Ohayo. Ohayo. New Jersey.

My international driver’s license is set to expire at the end of July, and unless I want to repeat the mistakes of other ALTs, I’ll be taking the test for my Japanese driver’s license this month.  Just to set the scene…pretty much only Americans have to take the driver’s test to switch over to a Japanese license.  Folks from any of the Commonwealth countries (New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Britain, etc) and some other countries are lucky enough that they can switch over with just an official translation of their original license.  Apparently it’s based on the supposed difficulties of the respective country’s driver’s tests, but I have my suspicions.  From day one, I have heard horror stories of the wacky and absurd Japanese driver’s test and the ominous presumption that no one ever passes it on the first go.  I took these warnings with a grain of salt, especially since I had at least three friends that had passed the test their first time.

Now, heh, well…people were certainly not understating the screwiness of this test.  I had my first lesson, at 7am (!) on a workday, and boy howdy was it frustrating.  First, these little lessons are expensive, so that’s already under my skin.  Next, there are innumerable quirks that I have to remember each time I get into the car and get out of it.  Walk behind the car, not in front.  Check in front of the car for any sleeping hobos.  Before you open the door, look both ways.  Getting into the car feet-first is a BIG no-no.  When you close the door from the inside, only close it most of the way and look back again to check for those on-coming cyclists.  Adjust your seat.  Put on your seatbelt.  Check your mirrors (no glancing here, actual physical touch is required).  Put your foot on the brake.  Start the engine.  Release the emergency brake.  Put the car in drive.  Turn on your blinker (or as my instructor called it, “winker.”  *chuckle chuckle*).  Check around starting from your back left to your back right.  Then slowly pull out.  Yikes!  And that’s only to get out of the parking enclave.  So no doubt, as you can see, this is a MAJOR pain in the ass.  I don’t know yet if there are minor infractions you can get away with or if everything is a major “DA-ME” and you fail if you forget one thing.  My instructor was very thorough, which was nice, BUT she kept on using the brake and putting her hands on the steering wheel so it often felt like she was doing the important parts.  And of course, lacking the language facilities to request otherwise, I had a subpar learning experience.  The good news is that she didn’t think I was incompetent and thought I would be definitely ready for the test after one more lesson (that’s another 60 bucks for her).

I’ll leave you all with my favorite little tidbits from the lesson:

1. Hug the curbs so you can be sure to hit those kids on bikes if they suddenly move off the path.  Not really, but seriously, they want you to be within 50cm of the curb.
2. Use your blinker/winker a LOT.
3. No brakes allowed on turns.

Good luck!

Update: You can add another name to the list of folks that passed the test the first time!  Woo hoo.  I’m now an officially licensed Japanese driver.  You know what that means!  I can do ANYTHING! (so long as I have my hazards on)

The weather’s warmer and that means it’s time for field day!  The middle and elementary schools all burst alive with their 運動会 (undoukai—literally, exercise meet).  I hear people calling it a ‘sports day,’ but really, there isn’t anything all that sporty about it.  Although there are 100 meter dashes and a 1200 meter relay race, it’s filled mostly with wacky races.  It’s definitely more of a throwback to field days I had in elementary school and even the crazy WACKO games we had in high school. (WACKO was a sort of wacky olympics we had in high school where each grade level, and the teachers, would compete against each other for the crown.)  For two or three weeks prior to the festival, usually around the end of May and beginning of June here in Hokkaido, the classes practice in the afternoons to get ready for the big day.

Ok.  So get this.  I think it’s quite ironic how Japan always seems so bureaucratically safe in everything from their absurd driver’s test to their extremely low speed limits.  But unofficially, they’re a reckless and impetuous people!  They drive around with televisions in their cars and their kids balanced on the dashboard (no joke).  Or they drive 50 cm from a curb so as to be sure not to miss that mis-stepping pedestrian.  Oh, and remember the old people?  Anyways, for field day they have a race called the kawa kudari.  It consists of a student walking on top of his classmates backs as they bend over using a long pole for support while the students recycle through for about 200 meters.  The kids are about a meter up in the air running across their classmates’ backs as fast as possible.  Oi.  It’s a mouthful of smashed teeth waiting to happen.  (Amazingly, nothing bad happened from the numerous practices to the actual competition)  Then there’s also the crazy seven man leg-tie train race.  The students stand in small lines of seven or eight and all of their right and left legs are tied together respectively so they have to coordinate right steps and left steps with shouts of “one” and “two.”  Now in this one, as soon as they get going, one person tripping leads to all the others in front to eat shit.  I will admit though that this was my favorite one to watch because a group could just be trucking along and next thing you know they’re flat on the ground.  It’s good for a laugh.

