The Traveller's Typewriter

What a fine last few days it has been. Last week was something busy, finally getting back into the swing of teaching and commuting to work after the nice-needed rest of winter break. And goodness. Here I sit at the midpoint of this JET experience. A time for reflection and a time for forward-looking, considering that this really is the midpoint after all. I mean up until now I have been working my way into this JET experience and from here am are working onwards and outward from the six-month mid-point. And what a place to find ourselves.

My hopes that the many other JETs and people not only in Hokkaido, but the rest of Japan, too, are finding fulfilling, enriching opportunites and workable days. Goodness knows we all need a few days in a row where things just.. gel.

The coursing of yet another week here on assigment begs me to look ahead to new events and things upcoming. This coming weekend I think I may reward my efforts with some due ‘out-of-town’ time with a little visit to Sapporo. And why not? There will be a film premiering in theaters that I would very much like to see, food that I would very much like to gobble-up, and sights that I have yet to see in the fantastic town spot that is Sapporo. So go, I will go.

Last week had its appointments and classes. No need to say that it is real nice to have a normal day. A day of just teaching, evaluating lessons, and enjoying a few hours here and there between weekly workplace assignments. Last week I saw myself back at taiko practice, too and enjoyed learning into a new song. Well, the song to me is new, but the group is great at introducing so much new taiko information. What fun, what fun.

Last week was also the happening of our elementary school’s final semester before schools here in Japan put the wrap on the academic year come March (or about that). School beginning again in April. On the Wednesday that I found myself at school I took a nice suit in tow and changed from my more comfortable student-rustling track pants and such into a more presentable suit for the opening ceremony. In a matter of minutes, and a few speeches later the whole experience was over. Teachers wearing suits slowly filtered in and out of the staff room, having changed back into work-able clothes (considering that working with hype-able kids all day requires relaxed wear).

Last week also saw me teaching at kindergarten. The odd few times a month that I end up there I have the blessing of developing a basic and interactive English lesson for the kids. I show up early, I play with them, we teach, we eat lunch together, we play, and then I move on to my next posting for the day. The next posting being the buidling beside -the elementary school.
Last week’s English lesson incorporated so much song and dance that the kindergarten students were pooped and splayed out on the floor in the warm classroom. I think that I ran them into the ground with activities. But, kids being kids, all it took was the distribution of some ice-pops and a lunch break and the little kindergartens were back to jumping, climbing, kicking, and playing. What good sport they are. Handfulls, and heartfulls, every last one.

The real highlight of last week was the Saturday event. A few very amicable friends from my workplace here, we piled into cars and drove out to a town few hours south some for a really tasty Korean barbeque. The Korean barbeque restaurant was filled with smoke, both food-cooking smoke, and cigarette-smoking smoke, and we grilled our way slice after sliver of pork, beef, and some other gut-stuffs in between. The food-experience making for a really memorable time and a really full stomach. For me, food always wins. For fear of not having eaten enough I ordered a hefty rice ball stuffed with salty salmon flecks, AND a really spicy bowl of Korean ra-myun (ramen). I tell you, this bowl of noodles, kelp-y bits, and egg was hot enough to add color to your socks by the time you finished slurping up the chili bits and red soup from the beaming bowl. I fell in love that night with Korean noodles, again.

And what a fine time our dinner-out was. After our party survived the meal we moved from shop to shop picking up homestuffs here, and books there, stopping to browse before turning our cars back north for the trip home. I was reminded how nice it is to get out of town once in a while and to be social, with friends.

On the long road home we had made plans to hive-in at a roadside onsen. I have been doing pretty good about visiting the many accessible onsen in my region. This new one did not disappoint. Arriving about an hour’s time before closing the sweet and peppery smell of sulfur swriled about as everyone soaked and filled lungs with hot air in the baths and pools. The scrubbing and cleaning to perfection of oneself and then sitting in defeat in a stony bath is just heavenly. Topping it all off with a sit in the outdoor rotemburo (outdoor bath) and then a bottled yogurt before getting back into the car, the bath was a fine event. I felt fulfilled. I always feel so after an onsen dip.

A few nostalgic English hits warbled over the fm signal of the car radio and a few poppy J-pop hits filled our sitting space before we were dropped off one by one to face the remainder of the day and Sunday to follow. It was a successful weekend, what can I say?

This week is still getting rolling but I have a feeling things will be bright and right as ever.

If you call it satisfied, I will say hey, for now and leave the posting to another week yet again. I will scour my computer for photos and share those with you, too.

We still have plenty of daily snowfall and enough powder to lose your keys in if one is not careful enough about the snow. Do you have agreeable weather where you are? I can bet that some of us here wish we had a beach and a cocunut within reach. Me? Hah, well I’m fine so long as I have a few films, some Japanese studies, say a good tune or two, and a bowl of noodles waiting for me when the time is right.

Hoping that you had a good weekend and are looking brightly upon the week, too.

My best to you, too.

ciao

(These noodles never fail to impress. They sustain me. They love me; and I love them)

Ever since arriving here in Japan and taking in the taking on of the life here I have been journaling. I have been journaling in effort to save my mind, save my brain from wonder and worry. I have taken care to utilize the cheap and affordable one hundred and something yen worth notebooks that you can most readily buy from the convenience store to use for my writing.

In the first few days I was journaling what happened when -at what time I was asked to sign a form, and just what was going on around me. I remember vividly when I was dropped at the middle school for the opening ceremony welcoming students back from summer break and taking me into the remainder of the year as the new assistant language teacher.

