. We took the bar over a little bit and it turned into a bit of a wild night, involving a lot of bar top dancing and free drinks being poured down throats. The next morning it was time to return home. Needless to say the return trip was a little more sombre. I was travelling for about 18 hours before I got back pretty shattered at about 11 at night. Unfortunately the rest of the week was also really hectic at school and it was a bit of a struggle to get through it.
The next couple of weekends were spent hitting the slopes and enjoying some great powder. I had planned a long time ago to attempt the Tokyo Marathon on February 17th but it was a good thing I’d given up hope of that a while before, because I really wasn’t in any shape to run 26 miles when the date came round.
At the start of March I went down to Yokohama (near Tokyo) for a conference for returning JETs. It was a really useful and enjoyable conference and gave me a bit more motivation to get things sorted for when I leave Japan. Tracy and I had gone down to Tokyo a couple of days early to look round the Odaiba bay area. We took a few ferrys to get there and then a really futuristic monorail across the rainbow bridge on the way back. It was really nice and it was good to see a different side of Tokyo. We also had a nice meal with a fantastic view over the Bay area and the bridge.
The weekend after one of the nearby Ski-resorts held an international sk/snowboard day, where a days pass for any non-Japanese person was only 500 yen (about £2.50) It was a great day and there were over 100 JETs there. They had a fancy dress competition and also offered 2 free drinks to anyone willing to do a run in their swimwear. Never one to turn down a free drink I stepped up with 4 other good mates and we all headed down in nothing but our skimpies. It was good for me to get some more use out of the Speedos I had bought for Christmas day on Bondi Beach in Sydney. If you haven’t seen the video yet, be sure to check it out on my Facebook profile.
It was more snowboarding the following weekend and we hired a cabin locally and had some people from around the prefecture come and experience a couple of the resorts in the more remote area of Minamiaizu. It was another great weekend and although the snow was starting to get a little slushy, the bright sunshine, clear skies and great views definitely made up for it.
This week my parents have come to visit Japan. I met them in Tokyo on Thursday evening and on Friday we headed to see some famous temples in a place called Nikko. Tracy came and met us in Nikko as well and again we were really lucky with the weather. After the weekend they came up to Tadami and met some of my Japanese friends here. They wanted to do a bit of skiing while they were here so we spent a couple of days going to one of the local resorts. My parents weren’t exactly rocketing down the slopes but they seemed to enjoy it, and the weather was very kind again. I also took them to a famous old Samurai village and Aizuwakamatsu which was an important city during Samurai times. We visited a famous spot on a hill where a group of Samurai called the White Tigers thought they had seen there castle burning, and with the shame of defeat decided to comit sepuku (ritual suicide) It turned out the castle wasn’t burning but it was a bit late for all but one of them who survived just long enough to tell the tale.
To try and get some slightly better snow towards the end of the season we decided to take a trip to one of the bigger resorts called Zao a few hours North. It took us a while to get up there as we travelled for an hour and a half on a road that turned out to be closed so we had to return and get on an expressway. We eventually arrived at our lodge shortly before midnight and got straight to bed looking forward to a couple of days early. Unfortunately when I woke up I felt pretty rough and spent the first day in bed while my parents enjoyed the skiing. I didn’t really manage any food that day or night but by the next morning I felt a bit better. The resort was huge with over 45 lifts, and a longest run of over 8km. It was great fun but unfortunately it was extremely foggy so it was quite easy to lose your way. Afterwards we had a really nice sulphur onsen (hot spring bath) and then made the trip back to a city called Koriyama where Tracy lives. When we arrived back in Koriyama late in the night, I started to feel pretty rough again. I spent the whole night being sick and at times felt like I might have to go to hospital. I’m not sure what I had but it certainly wasn’t pleasant. The next day my brother Kirk, who had coincidently had to fly to Tokyo with work, came up to Koriyama and surprised my parents. We had a nice meal, although I still unfortunately didn’t have much of an appetite. Later on my parents headed off to spend a week travelling around the north of Japan. I’ll meet them again before they fly home next week.
The next few weeks should be a lot quieter for me and I really need to work on finding a job for when I leave Japan. My plans are still the same to travel back to the UK through china, before moving out to Melbourne, but I really need to start getting things sorted to make this a reality now!
Anyway if you haven’t died of boredom reading this, here are some photos, Take care and stay in touch!
Bryn
On the boat on the way over
The bar on board
Me enjoying the yakiniku
An artistic shot of one of the snow sculptures
An Ice Castle