Just like golf and baseball games, field day is subject to the weather.  They postpone to the next day in case of rain.  The presence of fireworks at 6am the morning of indicate whether or not the field day will happen.  The morning of our field day, I could hear the rain on my roof before the fireworks were set to fire.  6:00am rolled around and boom, boom, boom.  Field day was a go.  We’re rugged Hokkaido folk that won’t let a little rain get in the way of our field day!  By the time I arrived at school, the rain had abated.  Field day was held out on the school field or “ground” as they call it.  Families lined the sidelines, each had pitched their own tents and coverings in case the rain returned.  As with any event here in Japan, there was an opening ceremony and speeches, then we launched into our collective calisthenics.  For the group exercise, they used a recording with a piano that sounded like it was from 1950.  It’s another comical moment as the students’ enthusiasm for the senior aerobics-esque exercises vary from person to person.  Arms fly around, there’s some jumping, and I think there was even a move to make sure your dentures stayed in place.

We had made it through the major (legitimately competitive) races and the tug-of-war (!) when the rain started to come down again.  At first it was just on and off sprinkles, but soon, it turned into a decent shower.  Determined to press on, we continued.  Eventually, pretty much everyone was soaked to the bone and we decided to cut the beloved folk dance (that was a weird event, I admit) so we could wrap up early.  One of the third year classes had emerged victorious and posed with the winning trophy next to the scoreboard.  In spite of the rain, or maybe even because of it, we had a fun (and quick) field day.  The students all open up more for these non-academic activities and it’s great to interact with their toothy smiles and upbeat energies.  Too bad they have their big midterms the next week…

Later, at the post-event party, I suggested to the teachers that there should be a faculty relay team next year.  They laughed at the suggestion and agreed, but only if I ran three legs of it.

Every year, the first week of May is riddled with holidays such as Boy’s Day, Greenery Day, and Constitution Day.  Combined with the weekend, this slough of holidays constitutes an extended holiday of five days, otherwise known as Golden Week (although some years aren’t as advantageous and you only get a three or four day holiday).  You can think of it as the Japanese Spring Break, but for most everyone, not just schools.  I had made big plans to return to my old stomping grounds.  Back in the late 1980’s, I lived in Misawa, which is in the Aomori Prefecture—the northernmost prefecture on Honshu.  My dad was in the Air Force and we lived there at the American military base for three years.  Since Hokkaido is relatively close to Aomori, Golden Week was a great opportunity to make the trek.

Along with some friends, we struck out at dawn to catch our morning ferry from Tomakomai to Hachinohe.  Tomakomai is a port town located on the coast directly south of Sapporo and Chitose airport while Hachinohe is on the Pacific coast of the Aomori Prefecture (it’s also the northernmost stop for the Shinkansen [bullet train]).  Nine hours on a ferry isn’t exactly my idea of a good time, but I counted myself lucky as the large room we shared with some twenty other people had children of the cute and adorable type, rather than of the whiney and obnoxious breed.  We stayed one night in Hachinohe, a place my family used to go to frequently when I was younger.  I have memories of the “Fantasy Dome”—an indoor amusement park—and trips to Kentucky Fried Chicken, but it had been 20 years since I was there last and I probably couldn’t map out the city very well on my own.

The next day, coffees in hand, we made our way out to Misawa Air Force Base to see how much I could remember and how much it changed.  But first (!), on our way to Misawa, we saw a sign directing folks to “Japan’s Largest Statue of Liberty.”  We just couldn’t pass up an opportunity to see what very well could be the world’s second largest Statue of Liberty.  Being everything we hoped for and more (the more being Lady Liberty’s peculiarly square jaw line), we carried on to the place where I spent three years of my life.