I remember sitting feverishly at the desk, metal, warped, a cool gray -its kind of like what I felt like on the inside. Nervous. I sat there in a fine-looking black suit with the summer sun scorching outside the fluttery windows of the teachers room and I journaled. I was told to wait there with rump glued to seat by the desk until I was collected and guided to the gym for commencement and welcome.

Even in those moments I had no idea what I should be doing, how serious I should be acting, let alone if I was allowed to be nervous. Well, nervous, I was. Perspiring under those trendy layers of cotton I pulled and arranged in front of me on the table a small, green lined journal and began to jot down what I heard, what I saw, and how I felt. I remember it felt a great rush to be in a Japanese middle school, let alone in a really, really foreign setting. I also recall that wonder I felt that literally everything that was happening right then, and right next was really beyond my control. There was no one to tell me where I should be looking and just how ready, and just what I should be ready for.

There was however, a secretary in the room -that otherwise empty teachers room, mind you, and I am sure that she had a great few minutes watching me sit and stir nervously, and scribble. Those minutes felt like rolling waves on a long and wide sea -it felt like forever. But I was soon shuttled to stage, parting way through lines of students all staring me from the corners of their eyes as I tried really hard not to stumble on my steps up to the microphone to tell in English and maybe a little Japanese just how glad and how ready I was to be here to bring English to them, the students.

And those were the humble beginnings of my first few days in town. The sweating, the bowing, the fixating and what I should be doing -worrying about everything. I tell you, if and when I give advice to the teacher that replaces me the first good tell-tale bit that I tell to them will be enjoy every single rushing, passing minute of their arrival because those oh, so foreign feelings may not come again -and if those moments do return they may not strike you in quite the same way.

But hang on, I was talking about journaling. And you know what? Journal I still do. Whether I opt to copy out a few dictionary terms, in English or Japanese, scribble notes about the latest cognitive behavioural therapy, or just ask myself question by putting ink to paper -like how I am feeling that very day, I write.

Writing has been my sanity-saver and it gives me the wonderful and mysterious opportunity to dialogue if not just with myself about every lonely moment, strange encounter, or startling, say, confounding-beautiful experience I have here in town.

Do you write? I have to say that I was never really one who, at first anyways, took well to writing or journaling. But if I have to repeat myself I will say that writing, for me, has become an inseparable practice in my every day.

Now, I don’t want to blunder on but I do want to tell that it is my hope that for whoever reads this blog that this work would be an insight and/or inspiration for something they are waiting to do in their future, or just their day. I recall how I was so very gripped reading blogs happening at very same time I was in Canada waiting for the chance to come to Japan and do what I am doing now. So let this blog be that -for someone else. Or let it just be a quick and fun read for you.

Okay. Let’s keep things Japanese and see what sliver of fun I can pull from my day to share with you. Hmm..
Well, I have to say that after a day of teaching and then wandering back to the office on foot through white streets painted and powdered with crystalline snow, there is nothing like deciding what to do for dinner -in Japan.
Well, hang on, what I mean to say is this. Sitting at my desk, after collecting all my papers post-workday and waiting for the work bell to toll, I was today toying with that thought of dissecting the leftover and fresh variety of goods in my happy, small-sized fridge, or taking myself out for a quick noodle.

There is nothing like suiting up for a winter walk home and treating yourself to a bowl of your favourite Japanese ramen noodles after a trial day of work. There is this old-ish little shop that stares at and blinks flashing signboard lights at everyone that comes through town. It’s right on the corner of the main road, you see.

Pushing in the slow and fashionably dated door saw me into the dining area. Jazz music singing through awkwardly placed speakers on the walls above sheet glass mirrors, and old chairs that sink a little too low when you plant yourself in them. This was my dinner-catch.

I ordered a bowl of noodles that I had never before ordered, and I waited. Punched a few emails on my phone to pass the time, and stared at the placard on the wall of a large portuguese ship slicing through a ravenous ocean. Gosh what a picture to have on a restaurant wall. I mean, its a really big picture.
Not too soon before I was done figuring out how sea-faring ships and jazz music pair together in a dining space I was met with a monstrous bowl of noodles, which, after clarifying with the server, was actually a de-luxe order of ramen. Now I know if I ever want to exert myself after work over a bowl of steaming veggies and broth I can order deluxe again. Yeah, it was good. Miso.

After a few glasses of water and a quick prayer to help me keep it all down I was soon back afoot heading home past silent mounds of snow and an almost busy roadway. A few people stopping to chat while one of them was hauling snow across the drive. A few students complaining about something around the corner just out of earshot, and the snow. The snowy crystals only visible in the dim street lamps, shimmering like a blanket of blinking diamonds. Rolling mounds of smooth, pasty snow. Yeah, yeah, you say. Well, I tell you, it was nice. Nature, nature here in my small town still catches me by the breath and stops me in my tracks every once in a while. Or maybe a little more often than that..

Alright, now you’ll have to excuse me. You got this post out of me, too but now I am deserved some reading time on a tiny sofa with a little wind-up clock staring at me as I sip tea and fold leaf after leaf of book page before I bed up for the night.
I hope you are finding productive or purposefully un-productive things to pass your winter days with, too. Even a walk in the quiet nights that only winter can give.

Right. Good night to you and good day tomorrow. For us in Japan tomorrow is a Friday, maybe a welcome day for many. I know Friday will be welcome for me.
Enjoy yours and I’ll enjoy mine.

