Ohayo. Ohayo. New Jersey.

I had my first visitors this September.  Visitors indeed, as they flew in from the States. Kat and Laura, two friends from University currently living in the Bay Area, were my charges for a week in the hinterlands of Hokkaido.  I was a little concerned that they might feel a little shortchanged as they weren’t going to make it down to “trademark” Japan down south, but they assured me that they wanted to run off the beaten path.  So that we did.

I suppose some of this may read as a shameless self-promotion to get friends and family to come out and visit, which it kind of is.  Kat and Laura surely recognized the value in having a good friend living in remote Japan.  When else are you going to have a tour guide built into a friend in one of the more accessible, yet less traveled, parts of the world?  I was excited for the opportunity to show off my new home and to, in a way, live a bit vicariously through my guests.  Everything was new and exciting again.  From the language, to the food, to the bright lights and very different customs, all regained their foreign tinge.  At the same time, I could switch into wizened resident mode and answer the questions posed my curious guests.  (What’s this?  What’s that?  Do we have to take off our shoes?  Why are the lights so bright?)

Having visitors was also a good excuse to do things that I hadn’t yet done.  We spent a night at an onsen hotel in Noboribetsu, more affectionately known as Hell Valley due to its proximity to bountiful sulfuric thermal vents.  I gave Laura and Kat a quick run-down on onsen etiquette and next thing I know, they’re pros.  A definite perk of the hotel was the buffet meals and the yukata, which I never wanted to take off.  We also explored Shiretoko, a World Natural Heritage sight and one of the most, if not the most, remote parts of Japan.  One of the major tourist attractions at this park is the 知床五湖(Shiretoko Five Lakes)—a series of five small lakes connected by nice trail system.  What makes this place pretty neat is that the feeling at each lake is a little different from the others.  On a nice day, the mountains reflect quite nicely off the lake surface and proves to be quite the heyday for photographers.  While driving through the park we saw TONS of deer.  Seeing them right on the road put the fear god in me as I worried they would jump willy nilly right into my window, gouging my jugular with a smartly placed antler…Luckily, we avoided any deer related incidents and made it out of the park unscathed.

One of the aspects of Hokkaido that I was most excited to share was the food.  The whole time I raved about Hokkaido’s dairy products, even though I am pretty limited to what I can eat and drink (thanks weird milk allergy).  Not quite convinced, Kat insisted on stopping to get ice cream at most every opportunity so they could adequately judge the dairy quality for themselves.  Aw shoot…a reason to get ice cream (as if we need one).  Kat and Laura were pretty excited about going to the ramen capital that is Sapporo.  We roamed ramen alley and even a little ramen theme world in a mall.  The highlight though was sharing sushi at my favorite sushi restaurant in Abashiri.  It was even a treat for myself as I hadn’t been to the restaurant in a little while.  Yum!  We had front row seats to watch the sushi prepped and made.  From okonomiyaki to kaitenzushi, Kat had a very astute observation when she declared that Japanese food is so interactive.  I never really realized it myself but its true!  Even with soba noodles, there’s a little order to how you eat your meal so you have to learn the 食べかた (way of eating) for everything.   It’s great!

I was able to give them the full spectrum of Hokkaido life from the bright (very very bright, according to Kat) lights of Susukino in Sapporo to the rice fields and inaka living in my little town of Tanno.  Even though we didn’t quite make it to any Zen gardens, we got to see many things that might not have been quintessential Japan, but were definitely quintessential Hokkaido.  One of the days when we were out east in my neck of the woods, we took off to explore Lake Akan National Park.  First we stopped by Lake Kussharo and fashioned ourselves lakeside hot footbaths in the sand.  (Lake Kussharo is a volcanic crater lake and has thermal vents scattered throughout its environs)  Then we took off to what I think is the best onsen in Hokkaido, the Lake Akan Tsuruga.  This onsen is in a gloriously beautiful hotel right on the lake.  The girls were treated to the rooftop onsen while I had the ground level lakeside onsen.  I’m sure there are numerous lakeside onsen in Japan, but this was the only one on a lake populated with spherical algae (Marimo!).  We soaked in the soothing waters, catching the beautiful sunset reflect off the lake and the flanking mountains.  Absolutely magical.

While it was sad to finally see Kat and Laura off in Sapporo, I couldn’t help but to feel like I gained a newfound affection for this second home of mine.  It was pretty clear cut when I arrived in Japan that two years will be enough for me, perhaps even more than enough.  But now, as I’ve discovered why exactly it is that I love this place, I think making that decision to stay or go will be all the more difficult.  Luckily for me, I’ve still got four months before I need to decide and that’s a whole lot of Japan-lovin’ time.

I had my last (I think) camping excursion of the season last weekend for the Northern Welcome Party.  It was held about two hours away just outside of Asahikawa in a town called Aibetsu.  Aibetsu is just inside the Daisetsu mountain range so the weather was a bit chilly.  You could tell fall was coming and summer had left as the foliage was slowly letting go of its deep green.  During the drive back, I even noticed snow dusting the tops of the taller mountains.  Yikes, termination dust already—reminds me of Alaska.  A couple of the folks at the camp went on a hike up 黒岳 (Kuro-Dake or Black Mountain) and even made physical contact with the snow.  I’m actually a bit excited for the snow this year as I want to amp up my snowboarding.  Last season, the number of times I went snowboarding was pretty dismal.  But I digress.

For the welcome party, this time around, I had zero responsibility.  It was fantastic to just relax and shoot the breeze with the other folks in attendance.  As the night proceeded, however, I did get assigned the responsibility of fire starter.  Blowtorch in hand, I was quite successful at igniting the main bbq pit for our dinner that night.  I was quite impressed with the spread we had for dinner—yakisoba, loads of veggies, and various yakiniku.  It was delicious!  To top off the meals, there was another bake sale auction.  It’s always good to skim bites from the winners for a great dessert sampling.  As most gatherings of ALTs from across the island tend to go, the evening was rife with great conversations and antics.  My favorite part was meeting ALTs and asking them how they like their first year and them responding with, “It’s actually my second year.  Thanks for noticing.”  In my defense, it’s a big island and there are a lot of us!  (For the record, I almost typed “defense” as “defence.”  You Commonwealth-English spelling folk are getting to me.)

We had lucked out with the weather earlier that day, but the clouds moved in and so did the rain.  Bummer!  Luckily we had a tarp under our tent, and the tents from my office had proven to be resilient in the rain in the past.  Unluckily we neglected to tuck the tarp under the tent so pools of water gathered at the edges of the tent, AND the tent base was different from those in the past and proved to be not-so-resilient.  It’s always fun waking up to a wet futon and sleeping bag.  I suggest you try it sometime.  Weather be damned, I had a blast re/connecting with other ALTs I only get to see once or twice a year.  And now that fall has arrived, I can begin planning a potential “polar bear” dip into the Okhotsk Sea with the other Alaskans up and down the coast.  Time to be burly Alaskan men.  Rawr.