Burning Arrows

Happy 2008 Everyone!

In Japan, the new year celebration is the big annual event and we did our best to take part although we weren't hanging out with Japanese people so we had to improvise. A few nights ago a friend introduced us to a German pub. The pub is ironically run by an American who cooks really authentic German food and serves really great beer. The beer is from a nearby microbrewery (run by the same guy) who boasts their own talented german beer engineer who attends the pub and introduces each handcarfted ale in Japanese to a nearly passed out crowd (seems that the Japanese fake beer is more their style). This pub was having a new year's eve party and since we didn't have plans, we thought we would go there for dinner and a pint before heading to a shrine to ring in the new year - literally.

Dinner was excellent and the beer of choice was a limited edition ice bock (they freeze the bock beer - bock is a strong flavoured 9% alc beer - and skim off the ice to concentrate the beer and alc.). The beer was way too tasty and at 13% it was a good thing that there were only a couple of glasses per person. The owner was short staffed for the night and we were all given glasses and told which taps had which beer and the night was "self-serve". Crazy - the guy beside us was sending his 7 year old up to the kegs to pour his beer! We got a chance to have turkey (well, Shawn did at least as he had the very last order left in the kitchen) so that was a rare treat too.


After dinner we took the subway back in search of a shinto shrine where Japanese people go to greet the new year. They do this in a couple of ways. One thing that some people do (we have learned that the "Japanese traditions" that are supposed to be very strict are actually very plastic and dependant on the region, because Hokkaido is so recently colonized, there is an interesting mix of traditions here dependant on the region of origin) is to "burn an arrow" at the shrine. The arrow was traditionally burned on the new year and replaced with a new one, a symbol of renewal. Our understanding is that some people burn other things now.

My attempts to convince Shawn to burn his slippers that he has loved nearly to complete destruction were futile. He insisted that he can't burn them until he has a replacement and given what we have seen here, we won't find size 13 slippers in Japan anytime soon. Hint hint Auntie M!! Instead, we decided to burn a rolled sheet of paper on which we wrote something about 2007 that we wanted to renew or something that we planned to do differently. On reflection, I think that it was a worthwhile excersise and may become part of our regular new years tradition. In the end, we were in the wrong area of town and didn't find the shrine, so we came back to our apartment, played auld lang syne, popped the cork on a mini champagne and burned our notes.


Another thing that is done at the shrine is the bell is rung 108 times. This is meant to sybolize the 108 earthly desires. I am curious to see the list - 108 is an interesting number. I am not sure what exactly ringing the bell is supposed to do about these desires, but it probably has something to do with getting the attention of the shinto gods. It seems that they have a busier social calendar than most gods and aren't always just sitting above the shrine waiting for a whiny human to come along and say a prayer - you have to make noise before praying to get their attention. We were really hoping to get a chance to ring the bell, but since we didn't this year, we will have to find a place to do it next year.

On the first we took a look at a map and decided to go the "easy" route and go to a temple that was big and easy to find. It seems that we weren't the only people who had this idea. Here is a photo of the crowd lined up to get into the shrine. This was basically how crowded it was right from the subway and along the 6 blocks or so it took to walk to the steps. Once inside we bought our fortune for the coming year (the last place we did this at there was an english version - this time, we had no idea what our fortune was.... I guess that can be a good thing). If your fortune is bad, you are supposed to tie it and leave it at the shrine for the monks to burn. Since we weren't sure what ours was, we thought it would be best (and more fun) to tie it and leave it. Here is Shawn tying his in a tree, and I tied mine on the rack provided.












We also purchased our arrows for next year while we were at the shrine. They were expensive, but it will be fun to burn them one year from now. There were all sorts of trinkets for sale inside the shrine and with the prices that they were going for, it seems that the shrine uses the new year as their annual fundraising event. As we left the shrine we walked past rows and rows of food vendors, hot sake carts and cotton candy. Here is a photo of one of the snack carts - grilled whole squid, steamed snails (big ones) and..... corn? Overall, it was more of a carnival atmosphere than a religious experience, but well worth the cold toes and hour of standing in the crowd to see it.

So goodbye 2007 - Hello 2008. In the coming year, I resolve to learn to speak more Japanese (I imagine that if I don't, it will be a tortuous year).

Flag Football in the Snow

The day before Christmas Eve, Shawn and I went with one of the students from my lab to play in a flag football tourney. The catch, of course, was that it is in the snow. I was a bit cold watching the first game of the day, but once the sun came out it was nice.