Until next time, too,

ciao

Yesterday was a contemplative, almost-non usual Sunday. However, today I wish to regale you with, firstly, a brief and comprehensive post (is that supposed to be funny, you ask? Listen, I try to keep my writing curt…)-and then a more regular Monday one.

But I’ve just gotta tell ya what yesterday was like.

In the morning, yesterday, my alarm bit into my sleep at seven just like it does during the week. I got up and ready, showered and twirled myself into some clothes and then nervously made my way to the bus stations just a pop over from my house. I’m not really used to the buses here yet you see..

I was preparing to ride the local bus, two different transits and transfers, and then take an express train (which was really quiet and zippy by the way. I promise, if I would have been playing ‘Red light, Green light’ the train really would have got the jump on me at the platform -sneaking up to me on those silent, snow-covered rails). Anywho..

I made my way, some four hours, to Takikawa town, to watch a ten-year anniversary dance performance. The studio, Izanai dance/Suga jazz dance studio were hosting the event at a local cultural center.

Not only was I astounded by the ride and travel down to the venue, but by the performance in turn. The travel down to the host town took me on roads and trails that I haven’t seen before and there was something sparkling about seeing the wintery ocean splashing on the snowy shores of Hokkaido; and then seeing younglings and adults alike spinning and jazz-ing their hearts out on stage.

The performance included a motivational speaker, or public speaker, and even a taiko performance -loved it. SO many varieties of dance were represented -traditional Japanese -including shamisen and taiko solos. There was a lot of yelling and spinning, interpretive ballet, hip hop and a few other kinds of dance in between.

This wasn’t my occasional Sunday. It was better.
After it was all said and done the one teacher from my town who invited me to watch the performance (he was performing, too), he and I lent a hand in cleanup and wrap up and then we all gathered at the group’s dance studio after unloading scaffolding and stage props. We all said some hellos, shared some goodbyes, and then the teacher and I made our way back to our northern town by car while the rest of the dance troupe prepared for a post-perofmance celebration. Sounds so fun, don’t it?

Four hours by car in the cold, dark, and snow. But our return home was not without ramen in Rumoi (a hub/main town for our sub-prefecture within Hokkaido) and a few convenience store rest stops.

Now its back to the office for Monday and I have a few classes at high school in the next couple of afternoon hours. But now if you’ll excuse me, I have to study a little Japanese -so as to keep up with the whirl of life that spins round me every day here in town. All in Japanese.

Did I say Monday? When you get around to yours good luck to you too.

Coffee.

-that is, Christmast cake. And a very happy 2012 and New Year to ya’ll! Yup, it is the new year and yes, I just said ya’ll. I would like to remind you that this is my post and I can exploit whatever silly words I would like. But I guess I had better be careful if I want to keep you reading my writings about my happenings here in Japan. Anywho..

I have just returned from a fine holiday all the way down in Tokyo. Yesterday was indeed an office holiday here in Japan and today is a really real workday. And for many of us that means back to work. I will be fidgeting and appropriating myself here in the office for the better part of this week before next week’s back to school. Gosh, those are surely words I remember dreading back in my high school days. Not just dreading them but I remember that on the wake of heading back to school from say, a summer break I would often worry and fret about the having to buy of school supplies. Gosh it was tedious to make the trek out to Zellers or some general store to pick up lined papers and such things. But ironically I have become one to love stationary -and much stationary and other things did I see -in Tokyo.

(New Years Eve at Meiji Jingu shrine. You couldn’t have picked up your hundred dollar bill off of the ground if you dropped it. Too many people -everywhere!)

And so let me begin displaying for you my few adventures in Tokyo, which will probably take the better part of two posts.
On my goings to Tokyo, I had planned my way as such that I would rest up in Sapporo the day before my travels and then fly our the very next evning to arrive in Tokyo on New Year’s eve. Dumb? No. I was ready for the crowds. And this being my first year abroad in Japan after hearning much of how even Japanese flee the country to get some due rest and relaxation during this very vexing holiday season I was ready to deal. Ready to fly.
After plane-ing in to and arriving at a local airport in Tokyo, the first of my many, lonely countryside-dwelling prayers were answered. After so many months of longing to, and thinking about drinking Cherry Coke I found an actual COCA COLA cafe RIGHT THERE in the airport. But, this was no ordinary cafe. For the low and fine price of two hundred and fifty yen you got yourself a cup with a straw. And the rest of the work was up to you. I stood infront of a towering but somehow friendly red vending machine and punched away at the touch-screen tapping and finding just what combination of the one hundred plus varieties of Coca-Cola related drinks I wanted to drink. Cherry Coke was the first. Soon followed by a spill of Vanilla. But I have to say that overall the cherry took the cup. And since I was on some sort of deadline I parted ways with the cafe and entrained myself on monorail heading right into the heart of Tokyo.

(Shinjuku, letting you know just how small you really are compared to all those gigantuous buildings.. and stuff)

Now it had been a while since I had been to Tokyo. I mean really ‘been’ to Tokyo. Our Tokyo orientation some months back was something a little too akin to business. This trip at this time was me with suitcase in tow riding a monorail for mintues dashing by as I weaved through tall and dark buildings glowing from the inside, glowingly visible through the specks of windows and magnificent architecture-come-neon that only Tokyo is known to offer.
After spelunking on train I then took afoot and found my next week’s worth of accommodation. Now I admit that I had some reservations about dorm-rooming with seven other people at a foreigner-friendly hotel, but for the price they were offering I figured my dollar was better spent on food and shop than on bed and sleep.

