REAL winter

This is what it looks like.

See that lack of mountains? Those sprawling farmlands? The snow piled 3-4 feet deep? That is JAPAN, man! Only not, because Hokkaido is hardly anything like the mainland, except for that people with black hair and brown eyes who speak Japanese live there. And a healthy smattering of foreigners, too.

Foreigners who don't get stared or marveled at as much, it seemed to me. What I really liked about Sapporo was that people would leave me to my own business, but were very helpful when I needed directions or whatevs. Also the grid system. Oh. My. Jeebus. Grid systems are BEAUTIFUL, and cities built on grids are made of win. Sapporo is a Japanese city where you absolutely cannot get lost, it is un-possible. And it has great shopping, and great eating, and cheese, a-a-and BAGELS. BAGELS WITH CREAM CHEESE I seriously almost started crying right there in the middle of the store, I have been having the worst goddamn cravings for bagels and cream cheese for, what, probably a year now?

Best moment of Christmas day, in fact, for me, was sitting on an express train out to Asahikawa with my travel buddy, looking out the window at what honestly could have been any flat stretch of Wisconsin, eating my earl-grey flavored bagel with plain honest cream cheese slathered all over it. A close second was finally making it to a hot spring bath after getting hella lost, but by that time my Christmas Present From Japan, a.k.a. raging cold / very probably swine flu, was in full swing and I was feverish and cranky. This is the podunk mountain village we ended up in at one point, and grumbly as I was I couldn't help but admire the irony:

...Okay this is one of those things that is only really funny to people who know Japanese. Basically, we are at this point in central Hokkaido where it is cold as the ninth circle of hell, and stumble across this place whose name literally means "to know coldness" and on top of that sounds pretty darn close to what my students exclaim in the open-air hallways of our school at this time of year: "Wah! Samu'-!" ( "cold" is supposed to be "samui," but Kansai people love to drop syllables) I guarantee the Japanese teachers will find it hilarious.

Moving on, Touhoku. Really, really effing pretty c: The snow followed me all the way back to Nagoya, for pete's sake. Just look at this magic right here (this is in Nagano Prefecture, just south of Matsumoto):

After another 10 minutes or so, the snow got so thick you couldn't see 50 feet out, and the mountains just sort of disappeared. And then reappeared, even bigger than before. Japanese Alps: way impressive, you guys.

I connected up with two of the three slated hosts for my Great Meander back southwards. First night, my Japanese host dude took me out for a local (Akita) variety of nabe, in which the special ingredient was kiritanpo, mooshed-up rice cylinders that are hollow and closed at one end and sorta diagonally sliced at the other. The rice still retains its ricey-ness, so it's not at all like mochi, and it does an excellent job of soaking up the tasty nabe broth :d

Second night, I was crashing the couch (well, futon) of a fellow JET. He's been around the world a bit, did Peace Corps in South Africa, and was eminently gracious in sharing his stash of American cold medication with me, as well as some tea. We went out for Italian food in Sendai and talked for hours without really noticing the time go by and it was generally a very chill and groovy stay. I really wished I'd had more time to spend in that city. As it was I probably could have just stayed a second day & night and not bothered with Matsumoto / Nagano, but then I guess I wouldn't have had that lovely picture to show you above.

My would-be hostess down thataways never connected up with me, so around 11:30 I wandered into a business hotel that was about as overpriced as anything you could expect to find near a busy station - 5,500 and change for one person for a night. Actually most of the other hotels were charging more, but that still doesn't mean it's reasonable. As it happened, I'd managed to sneak in half an hour past the stated closing time, but before the manager guy had left and set the key-coded lock on the main door. So when he waddled out from a back room I asked if he had any free space, not really expecting anything. Must've had a soft spot for foreign girls down on luck, though, 'cause he offered to let me have a room for the 4,000 yen I claimed was everything I had on me (this was a half-truth: I DID have 4,000 yen in my pocket. And another 10,000 in my wallet, which was in my bag.)

