Bon festival

The Bon festival is a traditional festival celebrated throughout Japan. It is a time for families to come to their homes and remember ancestors. A big part of it is the Bon Dance, which everyone takes part in. In Sapporo it is held in a part of Odori Park, with a big stand for drums and singers, and people doing the Bon Dance around it.

The school organized a trip to the festival dance, which was only a few blocks away. They also provided yukatas and several of the students dressed for the occasion:

At the park we watched the dance for a while, and some students took part. The dance seems to consist of a  few simple movements, but people really get into it and add their own style. It's obviously something that Japanese people know very well, having grown up with it. It is a very lively expression and an interesting aspect of the culture.

Moerenuma Park

Today after class I went with a couple of guys from the school to Moerenuma Park, in the northeast corner of the city. It was built in the late 1990's and features a lot of wide open space with geometrical features. It's makes me think of an abstract piece of art on a very large scale.

There is a large fountain in the park, which is off most of the time except for a few times a day when a show takes place. In the evening it is also lit up, and we stayed for that.

conversation class

In the middle of my second week already. Wow, the 4 weeks are going to go by extremely fast. On Tuesday there was a "conversation class" at the school, in which Japanese speakers met with the people learning Japanese to allow them to practice. There were about 10 or so Japanese, of all ages. During the conversation class there were games organized to bring people together, and it lasted a couple of hours.
Afterward, several of us students were hanging in the lounge, and a couple of Japanese girls from the conversation class were there, waiting for their English class to start, so we continued speaking in both English and Japanese.
After their English class was finished, they joined us for dinner at a restaurant that specialized in Okonomiyaki. This is a kind of omlette full of all kinds of ingredients, which you cook on a hot plate right at your table.

The restaurant was an the 10'th floor of a shopping center near the train station, and we hung out afterward for a bit, taking pictures.

Sunflower fields, zoo, soup curry and more

Yesterday was a trip with school to the area around Asahikawa, about a couple of hours drive north of Sapporo. We all piled into one of those big tour busses, which was great for socializing on the way there and taking a nap on the way back.

The countryside in this part of Hokkaido consists mainly of a lush, flat, agricultural area, although you can see mountains in the distance. Our first stop was the sunflower fields which was quite beautful. We had a couple of hours to wander around. It was still hot with intense sun.

The next stop was the Asahiyama zoo in Asahikawa. This zoo is apparently quite famous in Japan, but I thought was fairly old-style with small enclosures. I did see a couple of animals I'd never seen before, like the Red Panda:

After arriving back in Sapporo, some students said they were going for Soup Curry, which is a Sapporo specialty, so I tagged along. We ate in a very nice, very popular restaurant in the basement in one of the buildings near the school. The restaurant made nothing but soup curry, and from the menu you choose the type of broth, the type of curry, toppings, degree of spiciness, and rice. It was very good.

 Afterward, the others said they planned to go out, and invited me along. Everyone went home to change, and we met outside a club/lounge called Gossip in Susukino. For 1600 Yen you got entrance and tokens for 5 drinks. I didn't think I'd use them all, but I did, and more. Very friendly atmosphere, with a few other foreigners. There was about 8 of us and we stuck together as a group for the most part. There was no dance floor but people just danced whereever they were standing. After a while we conversed with some of the Japanese people - with a lot of use of Google translate on both sides of the conversation. Overall it was a lot of fun and the time went by fast. I walked home at 4:00 am and it was already getting light out. Yes you could say I'm getting too old for this, but what the hell!

Susukino festival

Yesterday late afternoon, several of us gathered in the lounge at the school, before walking several blocks to the Susukino area for the festival.

At the festival, a main street was closed to traffic to make room for taiko drumming and a parade of people in traditional costume.

Several side-streets were also closed to traffic and filled with tables serving food and beer. 

It was a great chance to meet more students and it was a lot of fun in the lively atmosphere.

I get the feeling that the locals have a kind of 'work hard and play hard' kind of lifestyle. Certainly between the festivals and the beer gardens there is a lot of beer being drunk. The Susukino area is one of the largest nightlife areas in Japan outside of Tokyo with a lot of clubs and hostess bars etc. This created a funny juxtaposition of traditional and modern during the festival, as girls from the bars were still outside to advertise:

first activity with the school

Today was the third day of classes. In addition to the 3 hours of class time every morning, I signed up for private lessons that take place in the afternoon on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. So with homework, I'm actually pretty busy. The school is on the 2nd floor of one of the tall commercial buildings in the center of town, and it has a lounge area that is great for hanging out after class, doing homework, and meeting other students. It's also air-conditioned!

Funny how different people react differently to the heat. On days when it already feels scorching hot early in the morning, some students arrive with an exhausted look, face flushed, hair stringy from sweat. Others don't seem to be affected at all. Unfortunately I fall into the former category. I've heard others say their rooms are pretty hot at night, so I'm not alone there.

Yesterday there was a fireworks competition in Sapporo, and there seemed to be a lot of excitement about it. About 40 students from the school went to attend. It was held at the banks of the river. I've often noticed that rivers that run through cities in Japan have very wide flat areas between the water and the built-up concrete banks. I guess the areas provide room in case of flood, but in the meantime they make great public spaces. The concrete banks formed seating areas and they were packed with people by the time the fireworks started. We got there quite early and put down a large tarp on a grassy area under a bridge, and we all sat there. Being under a bridge turned out to be a good choice, since there was a brief rain storm that delayed the fireworks but about half an hour. This was the first activity I attended with the school, and it was great to meet more students. They are mostly quite young and a lot of fun. I met a couple of students that are staying at the same share-house, and I was relieved to hear that they had the same first impression of the place as I did.

The fireworks show itself consisted of about twenty separate displays, each a few minutes long and sponsored by a different company. The result was one spectacular display after another - like every few minutes was a grand finale.

arrival in Sapporo

After a long but uneventful flight from Vancouver to Osaka, 5 hour layover in Osaka, and 2 hour flight to Sapporo, I arrived late Saturday evening. I stayed at the Airport Hotel, and the next day the driver came to pick me up, as arranged by the school, to take me to my accommodation.

However, when I got there I was told that the school had sent me the wrong information, and that I was actually staying at another share-house owned by the same company. By this time the driver had left, so the staff took me by taxi to the other place. When I saw where I was staying, it was a disappointment compared to the place I was expecting: the building was old, paint peeling everywhere, not as clean, and the common area was small and not as welcoming. My room had just a cot, and the window was rusted shut. You get the idea. Although this kind of spoiled my mood for a while, I should say that it turned out ok. I was eventually able to pry open the rusted window, and this share-house has the advantages of being quite quiet and being closer to town.

Sapporo is sweltering hot right now. Well over 30 degrees C and very humid. Even the locals are complaining about the heat and everywhere you see people fanning themselves and mopping their faces.

I spent the rest of the day walking around, taking the train, finding the school, and just getting my bearings. There is a long linear park that run east-west through the center of the city, called Odori Park, and it is the site of many of the festivals that happen throughout the year. Right now there is a beer festival, and every block of the park is converted into a massive beer tent - one block for each brewing company.

I stopped at a couple and had something to eat, and beer, of course.

Yesterday was Monday and the first day of classes. There was a brief orientation for the new studendts, and everyone seems pretty friendly. There is a 3-hour class every morning. The classes are small, mine has only 5 students. The biggest change for me in terms of learning Japanese is that now nothing can be in English since the students come from everywhere. So all the explanation of grammar or vocabulary has to be in Japanese which you have to try follow. The pace is reasonably fast, so a fair amount of material was covered in just the first day. Definitely going to learn a lot.