Now I would hate to really have to relive what some, just some of the nights were like in the dorm room accommodation that I braved but a few short spats in my blog might advise you for or against such an accommodation. I was firstly relieved and intruiged to have met so many genki/happy travellers from so many countries. Australian travellers certainly took the cake on this one. I first arrived to a room full of Australians that were here in Japan to tour just a little and to snowboard a whole lot. Speaking of snowboarding I can’t wait to get out there and rash-up some fresh powder just as soon as I get my mitts on some boots and bindings for my flambouyant-looking snowboard.
Now aside from people checking in to and out of the room at outrageous hours in the morning/night (I can thank dorm life in college for preparing me for this one) -lights flashing on and off and death threats to other mostly-undrunken sleepers in the room, I didn’t really have it that bad. That was probably the worst of the lot. Praise the miracle of sleep for the right-good institution of ear plugs. I am glad that I carried ear plugs.
At last the final two nights of my stay in Tokyo -an eight day spat altogether- was spent in the solace of a fine single-roomed hotel. And I was able to at last really rest. But we’re not ready to comment on the end of the trip yet.

(Super-duper good Korean food to be found in Shin-Okubo, the Korean-ish/like district of Tokyo. Get there on the famed, circular Yamanote line)

Most of my days in Tokyo were spent meeting longtime friends. Well, that is some friends met just last year while at school back home and other friends who I have known for as many years, if years were dollars, with which I could buy a rather large cheese burger. Sorry about that, I just had to see if I could make that comparison work.

Now with every day seeing friends, this left me little time to really get lost in the wedges and side-streets of the city but I did manage to find a few things that really tickled my fancies. The first of which were cafes. Now having worked at just a few coffee shops before I believe that I am altogether ruined when it comes to coffee. Not to the better hopes of my family, I am indeed a coffee purveyor. My family would have me drop the habit, I mean.
Every day I found myself in another cafe sipping JUST one cup of the dark and delicious brew. Moriva Coffee, Excelsior, St. Mark’s.. you name it I tried to get there to drink their coffee. The most expensive cup? Well, that would be in the threshold of six hundred and thirty yen. With exchange that might rate something about seven dollars Canadian for a small black coffee.
And the most interesting cup of coffee? Well that would have been at a UCC coffee shop in a train station where my coffee was brewed within sniffing distance of me using a very sophisticated looking coffee siphon. Coffee? Five dollars plus a tasty sandwhich (not the ideal combo for me, mind you). I must say that including the makings of the coffee here in Japan, the service I have received completely puts to shame any ‘best’ service experience I have ever had in Canada. Serviettes, coffee spoons hand crafted and set just perpendicular to cup on saucer, chilled water served just as you are about to rest your bottom on a most fine and wooden seat -nothing compares, I am sorry. Even when it comes to the brewing of the drink. That is unless I would begin to count the find coffees that I have had in Europe, South America and such.. how I love it all.

(This ramen could make your heart stop. No, not because of oils and fats, but because it is just THAT good. Miso, of course)

But coffee wasn’t the only thing I spent my fine dollar upon on this trip. Another money chomper was the train and transit system. Aside from devilish convenience and the trains always being on time, you can assuredly count a basic fare on the train at about one hundred and fifty to two hundred yen. And if you are not happy in one part of town then you are no doubt going to hop on train (however many times per day) and get yourself somehwere else more interesting or more exciting. And for that you have to pay. Every time.
But the trains are heaven and compared to back home a lot more crowded, too. Your concept of personal space? Forget it? Just think of trains and most busy places in Japan an opportunity to show off that fine, new flagrant cologne that you’ve just been waiting to sport in public. But in Japan you can show off to about five other people at once, all crowded around you. Everyone enjoying your fine fragrance whether designer brand, or otherwise.

With this post already becoming of warned length -as many readers have criticized and/or commented, I will come to term with a few talkings of food. Namely ramen (rah-men). The heavenly noodle that rests just long enough in a finely made, handicrafted broth that you have to slurp up real loud and real fast before the noodle realizes what is happening. This is ramen. And a city like Tokyo -okay not city, this metropolis, Tokyo- has a great variety of the thing. For me, eating these noodles is like getting paid every time. It feels good. I enjoy eating the noodels and my wallet does, too. Because for not more than a thousand yen (that is about ten bucks) and as cheap as five or six hundred yen, you get fed and you and your wallet stay/get plump. Don’t really know which adjective to slight in there. It’s up to you.

(Anglerfish nabe and a wide assortment of squid-y things, salads with wasabi and par-boiled egg broken and spread on, etc.)

Yes, I went out of my way to get the noodles. All kinds of noodles. I ate those noodles at the airport dining hall/food court on the way to Tokyo. I went out of my way on the way back from Tokyo to eat those noodles again at the airport. I at dipping-style noodles, Kyushu-style noodles, salt, miso, miso, and more miso. I am not afraid to say that miso ramen preferably the variety that includes a bit of butter, real butter on the tip top is my favourite kind.

Besides all those slippery noodle-bits I also ate varieties of other right good foods. Some including squid with squid innards mixed on in, really really good yaki-niku (skewer-seasoned and grilled meatstuffs), Anglerfish (the kind with the really big scary, flat mouth) nabe, miso-wasabi salads, really good korean food found in the Korean bit of Tokyo, really big takoyaki, the classic raw egg atop a thinly, meat-ly donburi/bowl of rice -for breakfast, a really good omlette with kona coffee and stellar toast at a Hawaiian breakfast spot, ayu (a sweet fish skewered, salted and roasted atop coals at a festival), and on and on the list can go.