We swung by the ocean and I could see the familiar beaches and breakers, even a mural that was around when I was there—granted the paintings most likely changed several times after the years.  Then Misawa!  The town where I went to many a festival and even one time explored solo by my five year old “runaway” self (it wasn’t pretty…there were Cocoa Puffs eaten from out of a garbage bag at one point…).  Finally, after twenty years I’d be getting back to the roots of my internationalization!  “Uh…where is everything again?”  “Oh, this is where I…no, wait…maybe it’s over this hill…er, maybe not.”  “Oh, so we definitely can’t go onto the base…hmm.”  It was a bit anti-climatic.  Everything seemed like it changed so much, at least from what I had painted in my memory.   I’m not quite sure what I had expected.   I felt a little embarrassed for dragging my companions to this bedraggled town so we hightailed it out of there and made for the open, yet narrow, roads of the Aomori countryside.  (As a side note, I had emailed the American military base well ahead of time to see if we could get a tour, but as luck would have it, they didn’t respond until after we had left Misawa…bummer.)

We rolled on into the Aomori mountains to get to our primary destination, Lake Towada.  The lake is a gorgeous crater lake and is a very popular destination during holidays.  Using the lake as our home base, we also went to Hirosaki to try and get in some prime cherry blossom viewing and to check out Hirosaki-jo (jo = castle).  Hirosaki is another place we visited several times in my childhood.  The castle, I believe, is relatively small compared to the more grand castles down south in Kyoto and Osaka.  But, we don’t have castles in Hokkaido, so it was still a neat sight.  It felt a lot smaller than I remembered, but of course, back then, I was a couple feet shorter.  The castle park had its ongoing festival with all sorts of games for children and tons of food.  They even had ice cream that I remember getting way back when.  The flavor was quite distinct!  And of course, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to indulge in Aomori’s number one crop—apples.  Usually, apples cost around $1.50 or $2.00 per apple, but down here, at the source, they were around $0.60.  Not only were they cheap, but so sweet and juicy!

After our two days of chilling—Aomori-style—we had to make our way back to our home.  We had an early ferry to catch out of Aomori…and when I say early, I mean 5:30am (yeah, actually early).  Oh, and we had to be there at 4:30am for the check in.  And with the two hour commute from Towada to Aomori, we had to bust on out of our hotel at 2:30am.  Try to explain that to the front desk guys with limited Japanese!  (It’s not fun)  In spite of our ungodly early departure time, there was a sunny side to being up so early.  The time zone here in Japan is a bit wacky, and results in unusually early sunrises.  So as we pulled into Aomori around 4:30am, we were able to catch a beautiful sunrise at 4:46am.  Five hours later, our ferry landed in Hakodate and we began the long drive up to Sapporo, where we would spend the night before returning back home.  All in all, it was a great Golden Week.  Post-meal constitutionals were plentiful.  Lucid, yet challenging, conversation was satisfying.  And any guff that appeared along the way was quickly snuffed by a countervailing retort…particularly from sassy tourist children.

When I first arrived here, my little house had a small garden in my backyard.  Unfortunately, I didn’t do a very good job of tending to it and it quickly devolved into disarray.  From what I remember, there were tons of peppers, cherry tomatoes, some parsley looking stuff, and Japanese eggplant.  In fact, one of the first things I noticed about my town was how practically every home had a decently sized garden.  Even my neighbor in the duplex had converted the yard completely into a garden and had a couple rows (!) of corn and various other vegetables.  I think this is a trait indicative of small town Hokkaido.  Everyone has their corn, edamame, tomatoes, and cabbages growing right in their yard.  Although just ten minutes away in Kitami, I had difficulty spotting any sort of garden amongst the tightly packed neighborhoods.  With the coming of spring and the busy gardening season, I’m thoroughly excited about the prospect of growing some of my own food.  Windowsill herb garden…what what!?

