MORE BEAR BELL!!!1

Hello blog.

In an attempt to update this more, I will... update this more.

So. I started my teaching work in the hot spring resort town of Jozankei.

This means:

In the mountains.

In the countryside.

Which means, hour-long one-way bus commutes every day.

But most importantly, BEARS!!!!

Well, this is not such a normal thing, but - this week, there were multiple "sightings" of a mother bear and her two cubs basically down the road from my school. So to ensure everyone's safety, special precautions have been taken, such as cancellation of after-school activities this week. In addition, the school apparently has their own supply of bells for everyone for when this situation arises. These types of bells you can carry with you and the loud ringing it produces (supposedly) scares off bears.

My co-worker told me it's called a bear bell, and said it's something like a cow bell. Haha... too bad so many inside jokes get lost in translation (or well, between cultures)...

Bear bell, bear bell, bear bell... try saying that ten times fast. I can't, and I can actually pronounce my Rs and Ls...

Crows: The Spawn of Satan

http://www.cracked.com/article_19042_6-terrifying-ways-crows-are-way-smarter-than-you-think.html

I always laughed at the "Beware of Crows" sign at the park near my house. But I was a fool to underestimate them. I did not realize until the current season hit how evil they can be. I attempted to enter said park one day while jogging, and promptly turned back around to leave, being chased by crows, swooping down at me.

Sometimes the bastards congregate near one of my windows, and I swear they try to intimidate me when I'm chilling on my own freaking balcony. Not only can they apparently remember your face, but one crow can tell his whole posse who you are, so they can all identify you and plot against you. Man. I never dealt with such aggressive mofos back in Portland.

Taishibouritsu

体脂肪率 たいしぼうりつ
(n) body fat percentage

One of the words I learned today. I heard it from a dancer I met on the street who was practicing near me in Tanuki Koji (outdoor shopping mall where Sapporo dancers tend to practice after stores close). This guy is intense - he practices 2 hours every day after work, works 7 days a week. And he was telling me he has 7% body fat!!

Well, I see a lot of this sort of dedication to particular things (passions or duties or whatever) among many Japanese people and I want to dedicate to dance more, too! I want to decrease my body fat like that guy, haha...

I'm here to talk about ICE CREAM.

Hi blog. I'm sorry I've neglected you for months and months. There are things I've wanted to write, yet when it came to writing them, I just didn't quite go through with it. I've actually wanted to write a lot about learning street dance in Sapporo, but it's kind of a niche thing that would probably bore my friends who are reading this (but could be interesting to random dancer people outside of Japan, if they were to come across this?).

But today, I went to Baskin-Robbins. OR, as I should say, SA-TEE-WAN (thirty-one), which seems to be catchier to folks over here than what we refer to it as in the States.

Speaking of, I went to BR/31/SAAA-TEEEEeee probably like only 2-3 times ever in Japan, and one of these times involved getting a crepe. That's right, unlike the States, Japan, with its love affair with European desserts, can't let them feel left out at an American ice cream chain. Because Japanese sweets are serious business. Suck on that, USA. And no, getting rid of Osama Bin Laden does not make up for your lack of crepes.

ANYWAY. Today, I once again experienced the joy of BR today, and their flavor of the month was annin doufu. It's based on this popular dessert that's really, really been my thing lately. So not surprisingly, it was super delicioooooouuuussssss. I guess I can't really elaborate any further.

BR describes it as (in my questionable translation):

We take annin doufu as it is, with its creamy, melt-in-your mouth flavor, and turned it into ice cream. We added aromatic, fresh sweet mango ribbon and texture-rich pineapple - this elegant flavor is rich yet leaves you with a refreshing aftertaste.

So BR in Japan is awesome for some great flavors based on old dessert favorites here you can't find stateside, such as matcha green tea, red bean and muscat. Which every foreigner and their mom in Japan has probably blogged about already.

Fall weather in Japan changes like a woman's feelings

... according to my physical therapist. Funny man.

It's October now and it's definitely fall, and apparently the weather varies quite a bit. But we get a lot of beautiful clear days (which are referred to in Japanese as akibare 秋晴れ, my principle taught me).

So, last month the season changed to autumn quite suddenly. The summer was hell, absolute humid hell - typical Japan weather that Hokkaido is supposed to be the exception to, but instead we probably got about 2 weeks of perfect, comfortably warm summer weather before fall came in and the temperatures dropped to sweater/jacket weather. Sigh.