The event was fully sponsored by some meat company in town so they put on a bit spread of grilled noodles and marinated lamb BBQ (they call it gengis kahn). So we spent the day standing around in the snow, eating delicious food and in the end Shawn played 5 games and their team (the Gamblers - click to link to the team website) ended up winning the whole event with a narrow win over a high school team. As you could imagine, it was nail-biting good fun! Here is a picture of the lamb BBQ guy. He was cooking practically all day.

The games were essentially what we would see at home. Same rules, high fives on a good pass, teams playing up and allowing the girls to make incredible tape to tape touchdown runs. The only difference (and one that Shawn and I giggled at each time it happened) is that after the game the teams come together and line up at centre facing one another. The referee stands between them and reads out the score and acknoleges the winner. The instead of three cheers, of shaking hands, the teams bow to one another. It definately added a Japanese flavour to an otherwise north american day. Here is a photo of the Gamblers bowing to their opposition after a game.

We were the only white people at the event and there were many high school aged students in attendance. This made us the target of many Hello's followed by uproarious laughter (apparently speaking English to white people shows how tough you are to your friends). It also made Shawn the talk of the event. He played quaterback most of the time and I overheard the words "CFL" and "bery stlong" often when he was out playing. The other teams would set up for defence and play rock paper scissors to see who had to defend the foreign guy. As a side note, rock paper scissors is a common way that Japanese people decide all sorts of things like who has to cook dinner, who gets the last bowl of rice, or who has to read the mail for the annoying foreign researcher who can't even read her own mail.

Christmas in Nihon

For both Shawn and I, this is the first Christmas we will spend outside of the comfy border of Canada. Shawn mentioned that to me the other night over dinner. I hadn't really thought about it I guess, but now that it is on my mind, it feels strange and wrong. Despite being so far away, there is still a festive'ish atmosphere here because the big new year celebration is coming soon.

One thing that happens at the end of the year here is a "year end party". They call it a boonenkai and it usually involves a big night of drinking with workmates. Most office groups head out on a sort of pub crawl in the big nightlife district in Sapporo. Our lab decided to go to an onsen resort on the outskirts of town called Jozankei (this is the place that I went to for a conference and blogged about in Fall Spectacle)

It was nice to return to this hotel without having conference talks to attend and while there are fewer other guests in the hotel (we pretty much had the place to ourselves). It has a great waterpark in the basement and 4 different onsens - all are beautiful. Shawn came with us and he got his first tast of onsen. Here is a photo of him in his yukata. These are provided in the rooms so that the guests can spend the weekend lounging in Japanese wear (and they do - they wear this to and from onsen, to dinner, to breakfast - everything).


After returning from Jozankei, we stopped in at our favorite watering hole for a drink and ran into a bunch of friends there. They were celebrating a birthday and invited us to come along to karaoke with them. It was late, and we had to work the next day, but who can resist karaoke? So here are a couple photos of Shawn and I belting it out in the karaoke box. I have to admit that it is more fun than I anticipated. You don't sing in front of a big room of strangers, you get a small booth for you and your friends, access to any songs you want, all you can eat snacks and drinks and a server who brings it all to you - pretty good for 5 bucks an hour).



This weekend we will go to another boonenkai. This one will be mostly foreigners who are working or studying at the university, so although we are calling it a boonenkai, it will be more of a Christmas party. We will do a gift exchange and maybe sing some Christmas carols so it should be fun. On Christmas eve, we have a reservation for dinner at a pub (OK, yes, our favorite pub, again) where they will serve turkey and homemade eggnog. I can't wait for turkey especially since I missed out on Thanskgiving. Christmas dinner will be spent with a couple of friends that Shawn works with. They are both from New Zealand and are married to Japanese women. They both have young children so we will get our requisite dose of oversugared children at Christmas.

So we have cobbled together a makeshift Christmas here in Japan. It will be fun and keep us busy. We didn't get around to sending Christmas cards this year - so I will take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

Japanese Snowmobile Guide

I am sure that from the title of this blog, some of the readers can make an educated guess at what the latest news from us is. Yup - Shawn has a job in Sapporo as a snowmobile guide. He went for an interview today and charmed the pants off the Japanese owner. The company is called Snowmobile Land Sapporo.

I don't think that Shawn anticipated having a job so soon, but this will be more like play time than a job for him. We met a Canadian english teacher at our favorite pub a couple of weeks ago who had been a snowmobile guide last year. We got out our notebooks and squeezed every bit of information that we could from the guy in case we never ran into him again (and so far we haven't). From there Shawn started searching companies online and sending emails. After the last big snowfall, he made the public transit trek across town to Snowmobile Land Sapporo and walked in and told them that he wanted a job and was ready to work. The owner was a bit reluctant to hire another foreigner (there apparently have been problems in the past) but we, like the owner, have all been a victim of Shawn's amazing charisma and there he is now - working in Japan.