 This recent spike in my gardening interest owes its development to two things.  First, I’ve befriended a couple of folks who are vegan.  I look forward to meals with them as I know that they eat creatively and utilize many of the weird vegetables at our fingertips in the Japanese supermarkets.  You couldn’t pay me to eat vegetables when I was a child, but now, there isn’t much I won’t eat (although brussel sprouts and cauliflower are still on my shit list).  My favorite thing about my dabbles in vegan fare is that I’ve had to learn how to make things from scratch since many processed foods have milk products or eggs in them.  The second beacon in my food and gardening renaissance was the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.  While she is known primarily for her fiction, such as The Poisonwood Bible and The Bean Trees, I have found her non-fiction to be equally enticing.  Barbara (yep, first name basis) was a biologist before she turned author and her writing is reflective of her scientific background.  She also has the added perk of a wit similar to Gail Collins’ motherly crass.  The book is a memoir of a year her family successfully spent growing as much of their own food as they could and eating locally in rural Appalachia.  More than anything, I loved how she talked about the culture of food.  For anyone that has known me for a year or two, they should know that I LOVE to talk about food.  Per Jon Stewart and Seth Rogan, the way I talk about food could make me Jewish.  Anyways, the book has its underpinnings around food culture and bringing back the importance of the kitchen.  She underscores using produce that are fresh, local, and in season, and helped me develop a newfound appreciation of local farmers’ market.

 These two factors have combined, in a Captain Planet sort of fashion, to give me a vegetable fascination that makes me giddy with excitement about the upcoming growing season.  Here in Hokkaido, we certainly aren’t short on farmland and farmers.  In fact, one of my Eikaiwa (English conversation group) members is a full-fledged farmer—you can buy her produce at the supermarkets!  Unfortunately, one of the things that I am uncertain about here is the concept of a farmers’ market.  Back in Seattle, we had the omnipresent Pike’s Place Market, but also had dozens of neighborhood markets (oh man how I miss Tiny’s peaches).  So far, I don’t know of any farmers’ markets as it seems that most farmers deal directly with supermarkets or the behemoth JA (Japan Agriculture) entity for distribution.  I’ll have to keep an eye out for any markets if they exist out here.  However, the abundance of home gardens might negate the necessity for a farmers’ market, at least out here in the boonies.

 My town has a large community garden where you can rent 35 square meters for about $40 a year.  This would probably be more than enough space to feed me throughout the year, however that might be a tad ambitious for someone with limited gardening experience.  I think I’ll stick to my windowsill herbs and small backyard plot.  I’ve made a great list of things I want to grow…they are a bit of a reach given that my little plot of land isn’t that big.  I’ve got lettuce and spinach aplenty. I’ve kale and zucchini to boot.  Want edamame?  I’ve got twenty.  But who cares…da da da dah…I want more…sorry…Little Mermaid moment.  But seriously, it’s going to be great.  There are some big plans for some cilantro and maybe sunflowers.  It’s pretty exciting.  Oh, and did I mention that asparagus grows wild here?  Giddy up.

 *update.  Yes, my town does have a farmers’ market, but I’ve been warned that it’s tiny and only on Saturdays and Sundays.  It starts toward the end of May, so we’ll see if I can find any gems.

A couple months ago, Japan won its second consecutive World Baseball Classic (WBC) after defeating team Korea in the championships.  We watched the games during lunch breaks at school and the office.  They always ask me which team I like, and I always just give a shrug of my shoulders.  I find baseball to be rather boring (although the Ichiro craze has rubbed off a bit).  At a Mariners’ game back in Seattle, I read a book while they proceeded to get slaughtered by the Red Sox.  My indifference to baseball is practically a crime here.  EVERYONE is in to baseball.  They’ve all got their favorite players and teams.  The baseball clubs here practice an ungodly amount of time, putting American little league to shame.  I’m curious as to why this specific sport has taken off with such huge popularity here.  It probably has something to do with the influx of American culture after the war, but still, the degree of fanaticism is remarkable. 