Speaking of sudden changes, I leave my base school (once I had gotten used to it and all that :/) and start visiting other schools. So from Monday I'll be at another middle school near home for 2 months, followed by a 2-month visit at another middle school that's like an hour commute to Jouzankei, a little onsen resort town up in the mountains (unlike my other schools, it's insanely small - something to the tune of 20 students and 20 staff). And then after that, it's back to my base school for a few months. Until then, it's going to just be me struggling to remember 500 students names and faces, and then just when I get the hang of some students I'll have to switch schools. Haha.

Last night I went out to Sapporo's nightlife district Susukino with my co-workers to celebrate the end of the school festival, my coming to the school (ironically on my last day there for 4 months), etc. Two-hour nomihodai (all-you-can-drink) and food, followed by a nijikai (second party) resulted in having to pay like 6,000 yen, which is probably almost 70 USD with the current bad exchange rate. Nope, wait, according to google it's 77 USD. Holy crap.

But it was worth it, since it's important that I spend time with my Japanese co-workers (and Japanese people in general) and being forced to speak Japanese for an evening is NEVER a bad idea. But two girl friends got birthday parties tonight which probably involves another nomihodai and karaoke. Partying Japanese style is more fun and extravagant than how Americans do it (and karaoke in Japan is superior to waiting to sing one song in front of a bunch of people in a bar). But PAYDAY COULD SURE COME SOONER.

Oh, and as of the October 1st I've been in Japan for 2 months. And Sapporo is still awesome and amazing!! I still love it here. I'm starting to miss home a little, but living here has been way easier than my first time in Japan. Living in my hometown's sister city must be why? The quality of life here just feels quite comparable to Portland.

All text and no photo or anything. I want to make all my posts have a visual because I think it's a more appealing format to blog in, but alas I failed. Sorry, next time.

Teacher Life. (or a small sample, anyway)

I haven't really talked much about work, but you're probably curious (whoever the hell may be reading this). So I'll indulge you, but just a little bit... because I don't know, the idea of talking about work just seems kinda lame/boring. I mean, just look at these photos of the teachers' office here on the right, along withmy desk. The only thing that doesn't look like monotone barf is my hello kitty bottle - which has gotten compliments from middle school girls (for whatever that's worth to a 23 year old) - THANK YOOUU MOM!

To be honest, the rest of the school doesn't look any more inspiring and um, not dull. But there's paintings and such here and there, which really brighten the halls. And this Ghibli-themed one is my favorite (OF COURSE).

And for English class, a bunch of the kids made Halloween-themed paper skulls (although they're like a month early and these sort of paper-folding crafts are totally a Japanese thing people in other countries probably wouldn't do). But I gotta say the Minnie Mouse skull is my absolute favorite. It's totally creepy and weird, but not all that surprising as Minnie Mouse is adored by Japanese girls age 0 to 35 (well, something like that - it's totally normal for young ladies to love Minnie Mouse and lots of cute things that would be considered by Americans to be kind of childish for adults). Pretty ironic how Disney and Disney characters are hardly a big deal in America like they are in Japan.

And here's some of the kiddies getting ready for the school festival coming up on October 1st, which I'll report on later.

Drag queens, ramen and beer

Yes, the header indicates that it was a quintessentially Sapporo weekend (last weekend, that is).

I went to the Rainbow March, Sapporo's gay pride parade, which is also the longest running in Japan and is notable for being one in which the city mayor addresses the rally - something that is quite rare for government officials to do at these sort of events due to the taboo view and hush-hush attitude generally held toward homosexuality in Japan.

However, it seems the island of Hokkaido (where Sapporo is) is a little more open about those kind of things, being a place that Japanese people didn't come to until quite later in Japan's history. So Hokkaido's a newer place (thus more oldschool western style brick buildings and Sapporo's unique grid layout) with people who wanted to get away from the main island, and thus the folks here a little more open-minded - which totally reminds me of Portland!!

Speaking of (as seen in second photo), the lovely host read a message from Sam Adams, the mayor of Portland (who is gay).

I ran into some friends there, one who is also from Portland (REPRAZENT) and we hit up the famous Ramen Yokocho, and area in Sapporo which has tons of ramen shops. After a bit of looking around, we picked a place and I got their specialty ramen, butter corn miso.






And then the next day I went to go meet a friend from my time on study abroad in Akita Prefecture, who came to visit with a bunch of the new study abroad students. We met at the Sapporo beer factory museum and enjoyed deliciouuuussssss Ebisu!!!