Free Day

I pulled into the school car park today to find it deserted except for two other cars parked in the visitors spaces. I was puzzled. Unless it was national walk to school day it looked like the school definitely wasn't open and that I had made a mistake (again) and had not looked at my schedule before leaving home.

I parked in my spot in the teachers car park and rang Chris to get him to check my schedule for me. Last time I got my schools mixed up one of the English teachers I worked with ended up going round to my house to check that I hadn't died in a car crash. And when the head teacher of the school that I should have been at managed to get in contact with me I argued that he was wrong and that there was no way I had got mixed up with where I should be- I was in the wrong... of course. But this time, I wasn't mistaken.

I got out of my car and made my way into the building feeling somewhat confused and a tad angry that I had driven all the way there for no reason. The lights in the office that is by the entrance hall were on but nobody was there. I tried the staff room and that was locked. It was quite creepy to be in the school with no-one around. At this point I started to feel less confused and more embarrassed that I had come all the way here- though, it really wasn't my fault this time- but swallowed this feeling and decided to go on a search for the people that were in the school. I wandered down the corridors calling "suuuuuumimasen?", "Ohaaaaaaaaayo?" until I came to the door of the school kitchens. I had found life- indicated by the slippers that had been left outside the door. Luckily, just as I was about to knock, one of the lunch staff opened the door and looked very surprised to see me.

Lunch man: "Oh, good morning"

Me: "Morning. Where is everyone?!"

Lunch man: "The school is closed today so they are all off" (As he says this he is giving me a face which says 'silly gaijin')

Me: "Ahhh, no-one told me this"

(His face changes to one of understanding and then he laughs at me. I join in.)

Lunch man: "Would you like me to call the deputy head for you? Let's go to the office."

Me: "Thank you! Typical me coming to work when school is closed" *Sigh*

He was really nice and saved me from having to call my supervisor to find out the head teachers number (and also have to go into the BOE to work). When I spoke to the head teacher he was extremely apologetic and told me to take the day off and to not bother telling my supervisor since it was his fault that I hadn't been told. As I was leaving , lunch man gave me a sweet because he felt bad for me and told me to have a nice relaxing day off. I don't think I have spoken to him much before but will make more of an effort to go and hang out in the office when he is around from now on.

Now I am back at home and feeling lucky about my free day off. I will use it wisely and do some bits and bobs which I didn't manage to get done over the weekend like buy birthday cards and take photos for my new blog.

Yuki Matsuri

17 JETs from Fukushima and one from Miyagi all went, by Ferry, up to Sapporo. The boat took 13 hours but we managed to entertain ourselves with karaoke and drinking games (which unfortunately ended up in illness for one of our compadres… which we managed to pass off as sea sickness after one of the cabin crew found the sick-covered futon which myself and another JET had cunningly “hidden” in the middle of the corridor).

When we arrived in Sapporo we had the afternoon to walk around our area before heading off to the beer factory. Gemma, Jen, JD and I checked out the ice sculptures after scoffing down a healthy and very Japanese McDonalds. The ice sculptures were cool (bit of a pun for you there) and were incredibly detailed in their carving. One even had fish frozen in it and another which was advertising a brand of noodles, had ramen slapped on top of it.

The beer factory was the standard fair of all you can eat/drink meat and beer. Personally, I thought the meat wasn`t the best quality so didn`t eat very much. I like to be able to chew my food without pulling out fatty gristle every ten seconds.

After that, our group joined up with some other Fuku JETs, who were in Sapporo, for some drinks. With the exception of only a few we all crashed a small beer bar which had beer from all over the world- the English selection was a bit lacking with only Hob Goblin on offer. Two guys got a beer for 5,000 yen- that is about 30 pounds to you and me.

The next day was our only full day in Sapporo so we got up early ready for a full day of sightseeing. First thing we did was check out the snow sculptures. They were truly awesome and my disappointment in the lack of size of the ice sculptures was made up for by the huuuuumongous snow sculptures. They were the size of buildings; photos really can't capture how impressive they were. We spent the morning walking around checking them out- saw some of my favourite Ghibli characters and also got to hold a gigantic plastic fish. Successful day I do believe.

