Sashiburi

I’m really bad at keeping my promise to blog more. Really bad. But I’m here now, so it’s all ok. When was my last post… in March… woow. Ok well, a bunch has happened since then so I’ll try to remember most of it. First story - Niseko trip. So the Niseko trip happened soon after my last post. For the weekend, all the ryugakusei and a bunch of Japanese went to Niseko together as a Rotary trip. It was mainly a snowboarding trip. I was kind of upset because I thought that they wouldn’t let me snowboard, because of my wrist. But, it had healed pretty well, still a bit bruised but good enough. I gathered a bunch of arguments for the strength of my wrist and my ability not to fall on it again, then approached my host dad. Asked if I could snowboard. He just said ‘yeah’ and helped me get my stuff ready. Sometimes things are easy.

The bus trip was fun. We talked a bunch and me and Dylan made a crappy attempt at making a Telephone video. At one of our pitstops we all found this phone booth, and packed ourselves in, took a bunch of pictures. Fun stuff. When we got to Niseko, we dropped off our gear at the shack/boarding house/hostel-type thing we would be staying in. It was actually really big, bigger than the one we stayed in last time. We had some time to find our rooms. I was quite hyper at this point, and entertained myself by exploring the house, hiding in little cubby holes and in general having fun. Then we were off to the ski hill! Tiffany, Sam and Lindsey stayed back at the house, watching Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. The rest of us; me, Dylan, Minami, Laura and Emmi.

Laura and Minami didn’t know how to snowboard, so they got some lessons by Emmi’s host dad. The rest of us wanted to go on the lift, so we decided to leave the others behind and head out. It was awesome. The weather was kind of crappy. The wind was a bit high and there was this incredibly thick, white, death fog that consumed the entire upper portion of the mountain. On the lift, as we ascended into the fog, it almost felt surreal. Looking back down behind us, at the wall of white, was even better. I’m not joking - we couldn’t see anything as we went up the mountain. Not the slope below us, the trees beside or the other lifts in front and behind. It was very very good.

At first, the prospect of going down this steep mountain, completely blinded by the fog, with snow that was less than nice-looking, was a bit freaking scary. But we all manned up. And it was probably the best snowboarding I’ve done. Of course, I didn’t go fast and I didn’t try anything fancy, because of my wrist (which was in a wrist guard because I’m smart like that). But the snow was so soft - like flour. So, even falling was fun. On one of our runs, me and Dylan stopped beside this small group of Japanese people that were having a snow fight. We decided to join in. They were so happy to have these random gaijin through snow at them. It was pretty fun. Then, we were up again. It was a great day.

After we got back to the house, we hung out a bit in one of the rooms, eating some snacks and looking through other people’s picture books from home. Me, Tiffany, Emmi and some of the Japanese girls went to onsen, which was really nice. Kind of strange to be naked with my friends, but I got over it pretty quickly. I don’t think I have problems being naked in front of people any more. Please don’t take this the wrong way or get any silly assumptions.

After we came back, the others had decided to go to karaoke. So, we walked out to the bus stop, where a bus was supposed to come that would take us to the karaoke place. As a side trip, we explored this bar that was basically a giant igloo. Anyway, the bus didn’t come. We ended up sitting around inside the bus stop house/shack thing. After a little while, we started to hearing popping, like gunfire. We all ran outside - and there were fireworks! There are usually some sort of fireworks thing going on in Niseko. We ran around to the other end of the parking lot to get a good look, and stood there in the freezing rain/wind until the show was over. It was actually a really well-done fireworks show. And, I don’t know if it was just me but, it felt like we were all standing together on some sort of level different from everyone else. Connected, bonded, by the whole exchange thing, that sort of thing. But, it passed, and we walked back. The rest of the night was spent trying not to sleep. Me and Laura were really hungry around midnight, so we left the room and raided the kitchen downstairs (which we really weren’t supposed to do). There wasn’t actually any ready-to-eat food other than a piece of sausage and some chocolate sauce. The sausage looked special, so we just had a bit of chocolate sauce and called it a successful venture. Around 2 o’clock, some people were already asleep. The room was really loud because the Japanese people weren’t asleep at all, so me, Tiffany, Sam and Laura went into the next room. I found some sandwiches that were left over from the bus ride, and Dylan walked in on me while I was in a very golem-like mindset. Just thought I would mention that for memories sake.
The next day was pretty uneventful. Breakfast, then pack-up and into the buses. We looked around Otaru a bit on the way back but other than that, I mostly slept. So that was the Niseko trip.