Got back into Nagoya on New Year's Eve, and spent the night out with friends. Then I spent most of Jan. 1 sleeping off the effects of New Year's Eve / travel weariness. Still got a sniffle and a cough lingering, but otherwise I feel mostly peachy-keen.

I'll leave off with a view from the top floor of the Chocolate Factory in Sapporo city, where they have a sweets cafe overlooking Shiroi Koibito Park (Snowman Park). That was a very delicious Christmas Eve indeed :3

Speaking of UNEXPECTED:

HOLY CRAP SNOW!!! LIKE, SNOW! Outside, in Isobe, this morning when I woke up, and blowing in my face as I walked to work and YES! Very yes!

This is snow outside my apartment!

This is snow ON A F***ING PALM TREE (circled for your convenience, because there's so much SNOW you might miss it!)

...This snow was all gone by 10:30 am D: The town was dry as a bone by noon o'clock. BUT, I still managed to make the best of it. I threw snowballs at the students I saw outside before I even got into the office, and after two minutes of sitting inside thinking "Wow, just...wow. SNOW," I got my butt back out there and constructed a wee-tiny totem to the snow gods, who made me the happiest snow-bunny this morning.

Here he is, the littlest snowman. Yes that is a flowerpot next to him. FULL OF SNOW. Love him, for he is fabuloooouuuus (I only noticed later, after he was but a puddle on the stairs, that the pictures I took made him look pretty flamboyant. Hip thrust out at a flirtatious angle, winking right atcha, arms thrown wide open to the skies going "Look at me, world, I'm spectacular!" Aaaawr ;__; I miss him already)

Laundry Day, 4 Months On

This morning I was thinking (I say "this morning" because it was shortly after I rolled out of bed, around noon-forty-five) that I've been here nearly four months now. That's an eighth of my intended stay in Japan, not to mention about the same amount of time I had spent in Nagoya as a student.

The really amazing thing is, my washing machine hasn't quite ruined any pieces of clothing yet. I'm tempting fate a little here, since my washing machine is currently running and its malevolent circuits might somehow be able to tap into my computer, detect this shameful indictment, and thence do everything in its power to shred or bleed or stretch to uselessness my nice green sweater. But anyway, laundry has never been my favorite chore, although it certainly involves the least amount of labor for me. Like most chores, I put it off for as long as possible. My university buddies probably have some incriminating testimonies on that account.

Laundry takes on a different character, though, as the seasons change. Since it's now winter - bollucks to your Gregorian calendar, Western Japan's autumn season lasts approximately 18 hours - I'm reminded of warm, fluffy clothes piles fresh from the dryers in the basement of my dorm or my parents' house. I don't get those in Japan. Much like oven fairies and building insulation, Japan doesn't believe in dryers. At least not for small-town gaijin like me. I've heard on the news that the dryers them rich city-folk can afford have been causing house fires, so perhaps I'm better off relying on the sun and the wind.

Thing is, a typical laundry day four months ago looked like this: no sun, sh*t-tons of rain from the most recent summer typhoon, temperatures just barely low enough for me to want to stand up.
Coincidentally, today's laundry day looks like this: no sun, sh*t-tons of rain from the most recent low-pressure-zone moving in from China (dammit, China, you ruin everything!), temperatures just barely high enough for me to want to get out from under my covers. Actually, the outside air temperature is probably a few degrees higher (Celsius, mind you; a few degrees makes a big difference) than my apartment's room-temperature. Figure THAT one out.

However, laundry day in winter does have one redeeming feature - it's a great excuse to use my air-con (10-second Japanese with Nikki: air-con = air conditioner, which the Japanese think is the English term for "small electric wall-box which makes warm or cold air"). I want clean, dry socks for work tomorrow, so I guess I've just gotta crank that baby up to 25 and blast my apartment all day.

Whoops, there's the "O HAY GUYS ITS 3 PM LOL" air-raid siren (those scared the crap out of me for about the first week I was here). That means only about an hour and a half of grayed-out-ambient-cloudlight left. I've gotta get some milk and bananas, and possibly apples for baking adventures later this week.