After some tasty miso ramen lunch (Hokkaido is famous for its ramen) we headed to the out-skirts of the city to go up Mt. Moiwa and see a great view of Sapporo. It was stunning and, again, photos on my rubbish camera really don't capture how awesome it was. From one side we could see all of Sapporo and from the other we could see beautiful mountain ranges. Being responsible, mature adults we felt the need to partake in a small snow fight too, which even involved Brent attacking some nearby American children. But the highlight of the mountain was a group of Malaysian tourists that we happened to ride the ropeway with. The leader of the Malaysian gang wanted to connect with us fellow foreigners (that, or take the piss) so serenaded us with “I can't get no satisfaction". Problem was, he only knew 'I can't get no…' and ended up singing the same line again and again. Then, Mark decided to teach him the rest so jumped into the middle of the Malaysian group with the crazy gang leader and had a quick sing and a dance with him. I say gang leader because he definitely looked like he could be part of the Malaysian Mafia.

Mark dancing with the man only spurred him on to then give us a quick belly dance, get our photos with him and then hand out his business cards… which had pictures of naked ladies on them.

In the evening we went to Otaru to check out some snow carvings which were on the bank of a canal lit up with tea lights. I didn't have my camera on me so you will just have to trust me that it was very pretty and very romantic (if only Chris had come!).

On our last day we only had the morning to do anything so we got up early to find the snowman army which would become part of our plan to conquer the world. Unfortunately this quest ended in failure as no one had bothered to build the army this year. Poop.

It is cold

January flew by! Luckily, it wasn`t too cold with only a week or so of really bad weather.

Since hitting February it has gotten freezing- was -8C this morning and living in an apartment that has no insulation means it is cold inside too.

I usually heat my house with an old style Kerosene heater which, despite smelling funny, warms the house up quite quickly. This is especially great in the morning. I wake up, hit the on button, put my clothes in front of it to warm up before I get dressed and then do some bits and bobs around the house. By the time I have finished it is nice and toasty so I can get changed comfortably.

This morning, however, the kerosene had run out. I turned the aircon heating on but it made barely and difference and desperately tried to warm my clothes by putting them under my kotatsu (a low table with a heating element on the bottom). It was horrendous and meant that I took forever to get ready as I just didn`t want to take of my snug dressing gown. There was even ice on the INSIDE of my windows and my toothpaste had started to freeze (damn me for mocking the other JETs that this had already happened to). From now on I am making sure I have fuel for the heater.

This was the first time that I felt very appreciative of the fact that I don`t live in the parts of Japan that have really cold winters. An hours drive over the mountain that I live by and you get to at least a meter of snow and minus temperatures all winter long. I even heard a story about someones entire toilet bowl freezing over.

Sapporo Snow Festival

Too long to wait!

Even though it is a Monday morning I am very excited. I have a nice busy schedule this week so don`t have much time to sit around being bored. But that isn`t why I am really excited. This Sunday I will be heading up to Sapporo to see the Yuki Matsuri (Snow Festival) and as a result having almost the whole of next week off from work. Again, having time off isn`t actually why I am looking forward to it (although it definitely helps!)- it is that I am finally going to see the Yuki Matsuri.

Ever since I first came to Japan as a lowly volunteer I have wanted to see it. I remember scanning my rough guide for places to travel at the end of my six month stint and being sorely disappointed that I didn`t finish my placement until three days after the snow festival had finished, making it impossible to make it up there.

The next time I came to Japan I actually made it to Sapporo. But, that was in uni summer holidays so I was a good six months out of season. Then, when I was here for a year in Yokohama I wasn`t rolling in money, and chose to go on holiday to Okinawa to visit my friend Alice with all my Yokohama friends instead. This turned out to be a great decision as it was possibly the most fun I have ever had on a holiday. But it also meant no Sapporo and not knowing at the time that I would be back in Japan now, had written it off for another holiday to Japan sometime.

Five years later and I am finally completing my Japan travels- I think I have been to almost everywhere that I would possibly want to go to now. Although there are many more great places to see in Japan, there is nowhere that I feel like my `Japan journey` is incomplete if I haven`t visited them. I would love to go Island hopping down in Okinawa but I don`t think I am ever going to have time to do that.

On the weekend...

Didn`t get up to much this weekend. Had a movie night on Friday with Jen and Gemma- spread the High School Musical love. It was Jen`s birthday party on Saturday night and we went to the Asahi beer factory for all you can drink beer and yakiniku (meat bbq type thing). It was fun to catch up with all the other JETs. I ended up getting very drunk after a rather large sambuca and have little memory from about 9.30. Needless to say, Sunday was spent hungover..