 Our local yakiniku joint (table-side barbecue restaurant) is absolutely bonkers for the Hanshin Tigers.  The area around the checkout counter is plastered with memorabilia, newspaper clippings, and photos of the players.  The owner always wears orange and blue, the team’s colors.  Oh and get this, his two sons, both of whom are my students, have their hair cut in a specific way to resemble the team’s mascot.  They don’t just do this for the baseball season…it’s all year long.  It would be cruel to force them to cut it like that, but dad does it too, so maybe it’s just cool.  And yes, they are always in their blue and orange tracksuits.

 I’m a little curious though about the baseball culture here in Japan, especially with the big steroids controversy back home.  Does anything like that happen here?  I know the sumo profession is riddled with corruption, but has baseball been able to steer clear of those traditional pitfalls?  Looks like I’m going to have to bone up and make my way to a game.  Watch out Ham Fighters (it’s the Sapporo team…don’t ask), I’ll be watchin’ you!

One of the hallmarks of the Japanese language is its varying degrees of politeness.  You can understand how politeness is held in such high esteem by looking at the language itself.  There are three general levels.  First is plain or simple form and is used amongst friends and immediate family to show familiarity and friendship.  Next you have long or polite form.  This is used a lot in the workplace, particularly when speaking to someone of a higher “status.”  It’s also used when you meet people for the first time.  It’s probably the safest style to use if you’re unsure.  And then there is the super formal “keigo.”  This is used by people that work in the hospitality industry…anything from store clerks to phone assistance.  The difference between plain and polite form is generally just how you conjugate the verb.  For keigo, there is a whole different set of vocabulary to use.  This makes it incredibly difficult to navigate some of the set phrases in retail stores.  In fact, I used to find it so intimidating that as soon as they spoke to me, I would get flustered and make a beeline for the door (I’m sure many a clerk have had the passing thought of, “Maybe he was dropped as a child.”).  Luckily, I can now stumble my way through these encounters…I just hope a future in Japanese hospitality is not in my cards.

The end of March not only marks the end of the school year, but it is also the end of the fiscal year.  And with this new year comes many sobetsukai’s (farewell parties…not to be confused with sAbetsukai, which would mean “discrimination party”).  Public employees, including teachers, are subject to a nationwide shifting of personnel every April.  Employees could potentially have a job shift from one end of the country to the other, but from what I can tell, most of it stays within the prefecture, if not the same subprefecture (applicable to Hokkaido, primarily).  Even though administrators try to keep moves somewhat local, the employees aren’t actually informed of the move until a couple weeks before.  The notifications all happen on the same day and are announced at the morning meetings.  I missed the notifications at my schools, but apparently there are some vocal protests by colleagues (I’ll have to make it a point to see this next year).  This seems like it would be particularly straining on employees with families, having to uproot every couple of years.  Growing up in the military, we moved every three years, but there was certainty in the fact that we knew it was every three years.  Here, I don’t think they know for sure what their lengths of stay will be.  I’m sure that they’re accustomed to it, but I’m also sure that it probably isn’t that easy for them. 

As far as teachers go, I have developed my own theory as to who stays and who goes.  If you are a homeroom teacher with a class moving into its second or third year, you are probably staying.  If you just moved the previous year, odds are that you probably won’t be moving again this year.  Age and experience might give you a level of seniority as well.  (I’ll have more to report once I figure out who moves from my high school)  Otherwise…you’ll have to consider how to pack all your stuff.  (Maybe that’s why Japanese people use futons!  If they have to move frequently, futons are much more portable than actual beds.  Much more efficient, eh?)  None of my English teachers are changing at either of my schools, so the changes won’t affect me directly in the teaching capacity.  However, my office at the board of education is switching around a bit.  Two folks are retiring, so at least we knew about those way ahead of time, but the two that are retiring are the nicest of the bunch (which isn’t putting down the rest of the office, because really, I’ve got a pretty awesome crew of people).  Thank goodness that they’re not moving away! 

I’m curious to see how the dynamic of my schools and offices might change with the switch-arounds.  There will be welcome parties to usher in the new faces and everyone will get to know each other thanks to the alcohol and karaoke.  (By the way, my office is all ridiculously good at karaoke.  They all belted out their Japanese power ballads with emotional flare while I did what I’m sure was a comical interpretation of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing”) I’ll keep you all posted.      