I tried omlette rice, rice enveloped in a thin and tasty omlette; curry and rice with a pork cutlet, really good dim sum in the Chinatown of Yokohama. Pastries I made a point not to really eat but I did have me some good chocolate doughnuts..

No doubt I will save you speak about where I went and what I saw for my next post. Though, maybe the post need not wait until next Monday. Or maybe I really need the time to brood over what I want to say in my mind. Haha. We’ll just have to see. I have no desire to be cruel to you especially if you really want to hear more about Japan. Japan through my eyes, that is.

I will wrap up today’s again by promising not to bore you with pictures, but to share with you some, some pictures. And a final impression and fleeting thought about Tokyo? Well, I have something that tickles me about that city. A friend sent me a mail message-to-phone while I was between shopping place and train-riding space and asked me what I thought of Tokyo. I told my friend my first and most honest thought, I both love and hate the place.
Every time I am there Baz Luhrmann’s song, Sunscreen comes to mind when in the track he notes that one should, ‘live in the city but leave before it makes you too hard, and to live in the country just long enough before it makes you too soft..’ or something like that. And you know what, I kind of agree with the guy.
There is nothing like walking along in Tokyo and having someone bump into you, step on you, step at you, pull on your coat if by accident, or blunder against your shopping bags and keep walking, etc. My first instict would be to turn and offer an apology, or expect a quick apology -but not in Tokyo. The people just keep on at whatever they are doing, wherever they are walking, etc. Tokyo makes you into something firm and calloused which you may not be, if only on the exterior.

What do I love about Tokyo? Everything. Food, shops, availability, quality, open late, not open at all, parks, and no parks, shopping, and people, and fashion and every nook and place the mind and heart could possibly get lost in -and not always for the best. You can spend all day indoors and underground on subway and train platforms or in department stores just fleeing from the known light of day.

That is Tokyo for me and so much more.

Well, I just needed something to do over the winter break and that was it. I chose to travel to a really big Japanese city and capital. And finally, now that I have take my first real domestic trip within Japan I am SO very looking forward to the following trips and travels that I can and will take within and surrounding Japan. I am so very excited.
But in some fine and simple sense, after all the training, shopping, walking, and waiting it was just nice to come back to my little place I call home here in Hokkaido. So nice to come home and rest up after this all.

Did you enjoy your winter break? I pray you, if you have the time and can steal me a minute, do tell of what you did and whom you saw -and I’ll do the same, in a few words or less.

Until a few more future Tokyo-like babblings,

Ciao.

(At last this post wouldn’t be authentic and written by me if the last picture wouldn’t be of some noodles. Heaven, just heaven)

SO a happy 2012 to all ya’ll out there!
And with a few kind words I want to wish you all the best and say, too that I’ll have a fresh Tokyo-saturated post for you tomorrow!
( I mean today is a holiday here after all!)

You know, you read a statement like the one above and your brain takes off and finishes the line -maybe without you wanting to finish it. But there’s nothing wrong with that. Christmas comes just as surely as the missing word in a catchy, or know-y phrase. And yup, there’s nothing wrong with that either.
Some people take solace, happiness in the holidays. Other people, so I have heard it circulated again this holiday season, care to spend their Christmases alone -and sometimes not because they want to.

Whereabouts did my Christmas fall this year? In the alone bracket. But again, I didn’t mind that. Being the good google-ite that I am -if you promise not to laugh- I will tell you that last week before the Friday holiday here in Japan, I searched online about how best to spend Christmas alone. Now with all the help online searching can be many search results and articles can be chalked full of nonsense. And so was most of what I found online -nonsense.

But the jist of what I came away with was this, if you are spending Christmas alone make a list of things you wanna do and then do them. And so I did.

Hobbling back to the talk of last week pre-Christmas, I had mentioned that I was only in the office until Thursday. So I made the most of that Thursday and brought some jingle-y, ribbon-wrapped reindeer antlers to work and wore them around the office. Now I wasn’t parading around like some supermodel just lapping up any and all attention that I got, but the antlers-in-office thing proved to be kind of fun.

From the moment I walked in the door, donned the horny decorations on head and trotted around it was amazing to see that smiles, laughs and jolts that the reindeer antlers brought about (you can look up my use of that word, I assure you it is in the right). That was my first bit of fun for the day.

After a few minutes in office and organizing my things I sped off to the kindergarten in town for their annual Christmas celebration event and candle light service.
We watched songs and dances, candles glowing, chairs a-rowing and enjoyed even a film before lunch. Usually all us students eat in our classrooms at little kindergarten-like tables and then play in the large hall after a yummy meal. Well, on that Thursday we set up tables side by side in the great hall and in a Dickens-y way and had a Noel of a feast fit for any Christmas Carol.
So Thursday came to a sweet end following a fried chicken lunch -something of a Christmas tradition in Japan. (You may have to ~oogle that one for yourself because I am just as blumbered on the histories of fried chicken at Christmas as you may be)

The Christmas weekend then was fun. On Friday I huffled out to a nearby town making the trip for my first time by inter-city bus. Radio blaring classic Christmas tunes and J-pop all the way from town to town the bus-ride, costing only a few hundred yen, was fun and flightful.