We will post more details as they materialize. Anyone interested in a snowmobile excursion to Japan??? I know a really cool English speaking tour guide!

Biking in the Snow

We finally have snow in Sapporo. A few nights ago Shawn and I went for dinner with an American friend who will be finishing up her research (biomedical engineering) next week and heading back to the US. While filling our bellies with delicious kaiten sushi, the snow started to fall and we emerged from the station to a beautiful, fat crunchy blanket of white covering the city. Shawn and I have been waiting patiently for the snow (=yuki) to arrive, we have been told that it is late this year.

Most people, us included, rode bikes to work that morning so were stuck with a bike to ride home on in the snow. This is a fun experience and when the snow is fresh and crunchy (like the kind that is good for making snowballs and snowmen) then the bike has great traction and is no problem to ride. At the top is a photo of our bikes outside a Japanese pub (of course we stopped for a pint on our way home). And here is a photo of Shawn riding in the snow (poor quality - sorry).

The effective traction that fresh snow affords isn't the case the next morning once the snow is hard and icy however. Which reminds me that I have learned a load of new things about riding bikes that I wasn't aware of before. I have been meaning to share them, so this seems like an appropriate time.

1. In Japan, locking your back tire is simply an indication that the bike doesn't have a flat tire or faulty chain and has therefore hasn't been abandoned. Bike theives would have a heyday here!
2. When riding your bike on wet black ice, it is best to avoid any form of turning or stopping (the streets and sidewalks here have been covered with black ice for about 2 weeks now and they don't use salt or gravel).
3. Talking on a cell phone while driving a car in Japan is illegal. Riding your bike with an umbrella in one hand while writing a text message on your cell phone with the other is commonplace. Stay out of the way of these guys, they WILL mow you over.
4. When riding in the winter, never, ever, ever forget your gloves in the morning.

It is nice to have snow now, and it reminds me of home. One thing that I have definately felt the absence of here is breakfast. Japanese breakfast is usually leftover dinner from the night before and includes fish and rice. A common breakfast here is leftover rice with a raw egg on top and a splash of soy sauce. I can hardly bring myself to look at that in the morning let alone eat it. Another small victory this weekend was the discovery of a relatively inexpensive import grocery store where we found.... real salsa!!!

The store was a bit random in the items it had, so we couldn't find everything that we have been craving but here is a photo of a few of the gems that we were able to acquire. TimTam's are a chocolate cookie from Australia (possibly one of the best sotre-bought cookies in the world), salsa, pickles, real cheese and Ferrero Rocher (having this on our shelf helps to make it look like Christmas is around the corner!).

These groceries laid the foundation for a fantastic Sunday brunch (shown here). Shawn and I slept late and then he made me a huge omlette with real salsa on it. I had a nice cup of coffee (coffee from most cafe's here is sour and way too strong - homemade coffee is tolerable - they also drink a LOT of instant coffee here... yuck!) and he had OJ. Then we took the subway (=chikatetsu) out to a "mountain" on the edge of Sapporo where we had a nice, quiet walk to the top. From there we had a great view of the city covered in fresh snow. I could get used to days like that.

The Land of Vending and Conveni's

We have returned from the last field trip of 2007. The field season was extended by a few weeks because we had to return to one of the sites to do work that was prevented because of fowl weather (see previous blog "Posiedon's Trident" for details). Shawn came along and helped out with the work, it was certainly nice to have someone with me who understands me (both in language and personality) and who is easy to be with. It was fun to watch him interact with the students and to see unique ways in which different people manage to communicate through a language barrier.

The work went well again and we were finished a bit earier than expected. Shawn got a chance to practice his rock dentistry skills and the students learned just how big human feet can be. They had to phone all of the outdoor gear shops in Sapporo on Friday before we left to find the biggest pair of chest waders in Sapporo (there turned out to be only one pair), then drive there to get them for Shawn. Even then they were a touch too small, but Shawn tolerated cold toes and cramped feet without complaint.