PS:  I found out recently that my office IS indeed changing…quite a bit.  There are eight people in the office, including me, and three of them are changing…including my supervisor.  Bummer!   But luckily, no one is really moving away, just retiring or switching positions in the same town. But now, I’ve got to get used to a new supervisor…who happens to look a lot like a taller, more Japanese Jackie Chan.

I think this is probably the motto of the elderly folk here in Japan.  Held at a high level of respect, the elderly have the right of way in pretty much everything here.  One thing in particular that I’ve noticed is how they LOVE to walk in the middle of the street.  Even if there are sidewalks available, they seem to prefer the open road.  Driving down the road, I find it quite comical…luckily.  Otherwise, it’d have the potential to look like something out of Grand Theft Auto.

March 1^st was the official graduation date for all public high schools in Hokkaido.  I put on my suit and made my way to the high school at my usual time, on a Sunday morning…wasn’t entirely thrilled about that, but I knew students would be looking for me.  Everyone’s in their suits, even the PE teachers, and the female graduating homeroom teachers don their regal kimonos.  It’s a big deal.  We make our way into the gym and I really have no idea what to expect, except I know that there’ll be speeches and I won’t understand them.  I was certainly right about the speeches.  They were there, and there were several of them, and I didn’t understand them.  There was also a LOT of bowing—bowing to flags, bowing to the audience, bowing to the teachers, and bowing to the special guests.  And this formal regimentation did not go by quickly. 

I have to say though, that I did enjoy watching the students come up to get their diplomas.  It was like clockwork.  Your name was called.  You walked to the center of the stage and bowed.  You received your diploma.  You stepped back.  Another name was called.  That other person joins you.  Then, both of you bow.  You leave the stage and the other person steps forward to receive his diploma… so on and so forth.  The students here don’t wear special graduation gowns or uniforms.  They just wear their standard uniform plus some special graduation brooch of sorts.  Following the speeches and presentations of unknown awards came my favorite part—the singing!  My schools are big on singing here.  First they sang their catchy school anthem.  Then they sang some poppy song that everyone seemed to know.  And then the tears began!  What a contrast to all the dry ceremony that preceded this!  Each homeroom class made their way to the center of the gym and faced the audience of their peers and their parents.  The classroom speaker would shout out a line of thanks then the class would bow and make their triumphant way out of the gym. 

It’s not over just yet.  Each class makes its way to their homeroom for their final “class.”  Students are given an opportunity to share something with the class with their parents looking on.  It’s all very emotional.  These kids have been in the same class together with the same primary teacher for three years.  And with the amount of time they spend at school each day, it’s no wonder many of them get a little choked up.  Even the big burly male teachers would start crying.  It’s certainly refreshing to see this in a society that tends to hide emotions.  I admire the homeroom system they’ve got here.  The students and their teacher develop a very unique relationship that is very different from the teacher-student relationships of back in the day when I was in high school (although not the kind that ends up as a Lifetime television movie…).  Granted, it would suck to have a terrible homeroom teacher.  But it seems that every homeroom class I’ve witnessed here has a truly genuine mutual affinity between the students and the teacher.

I am going to miss this group of kids.  They were very outgoing and would come and visit me in the teachers’ office.  Yeah, they slept and talked through classes every once in a while, but they were still loads of fun.  I liked them, and they liked me.  I could certainly tell of the latter as I spent half an hour posing with students for pictures.  Since it was a commercial high school, most of these students are entering the workforce come the start of the new business year in April rather than entering college.  One student is working for the main airport in Chitose, another working for a gas company, and one other that’ll work at a prison in Sapporo.  The whole process of how they get one job over another is a mystery to me…although it probably involves some testing like most things here in Japan.  おめでとうand good luck!

