Hokkaido!!!

I just got back from my trip to Hokkaido. It was amazing. I love snow!!

I went with my friend Angelina who lives on the other side of the prefecture from me. She was part of the Okinawa crew as well. This time it was just us 2. There were 4 others who also went but because we booked our package after them, we ended up at a different hotel. We tended not to be on the same rhythm so we didn't see them very much.

Angelina and I had a great time. Our first night, we took it easy. The other 4 went for all you can eat and drink. Angelina was getting over the flu and I wasn't really feeling the need to go all out drinking on the first night. It's not really a good move for a vacation, especially a short one with limited time. So we went to our hotel and settled in. There just happened to be a shodo shop right next door. (Oh, yeah, I never did get to those updates I mentioned. Shodo is Japanese calligraphy. Well, I guess it's really Chinese since the characters come from China. But it's a hobby that I picked up after the new year. I go to a class at a shrine in my city with a woman from work. It's a lot of fun.)

So, we made a stop in there and bought some stuff to do shodo with. I had brought my kit of shodo stuff with me since I had forgotten back at the mid-year seminar and I was only able to pick it up on the way out of town to Hokkaido. So, I figured we could do some artsy stuff while in the hotel room. The lady was really nice. We of course were polite and spoke in our best Japanese. At the end, she asked where we were from. Angelina, Canada and me, USA. But we mentioned we lived in Kagawa. Then, she ran off and came back with gifts. For some reason, that happens to us a lot. I guess it's what you get for being nice and talking with people and giving communication a try. She gave us these cool stationary sets. Then we walked through the nearby park where we found some snow sculptures. We started to take pictures at one that had 2009 carved into it. But a man said, "Wait, wait, wait!!!" and ran off into a building. We could see through the window that he was picking up a plastic crate of some sort. We were a bit confused. When he returned, he offered us these oddly shaped things. They were costumes of sorts. The 2009 was carved into the bottom of a snowman. The top was the hat that you wear as you stand behind it so it looks like you are a snowman. They had another hat too. It was too funny. We were the first visitors apparently. So he was really excited. On our way out of the park we of course had to make snow angels. You can't pass up that opportunity when it presents itself.

After, we decided to walk around to find a restaurant. I knew the direction of the train station station, so I figured if we walked in that direction, we would start running into busier sections with restaurant choices. But we kept walking and walking and nothing. We finally started heading back towards the hotel and found a place to eat. The next day when we tried to go to the main park, we kept walking and walking down the same street. I knew it would be a good distance away so we kept walking. Angelina just happened to mention some street signs that had numbers and directions. Like West 13, South 4 or something. It made something click from when I read through the Sapporo (Hokkaido's capital city and host of the snow festival) part of the guidebook. They numbered their streets north/south based on the park and east/west based on a river. The numbers didn't match what I thought they should with how long we were walking. I thought maybe I had mistaken the direction of the station. We walked one more block and it changed to West 14. That meant we had been heading parallel to the park the entire time. 14 was the end of the park, but at 0 North/South. So we just had to head 4 blocks north. A bit silly on my part. But with that, we came into the park where there was this old building and a nice secluded feeling area with trees and lots of snow. So we took some pictures and then decided it was time to make snowmen. We did western style ones - 3 balls. In Japan, the yukidaruma only have 2 balls. But after we spent a few hours walking the 14 blocks of the park where the snow festival is held and back, someone had altered our snowmen. My Herbert had inexplicably gone from 3 to 2. And it wasn't an accident, as if the head had just fallen off. The head was there, but the middle section was gone. And it was nowhere to be found. But it was fine, because he matched Franklin's height.

It was an amazing 4 days. Too short though. But I got to play in the snow which was my biggest goal. We sledded and played snow golf and made snowmen and slid down ice slides and ice skated and threw snowballs and icicles and made snow angels and all that. And though it was clear skies on the first and last days of the trip, which was nice for traveling in and out of Hokkaido, it was all kinds of snowy during the middle two days. I could go into detail about the whole trip, but it would probably just get boring. I suggest going to a snow festival if you ever can.

Pictures to be posted when my camera battery gets recharged. I forgot that it and the spare were both used up.