The road trip there was fun and Shawn got a chance to see some of the Hokkaido countryside. On the way, we stopped to grab a bite at a highway pull out. Inside there was a nice big washroom and a small area to buy snacks. There were about 10 vending machines along the wall of this place and you could buy virtually everything from them. As an aside, this is not unusual in Japan and at any given location you are likely to be only a block or two away from a vending machine. This one in particular gave us a good laugh. It dipenses "casual frozen foods" 24 hours a day (like a vending machines have a union or something). The machine is full of packets of frozen chicken fingers, fries, octopus balls (a common snack here) etc, then when you put the money in it drops the packet into a microwave that nukes it for you. The food comes out hot and ready to eat. Too funny!

Another thing that is all too common here is convenience stores (called "conbini"). There are a number of different types, but they all have relatively the same things for sale. They sell ready to eat foods like balls of rice wrapped in nori, bento, udon, sandwiches etc. Everything I have tried are edible and not nearly the scary event that eating at 7-11 in North America is; although I have steered clear of the "spaghetti" sandwiches. They also sell all kinds of canned drinks (usually about 25 different types of chilled green tea), wine and beer, chips, magazines and other assorted things that you find in regular convenience stores. It took me a couple of weeks of grabbing a coffee (=small can of horrible sweetened milky coffee) at the conbini before I asked someone why they don't sell hot coffee in these places. Ha! The answer is that they do, but it is cleverly disguised as cold coffee! The hot coffee shelf is beside the cold coffee shelf and looks exactly like a fridge, except instead of chilling the contents it heats them. Sneaky! Here's a photo of the "hot coffee and tea" in a conbini.

The conbini's are certainly convenient and there isn't a time of day or night that you can't go there to buy a snack or drink to tide you over. I was also impressed by the integration of these stores into life here in Japan. All new vehicles and rental cars come with a GPS mapping package that is pre-loaded with locations of 7-11's and Mosburger (their version of McDonald's) so that you can find them easily. Even the paper road maps that you can buy have these things integrated into them. And don't forget mapquest, anything that you look up here can be identified relative to the nearest Seicomart, Lawsons or 7-11!

Office Construction

Shawn and I have settled in a bit and are having a more normal life here in Sapporo. Shawn did a great job of hunting down the extra furniture that we needed and planning a fun filled weekend last weekend.

We started off on Friday night with a visit to the German market in a park downtown. Sapporo's sister city is Munich and as a tribute, they host an outdoor German market every December where you can enjoy German sausage and kraut and a glass of mulled wine. It was nice, and very Christmas-y so felt comfortable. The park is lit up with all kinds of Christmas lights (a welcome surprise here in Japan) and we took walk along the park among the lights. Above is a photo of Shawn and Santa at the market and another of the lights in the park.

The next day, we went with some friends to the Sapporo Dome to watch a soccer match. That was fun and the fans were incredible. You would have thought, by the precision and relentlessness of the cheering that we were watching the final of the world cup - not a regular season division 2 match. To be honest, the quality of the play wasn't quite what I expected, but the fans and the Sapporo Dome were something to see. Here is a photo of the fans, who with impressive collective order and accuracy, spelled out words and sung numerous songs through the whole game.

The security at the Dome was also fun. We attended the game with a seasoned vetran (a postdoc from California) who advised us of what to expect at the game. Knowing our Canadian perspective, he advised us to buy a beer at the grocery store on the way to the game. He also told us that cans weren't allowed inside the Dome. I thought that we would smuggle these beers in... but no. The system is that you are provided as many plastic cups as you need at the security check and helpful security gaurds will assist you in pouring your beer into the provided cups, then sort your recycling for you. And of course, the cups are exactly the right size for one extra large can of beer. Funny!

The next day, Shawn bravely helped me to create a new office space. I have been totally disappointed with the "office" that I was provided with (it was small, crowded, dirty and I was beside the door and the food station where about a dozen students would walk in and out all day long and cook rice and re-heat curry). Needless to say, I wasn't getting much work done and didn't like being there. Shawn and I took matters into our own hands on Sunday and re-organized some boxes that were stored in the research labo and cleaned a corner and made a makeshift office. The room is a little drafty, but at least it is quiet and private and I already feel like I will be more productive here. Above is a photo of me at my previous desk (Shawn was sly and took this without me knowing - I didn't actually want memories of the old office space preserved), and another of Shawn standing on my new desk and covering the hold in the window with a piece of tarp.

Overall, he has been far too good to me and has made me dinner, battled with the washer and washed laundry and sat with me over a glass of wine and tolerated my whine-ing. I don't know what I will do once he has work and no longer has the time to be my full-time mental stability engineer and social co-ordinator. Here is a photo of us enjoying some Australian wine in our living room last night.