I took in a short Christmas service, in the spirit of the holiday, had some cake and tea, and then fluttered on by to a cafe in town to enjoy a fat plate of katsu-curry (I am really getting my fill of breaded pork cutlet and Japanese curry roux this holiday season)!
And that, my dear friends, is when the winter winds really began to blow. We were, here in northern Japan, forewarned of some wicked winter storminess to follow in the Christmas days. And let me tell you, as I rode that bus back to my town with Christmas jingles humming on the radio aboard bus, ice, winds, snow and everything the North Pole was saving for this year’s winter attack was blowing across the highway -and continued blowing for the next two days of Christmas.

That’s fine.
When I finally survived and muffled my way back home I pretty much locked myself up for Christmas and began celebrating without pause. Just like any good television junkie would do I accessed online television via gaming console and plowed my way through episode after episode of Grey’s Anatomy all day and all night. But don’t you worry, I hung candy canes from the walls, wrapped old tissue boxes and fish stock cartons in Christmas wrapping paper and wore the reindeer antlers and Christmas cap (that I very kindly received from the kindergarten) all around the house while lounging in long Christmas underwear. Okay, the underwear was just long underwear -cozy, in case you were thinking to ask.

And that was Christmas. Those days spent online calling with family, chattering about what foods are good and not, cooking for myself at home and then daring the blistering blizzard outside to nearby eatery for rice and tempura -it was a fine week-end.

I really liked Christmas this year. I even slep in front of the fireplace. Okay, well, I don’t really have a fireplace out here it’s more like a stove but cozy nonetheless.

Did you have great poke of a Christmas? My only regret is that the holiday was just too short as I sit back in the office and paddle my way away at another Japanese language exam and continue to study, study, study like any good university junky would do in their spare time.

But back to this week, I am only in the office for a handle of days. Friday I will board bus to shove off to Sapporo -again. My city of a city, I tell you. After a little rest and a pack-ed chest full of ramen I will plane my way to Tokyo and spend a few good days enjoying the very/seemingly un-wintery weather they are having down there. Sights, food, friends, and boiled loach. Remember the picture of simmering sweetwater fish from my day one arrival in Tokyo? Well, I will feed on those fish this o-shogatsu Japanese holiday season if I can help it. Any suggestions for Tokyo? Wishes, hopes, sightfuls -things you think I should see? You can always let me know if you call the hotline. Or just fire me a question. Haha.

This will be my winter escape, Tokyo -with a few hot onsen baths involved. How will you enjoy your wintery holidays?
I am hoping that you find some flashing Christmas-y lights, hot holiday-like beveragres, and some fine company to bore the work-a-holic-ness out of you. Or maybe you are like the more fortunate people I know who are relaxed enough to view Christmas as a special day without need to duct tape onself to the couch in need of better rest.
Whoops, there I go starting not to make sense again.

A good sign that you need to stop reading, and I need to stop writing.
Merry Christmas to you. Merry Christmas. And if you are need of a good holiday read I highly recommend Dickens’ A Christmas Carol to you.

And if you need to meet, you know where to find me -window seat, back to the glass, book in hand with pen and scrawl-ish paper nearby with steaming brew, coffee breathing steam into the space of my cafe table. Enjoy yours.

Ciao

And why not again, Merry Christmas to you.

(the snowfall at Sapporo University; not quite the snow as is in my town -will snap photos of me town soon!)

A mighty wind and and some right-y, tight-y long underwear. Now, I haven’t been counting the days that I’ve been living in long underwear (no, not the kind of underwear with a flap at the behind), but the comfort of this heat-tech, warm-ish, winter-away-keeping undersuit has been truly remarkable. Recently, due to the chillyness of the surrounding.. well, everything, my tastes have migrated to warmer and woolier articles of clothing, cloths, towels, etc.
You name it, I want it. I would say that I’ve got loads of warm-y, winter-bashing things like wooly sweaters, and such things but I don’t necessary have the means of getting to the spots that sell such warm things. So I have but a few warm articles, thank goodness.

I need to tell you -yes, I need to make the following point. There are already mounds of snow outside my house. I am struck thinking.. when I was but a kid I always wanted, waited for enough snowfall so that I could burrow and dig and create a fine little snow house for myself in my front yard. Well, whether the weather systems, furious snowfall or otherwise something of the like both combined, there is enough snow here to build a castle! Okay, about forty or a hundred snow castles -the really humongous kind. I’m talkin’ like if you weren’t careful as you dig the heaping snow could collapse back on you and they would have to send one of those husky wompy-faced dogs with the little canine collar flask full of some kind of delicious brew that would save soul and body at one gulp.

Yeah, there be a lot of snow here.

Anyways, winter is assuredly here. And though before here in town our weather would snow, and then melt, and then wind (be windy), and then snow again.. no, no, the snow is definitely here to stay. And very much in time for Christmas !

I can’t tell with much certainty what I’ve been up to lately but the months have been melting away faster than cheap chocolate in hot cocoa. And if you are complaining that cheap chocolate doesn’t melt all gone in hot cocoa, well, you’d be right about that, too -but there are those kinds of days as well, the days that feel like unsightly, unsavoury little lumps at the bottom of our cocoa cups.
But things have mostly been a right breeze.

Speaking of today, for example. At high school after two profound English classes -the last of this marked season much to our student’s content- the students were selling wares and goods to the steady stream of townsfolk that barred the blowing snow to come and purchase, chat, and see all for sale.
After class I wandered down with teacher-friend in tow and bought up a ‘happy [cooked] chicken’ as the label reads, some local rice, red beans, kidney-like beans, lamb stew, key chain made from legitimate lambswool, etc. Got it all for a fine price, I did!
Gosh I love my town.