The Mountain Top

I've been meaning to hike to the top of a mountain in my town. You can look around from my apartment and see all these mountains around. Finally, on Tuesday, I got the urge to do it, wrote it on my after school to do list and managed to keep the desire going when I got home. When I've thought about hiking like that, I've always worried that I wouldn't find a good place to start, because houses and farms butt right up against the bottoms of the mountains. But I luckily chose a good mountain and the right side of it to go up. There was a shrine at the bottom of it and behind the shrine I found a trail that was maintained and led all the way to the tip top. It was nice. It was a nice way to get my legs moving again after the 20k on Sunday, and it finally gave me a chance to see all of Takase from above, something I've been wanting to do. So without further ado, here are the pictures:

This is the heart of Takase, Katsuma. In the distance and to the right is Ninomiya. To the left of that behind the first row of mountains is Asa. To the left outside the picture is Kamitakase and Hiji is to the lower right and out of the picture.

This is the view toward Mino and, further out, Takuma. They are also towns in Mitoyo City. You can see some of the islands in the Seto Inland Sea in the distance. I knew I was close to the sea, but when I was on the mountain I could see it so clearly.

I'd definitely like to make the hike again and regularly. And find other trails to go up.

Half-Marathon

Well I learned about the half-marathon back in September. It was on February 3rd. I thought it would be cool to do another one (did one on Thanksgiving 2006 with my dad and sister). No big deal. Except a few months later and I haven't kept up with my running. Then I'm on vacation in Thailand and Cambodia. I often use vacations to jump-start my running regime back home. But this one didn't really lend itself to running a lot. So it was my New Year's resolution (one of many) to start running again and do the half-marathon no matter what. At the mid-year seminar several people said they were going to do and that they probably were going to just register the day of. Great. I'm a procrastinator so that suited me. I managed to get serious about running again for the past two weeks. Saturday night I check the marathon website to see when late registrations would begin. Except they don't have any. Had to register by Saturday at 5. I text a few friends who seem convinced that you can still race. I go to Marugame for the marathon. No dice. I'm pretty pissed at myself. I had 5 months to figure it out and register. And I blew it. And that was after telling several people I was racing. Including a class of 34 students. Great. But I was determined. So I went back home. Relaxed a bit since the morning was sort of rough to begin with. I woke up at got a migraine which put me out of commission for an hour or so and I left later than I wanted and had to race for a train. I didn't pack up everything I wanted and then the whole not being able to register really sucked too. So after I calmed back down a bit. I loaded up. I was going to run my own half-marathon. I picked this town in Mitoyo that's way back in the mountains with no train station. I said I'd just run to that for about an hour and 15 minutes and then run back. That would be about a half-marathon. You should have seen me. I had my provisions stuffed inside my underarmor. I managed to also stuff in my iPod and my digital camera. It was a great run. The best I've felt in a long time. I let myself stop and take pictures occasionally. Never more that 2 minutes and maybe a total of 10 times the whole run. I think a couple times I stopped for closer to 5 minutes. I was technically in the town by the hour fifteen mark, but I wasn't to a place where I had been before and I wanted to keep running. So I jogged around the town some before heading back. I ended up being gone from 12:15 until 3:45. So probably a bit farther than 20k. But it was good. Here are some of the pictures I took while out. You'll see that cherry blossom season is soon upon us. Apparently there will be official cherry season watchers who will announce when it's officially time to go cherry blossom viewing.

PS. Sorry about the single paragraph. I sometimes forget to indent when I should and I'm too lazy to go back and find the right spot.

One of the first pictures of the run. Some dumped mikan (oranges). Guess after all the freezes they weren't good anymore. Typical Japanese farmer's truck in the background.


Abandoned van. Orange grove in the background.


Mountain views. The ridge to the right is entirely bamboo forest. Cool huh?


And here's a sideview of the bamboo forest.


These are some of the first cherry blossoms.


A mini-snowman. Notice only made of two balls of snow. That's the Japanese way apparently. And his eyes are mikan. Probably because they are everywhere this time of year. And about a dollar will buy 3 or 4 kilos.