So… After the Niseko trip I have a jumble of memories. I’m not entirely sure of their order, but I’ll give it a shot. Well, Minami left for Kobe, like you know. Then there was Lindsey’s birthday party. It consisted mainly of tanukikouji and karaoke. There was another time when me and Lindsey went out. I can’t really remember what all we did, but I do remember going to an awesome Indian food restaurant (that I’ve began to frequent more lately). We had awesome curry, and the people that worked there wanted to give us free chai tea, but I had to leave because of kung fu (which is still awesome). I also went out with my host aunte and uncle, who are both pretty cool. We went to a big mall and had AMAZING sushi. It was so good. There was also a day where they took me shopping, I donated blood (yay!) and got a FREE haircut! Since I’m foreign, they want their interns to practice on my hair, so I got a free haircut. I think it turned out ok, but it looks a lot better now that it’s grown out a little bit. I also went out with them another time, and we went to this really neat shishkabab bar. They give you pieces of food, battered, gormet, on a stick, one at a time. It was so delicious. They even let me drink. Next, we went to a magic bar. It was basically a really small bar, with two guys working there, who would show you magic tricks. One of the guys was actually a bit famous, and had been on tv a few times doing his tricks. He was really good but, since I had spent some time in my past learning card tricks and such things, I could really guess how he was doing everything. Regardless, I acted all surprised and amused, if only for his pride. Me and host dad also went to live jazz bar a little while ago. Again, like most bars in susukino, it was a really small venue. About ten other people were there, plus the band. There was no stage or anything, too small. I had my first martini - sans the olive, which was a bit disappointing. But I felt so cool! Just picture it. Me, sitting in a corner of a jazz bar, a bit smokey because one guy by a cello with a goatee and glasses was smoking. Worn pictures of old jazz musicians on the walls, shelves stocked with dusty wine bottles, dim lights, martini in hand, and awesome jazz music. I don’t think I’ve ever been so cool in my life. I need to visit jazz bars more often.

The last time I went snowboarding was with Emmi, Lindsey, Dylan and Emmi’s old host dad. It was a very successful snowboarding day. My hand had fully healed by this time, so there were no problems. I still wore the wrist guard though. The snow was really nice. Not as fluffy as Niseko, but it was good. I succeeded at doing perfect S-turns. I can go backwards on my front edge just as easily as my back edge now. And - really cool - I can do a complete circle going down the hill. Did it perfectly on my first try. Talk about confidence boost. Pretty soon I’ll be able to go through the trees.

Oh, I forgot to mention that we have new exchange students in our school now. A guy from Switzerland and a girl from Mongolia. He is otaku and she speaks no English. I kind of like Unika, but I don’t talk to her very much. She seems nice though. Gregor on the other hand… well I don’t know about him. He seems fairly pompous and not all that bright. God I hope he never reads this. That would be very embarrassing. Anyway, to say the least, exchange culture at S.I.T has diminished incredibly. It’s just me and Tiffany hanging out now. The exchange room is mainly only used by us when we skip, and if Gregor is in there we usually don’t go in. Sad but true. He even admitted that he was only in Japan for anime. Ugh. People, if you love anime and you want to come to Japan, don’t. Go to Brazil or Germany, where you can learn to have a social life and not be so much of an otaku. Your future self will thank you for it.

I also met my next host family. A little while go. They have a cool house, with a very neat interior design, because the dad makes furniture. They seem fairly rich, which makes sense because the dad is on the Rotary directors committee. The dad also gets very drunk every night beginning around 5pm. I can deal with that. He seems nice when he’s drunk. I went to their house for supper with my current host dad by the way. They have three children. Two boys and a girl, all of which are around my age give or take a few years. This will be my first host family where there are kids. I’m looking forward to it.

Now, lastly, a little about Sapporo Factory. So, I have exhausted the entertainment of Sapporo eki and tanukikouji. They just aren’t that fun anymore, since I go there so often. A couple of days ago I went on a whim to Sapporo Factory to meet up with Emmi, Lindsey and Tiffany. It was my first time going there. The place is really big, basically a shopping mall separated into two buildings. The first building is a bit more like a department store mixed in with a well-sized arcade. The second building has a movie theatre, more high-end clothing shops and a large food court where events are held pretty often. The food court is a bit like, half food court, half park. There is a lot of greenery. Trees, flowers, terraced gardens and a waterfall, among a little bistro that gives the feeling that you’re outside. In the opposite end of the room is the area where the events take place. The first time I went, there were some presentations going on, and them a quasi-famous singer performed. We entered this ‘fancy calligraphy’ thing. Basically just doing shyodo, but making the characters cute.

The second time I went to the factory was today, actually. I was supposed to go to a zoo with my host uncle, but it was cancelled at the last minute because the weather was so bad. So, me and Dylan hit up the factory. It was his first time being there. We went to the theatre first thing and saw District 9. My ticket costed 500 yen less because it was ‘ladies day’. I like that theatre a lot. The movie was pretty good, a bit gorey but a very good storyline. Then, we looked around the shops for a little while. Somehow we wondered outside to the beer museum, which looked like we had stepped into England. Then we toured the beer museum for a bit, wishing we were in an action adventure movie or zombie apocalypse so that we could cling on the all the awesome pipework and go out the windows onto the ledges and rooves and ladders, and be all cool about it. When we came back into the factory, it seemed like the best place to be in an action movie. Better than the beer museum. There were just so many possibilities. Oh, and today’s event was this Gundam Wing thing going on. We got pictures with a giant robot head. All in all a pretty good day.

Oh wow I feel like I accomplished something pretty big here. I deserve some ice cream or something. Ok. Tomorrow is bowling, so I’m going to really try and blog right as soon as I get home. Time will only tell.