And so regarding school and not just the things you can buy and see there, at this point in the season classes are coming to a close, teachers are dishing out assignments to be whittled away over Christmas break, and students are muttering in wait over the last English classes as they wait to sleep in, rest up, and do a whole bunch of nothing for the holidays -aside from whatever else is really done over winter-y holidays here in Japan by pouty students.

There are some of us that will be plastered to office chairs in wait of closing-time bells, and holiday promises. But of course work will beget the better bite out of us before we.. okay, before I get away to enjoy any travels that I have planned. More on that later. But work is a machine in itself. It is fantastic to see this winter-y season in swing here in Japan. Unique events, some in same and some different and all of it fun.

But Christmas is no doubt just days away. Without sending up complaints I am still in working as to what my Christmas will look like.
Hold on for a little flashback here.

I remember having spent no less than two Christmases in Thailand. Those times and those travels were rich and fine. One of those several years ago Christmas evenings in a simple hut in the at near tropical latitudes, we were surprised by a Christmas choir of students from one of our nearby Thai schools we were teaching at. What fun that was.
Whether it has been a candy cane slid across the desk in warm gesture during the holiday season, or a packet of chocolate mix slipped into a desk drawer there are no doubt suprises to the holiday season, possibilities of things a-happening, or.. just well, in my case, plans to be made.

(above: a wintery waterway on campus at Sapporo Uni)

And I am looking forward to it all. As of right now I will have a hot date with a few Christmas films, some jingle-y reindeer antlers, and take-out food from a tasty town shoppe.
It’s in the making. Don’t send that script off to Hollywood yet.

But let me give you a stark sample -as I bopple along and write- of a few events this weekend last.

Last Friday was our Christmas party here in the office -for us office folk. The lot of us, and some people that I had no idea that I worked with because I virtually never had seen them in the office, piled into and company van and bumbled our way to a sightly town restaurant-aside-highway. We sat on tatami floors, ate fried foods, drink this or that to our own bliss, and played bingo all for a few hours. After all was said and done we again piled into vans and evacuated our dining location for a smaller and louder ‘snack’ or karaoke shop for hors d’oeuvres and singing -karaoke style.

(above, a Christmas party dinner. Wish you were here)

It was great fun and in the end one person was dragged home by another in expection of a restful weekend due blowing winter weather. And so it was.

The next day I made it out to our northernmost main Wakkanai city here in Hokkaido, shopped, bought a new game for entertainment’s sake, and had some famous ramen noodle soup at a tasty place that I had not yet tasted.
Book shops, home stores, icy roads, and pop music made the day all tied off with a brief department store stop. Home in time for dinner, and snow to shovel, it was a real ‘win’ of a day.

So this last week I have but a few more classes to roll and achievements to achieve.

In the end nothing too special but the speciality of Christmas itself.

Without minding the promptness of this post I welcome you a fine Christmas. A warm Christmas.
Now let me get home so I can fish you out some photos to show you and fill in the gaps of this writing that I hoped to send to you.

Still haven’t worked out today’s dinner, but with any luck one doesn’t have to look much further than a well stocked fridge and a pantry littered with a few cup noodles all ready for slurping. I still have a healthy portion of deer meat to devour, and a fresh cooked and wrapped chicken so rightly purchased from our agricultural high school to do away with. Chicken curry anyone? Or perhaps a midnight chicken sandwich?

But, if I may interrupt myself, I have just -as per the guidelines and suggestions of our JET language textbook- tried my hand at ‘de-mae’ or doorstep/doorstop takeout delivery, etc. I jingled on the phone a local eatery, ordered a mixed noodle dish topped with any variety of seafood and veggies on special and in no less than twenty minutes had myself a plate big enough for two of noodles and seafood-y things for about eight dollars CAD (dollars). Nice. Thank you, JET textbook. Although I had a heck and a speck of time trying to explain in Japanese where my house was located. But in the end I am fed and they are worked. Thanks!

So long as we stay fed until we read again,

ciao

(tonight’s supper. Whatever it may look like to you, it was a telephone ordering achievement and a mighty fine fill for me!)

It’s official, get me the plaque, the wall-mount -we’re going global !

It has now been confirmed. For the sake of your entertainment; and for a hopeful ‘up’ in readership numbers for pity’s sake I can now say that my boiler has gone to none. It is dead.

Is it all that bad? Is this how the story will end?

I have learned a few things here on my very short and miniature hotdog sized tenure here in Japan that it doesn’t work (okay, it doesn’t work for me/it’s not worth) pulling the curtains off the rings over things that you can’t control. That is, freaking out like frankenstein over a problem/sitch is not the way to handle.

What am I trying to say? Aside from tremendously enjoying writing this post and blog, I am trying to tell you that I have already had surprises and disappointments during my time here. Internet, water, surprise payments for things, expensive payments for things, welcome and unwelcome visits by bugs in my house, etc. (Though the good news is that I am now friends with more insects than I ever was before and I can now not ever complain to you about my being lonley)!

So. I am, as a hard eastern European lad, now resorting to life as they do in countrysides and countries and varietous places. Hot water by boiling, etc. And showers by boiling. I’ve had all this time to boast to happy ears about how I studied other cultures in Uni (that be University), and how I’ve travelled to loads of unforgiving and interesting places -can you say that you’ve slept in a room with a tarantula AND a lizard (or several lizards)? Maybe you can. And if that be so I want to be your friend.

This now, the hot water naught, being the situation I will allow myself the excuse to treat myself to a few more than normal meals out, counselling via skyp e (haha), a re-working of my contract with my agent, and any some things that will ease the stress of not have HOT WATER throughout the winter here.