This past weekend we held the annual Queens of the Drift Ice event out in Tokoro and Abashiri.  If you didn’t know, the northern and eastern coasts of Hokkaido are famous for the drift ice phenomenon that occurs at this time of year.  Tons of Asian tourists from Korea, China, and Taiwan make their way to our little cities to check out the fantastic 流氷 (pronounced ryu-hyo…it’s tricky because you have to flick the ‘r’ while still producing the ‘y’ sound in the back of your mouth).  Back in Alaska, I was used to seeing frozen ocean, but the ice didn’t move so much with the currents.  Here in Hokkaido, the ice can come and go over the course of a night, so there’s always some mystery as to whether it’ll be there the next day or not.  Many of the businesses go drift ice crazy this time of year producing all sorts of related marketable items ranging from blue drift ice beer to drift ice curry (dyed blue with white drift ice scallops floating around). 

We packed our epic weekend with myriad winter activities.  Who knew that snowmachining (“snowmobiling” to all you other people) could be so much fun?  Being from Alaska, it’s rather shocking that I’ve never been snowmachining (although the culture around it is a bit of a turn off, but I digress).  I expected us to be riding tandem but I started getting a little giddy when I saw individual machines lined up for us.  After a quick tutorial (“this is brake”—“this is go”), they had us make a lap around a track.  Then a guide broke off and we followed suit across a frozen lake.  Man alive!  It was a blast.  I did get a little headache from the fumes but flying across the powdery snow was exhilarating.  We certainly pulled in our machismo quotient for the weekend.  After our butch jaunt out on the frozen lake we embarked to a small soba shop nestled in the woods of a quiet mountain.  This place had so much zen about it that it was the perfect foil to our previous noisy adventure.  Speaking of zen and such, Hokkaido is a relatively new settlement compared to the rest of Japan and doesn’t have the ancient temples and shrines that are primary hallmarks of serenity in Japan.  Instead, Hokkaido offers it’s rugged and natural beauty to induce the same wonder.  Out here in the more remote parts of the island, all that beauty isn’t in short supply. Later, as we took a chair lift up the local ski hill, the weather couldn’t have been better and we could see for miles—frozen lakes, small forests, distant mountains, and then the ocean.

Following our short play time on the Abashiri ski-jō we set off for the main event of our weekend: the Abashiri Ice-Breaker Drift Ice Cruise.  We were taking the sunset cruise (how romantic!) and were herded on to the boat with the throngs of tourists…although, per usual, I couldn’t help but run into some Japanese folks I knew.  After breaking several rules (standing on the smoke stack, standing on benches, poking at strangers with sticks…) before the comprehendible (ie: English) announcements came on, we were off into the icy sea.  Oh, and I have to mention that the entire time we were out at sea, there was always something on over the loud speakers.  It was either an announcer’s voice or some grainy enka music.  The peaceful and quiet icy ocean, and then here comes the humans, on their loud boat, piddling through the ice.  We had an interesting discussion about how the Japanese seem to have an aversion to silence (with the exception of office settings, because as I type this, my clickity clack on the key board is the prevailing noise).  The boat tour is a good example, but also if you visit homes there’s always a tv on, or if you go skiing, that same grainy enka music is blasted from speakers on the lifts.  Ok, let’s back away from that tangent before I make dig myself further into the grandiose generalizations hole.  It was remarkable to cut through all the ice on the boat and watch huge sheets of ice break apart.  It was a bit like watching plate tectonics in action.  Needless to say, it certainly satisfied my taste for destruction (I used to take small sheets of ice when I was young and smash them on my head because it sounded like glass.  The things we do for fun in Alaska…).  The views were glorious and the skies amazing.  Two mountains made an appearance for us, one of which—Shari-dake—a couple friends and I will be climbing come summer. 

 All that time in the ocean surrounded by drift ice made us all a bit chilly, so once we docked, we high-tailed it to an onsen.  I could go on for hours about onsens and how fantastic they are, but I’ll spare you.  It’s just a shame we don’t have them back home…so relaxing!  Post-onsen, we got our grub on at my favorite restaurant in Abashiri—Bistarai.  I may have mentioned this Nepalese gem previously, but it bears repeating.  There were various naan, curries (made spicy just for us!), Nepalese-d fried rice and stir fry noodles, chickpea samosas, and lassi for miles.  It was quite the royal feast to cap off such a Queen-y event.