I can’t tell if I’m shocked.

But the bright and tight news is that I am still in Japan, the food here tastes great, and I have wicked holiday plans. Hoping that any soiling of planning is kept at a bare minimum.
Anywho..

I am glad to be your entertainment -and I am continually being cultured and prepared for whatever next life passes on by to me.
Are you enjoying yourself wherever you be?
I hope so.

Life is only worth living every day.

And golly did I just have a good dollar’s worth of a chilled maple/vanilla convenience store latte. Now you have yours.

Until next crime,

ciao !

My boiler is having a rough week. Again, so am I? I wonder so.

But hey, before this story gets old let’s just parse a few more bars.

Two service people, two glasses of water, and one hour and forty minutes later -there was no gold to be found within my boiler.

I did however find out some tremendously valuable information about my house. It would seem that in our single-story apartment block my hovel is the first, and the oldest (and that might explain some of the drafts and cold).

Secondly, my boiler is almost as old as I am. And I happen to be so old that I forget just how old I am at times. I have attached a picture which somehow darkly represents what my boiler looks like to me now, and probably just how my boiler feels at this very moment. Innards displayed, and valuable circuits and bits all scattered about -I had no idea the thing was more complicated than my refridgerator..

And at the end of the day I feel kind of bad closing the door on the poor little boliler of a fella, the closing laundry room door separating him from the warm living space where I spend my often hours reading, watching television, and writing feverishly about my happening life.

I feel that R2 (my sad little boiler of a fellow) is slowly on his way out. If my boiler could coo like R2D 2 I am sure it would sound something disdainful like as when Luke and the others fall into the trash compactor, or something like that.

Anyways, my bathing situations has upgraded. Sponge bathing has gone out of style and very kindly my neighbor-friend has lent me his shower for the next however many days. Gosh, nothing like dribbling hot water blasting from shower head to soothe the soul and to cleanse the extremities. I feel free, clean, and strapped-safe from the outside winter colds once again.

Nothing like a few rough days to make a good story after this has all gone and passed. Wouldn’t one agree?
Now, I believe after this saying-telling, I won’t aim to bore you with any more boiler-talk, that is unless you like boilers and/or these posts help to put you to rest on most sleepless nights. But how am I to know that?
With that said, let’s let fate decide what shall be writ next. Fate or chance.. gosh I need coffee -have you brewed up today?

Have a good one,

ciao

Today is officially day number three without hot water. Now I am not boasting or trying to prattle for any attention. I just figure that subconsciously, or for better psychological health I may as well spout about this a bit. Beyond that I am sure that we I look back on this collection of sayings in about a hundred years’ time I will have a good rattle about it -and then go back to doing whatever I’ll be doing in a hundred years’ time.

Right. Well, I told you that some warm bodies at the office had a good comment and investigation about my situation. A kind neighbour had a look and helped me with the advice from the office to ‘clear the snow’ from the intake vent outside. But lo, after returning home post dinner invitation out last night -no snow on/in the intake. The boiler? Well its just a button and a knob that you twist to increase the searing heat potential of boiler-to-water. I was promised a phone call today -to my lawyer. Haha. To a service tech who will no doubt, assuming I am home, have a nice look and stare at what may be causing the problem.

Have you seen the film, The Next Three Days? Russell Crowe, in the film, is trying to orchestrate the ‘getting free’ of his wife from jail or something of the like. I wanted to watch it but haven’t come to yet. Maybe tonight..
Anyways if someone would have asked me on the weekend if I would be ready for the next three days -without hot water- assuming I didn’t have work to up and ready for each morning I am sure I would have had a laugh and made due. Russell Crowe? I am sure he would have drop kicked or pistol whipped the boiler situation into submission.
These days, I tell myself living with cold water only is a little like camping..

This morning I switched up the sponge bathing method. Now instead of bathing like I may bathe if I lived in a care home, bless their souls, I cracked open the shower door, not broke-cracked but just left it open, safely positioned a heater away from any source of water and heater blasting upon me, took a healthy sized kettle full of hot water from stove top and froze my way to bathing bliss while chattering teeth and trying to laugh at myself the whole time.

The result? Well, after excusing myself from the lathering with cold water, I promptly changed, slapped an adhesive heat pad to my torso and got to brewing up breakfast. Survived day three.

However tonight I may just say, no thanks, to taiko practice and instead board the bus for the town onsen in hopes of washing and scrubbing up right. When you have no hot water you go to the source, right? You would agree it be a good idea wouldn’t you?
Thanks.
Now that I have your approval to do so, I may just go on with it and soak in hot water from somewhere abut the earth’s upper/lower mantle, etc. Again, you get my drip and drift. Assuming the boiler technician doesn’t come at a holy hour after work and instead of hot-water soaking I have to be present while he fixes the thing..

And this weekend I have a hot date to out and visit a home store and buy things like insulation covers for windows and sills. If I can convince my ride we may just be able to visit an electronics shop so I can pick up a new copy of a game that is hot-ready for release here in Japan. Should make for a good weekend, wouldn’t one agree?

Again, three months without internet at home was do-able, this no hot water/no boiler should be a slice. Here’s a smile at the day -let’s go get ’em!
And you, too.
Have a slice of a day!

Oh, sorry. And the bed of nails, you ask? Well, what would it feel like if you didn’t have hot water for three days and counting? Did I mention that it’s still winter outside? Hot cocoa for all !

ciao