Ootsuchi Sweet Shop

The professor who was doing field work with us took his students and I on a outing while we were in Sanriku. He took us to a scenic lookout and showed us where all of the field sites were relative to one another. Above is a photo of one of the bays (Yamada Bay), the research site is on the right side of the mouth of this bay. There is a really cool Shinto shrine along the waterfront behind the research plots here. The floats that are in the bay are mostly oyster, kelp and some scallop culture bouys.

The next stop on our excursion was a sweet shop down some back alley in a small neighbouring town. It was a beautiful traditional spot that made traditional Japanese sweets and North American type treats as well (like cheese cake etc). Everything on offer was immaculately prepared and looked as if it was ready for a magazine shoot. We orderer our treats and sat in a beatifully crafted traditional style room and waited for service. Every detail in the room was intentional and perfect, from the minimal decor right down to the shadows cast by bamboo leaves outside the building on the rice paper covered window. The students seemed as impressed as me and took more photos than I did (that was nice because it made me feel like less of an outsider).

The food was perfectly prepared and more of a work of art than a snack. I had rice flour balls with three different dipping sauces, the dish is called omochi. The sauces (left to right in the photo) are sweet edamame sauce, walnut cream sauce (=tochi) and sesame paste (the black one, I liked this one best, called goma). All treats were served with a cup of matcha tea in beautiful hand crafted mugs. There was a cast iron pot of water over charcoal in the middle of the room so we were able to make more tea if we wanted. We all took turns making a second cup of matcha - here is a photo of the professor who took us on the trip making matcha. The students were impressed that I was able to froth up a pretty cup of matcha and again, they all seemed relatively in the dark about the how to make a cup properly but gave it a good try when it was their turn.

It was great to throw a touch of Japanese culture into this field trip and I can't wait to find a place like this in Sapporo that I can take Shawn to. It felt very relaxing to sit in such a peaceful and well planned space, even if it was just for tea and sweets.

Sanriku Field Work

The ferry ride to Honshu was an experience not to be missed while in Japan. The crossing is an 8 hour trip from eastern Hokkaido to northeastern Honshu. We boarded the ship at about 11:30 on Thursday night and arrived at 8:30 the next morning. The ship was smaller than the Spirit Class BC ferry and maybe about the size of the Queen class boats. It has 3 vehicle decks and a couple of passenger decks. The passenger decks have virtually no seats (I was told that you have to pay extra to sit in the few chairs that were available). Instead there are large carpeted areas where everyone sits on the floor and eventually streches out and sleeps (photo above, sorry about the poor quality, but I think it was weird enough taking a photo of people sleeping so I didn't improve on it). The only provision is a weird vinyl block pillow. It seemed like you could rent blankets if you needed to (although they kept it hot enough in there that I can't imagine why you would pay for a blanket).

The trip along the exposed Pacific coastline can apparently be pretty rough so I took a couple of gravol just in case and tried to settle in to sleep. The fact that they chain every vehicle to the deck of the ship demonstrates how rough of seas they expect to encounter. Here is a photo of a transport truck chained down to the deck. Despite my efforts at a drug induced slumber, I only slept sproradically throught the night. A man about 5 feet to my right was snoring like a chain saw - nevermind that he was also ripping off booming flatulence for most of the night. People's phones and alarms were ringing through the night too and that was a repeated source of sleep interruption. Needless to say, I was glad to arrive at our destination. We had a 4 hour car ride from the port to the marine station (this time a station associated with Tokyo University) so I made up some sleep while the students drove.

As an aside, I should note that Japanese people have an impressive abiltiy to sleep despite the conditions or location. I have now, on many occasions, seen people sleep through what I find difficult and uncomfortable to be awake through. Not only can they sleep anywhere and anytime (at their desk, on the subway, standing in line...), they also can somehow wake up at precisely the right moment (their stop on the train, the instant that it is their turn in line...). It is a desirable skill in a lot of ways I think. Anyway, back to Sanriku field work...

This station, called the International Coastal Marine Research Station, seems to be a much nicer lab facility and fits more closely with my expectation of a Japanese Marine Research Station. The dormitory is nicer than the previous one too, although the kitchen is still lacking and smelly to say the least. The first night of work started slowly for me with constant errors on my part. I took photos of one site with the camera settings wrong so had to delete and start over. Then took the photos over with the incorrect grid pattern (this field site uses a differnt grid than we did at the last two locations - thanks for the heads up on that one!) so had to delete another 40 photos and start again. Once I finally got rolling things went quickly. The weather on night one was very cold but at least it wasn't raining or blowing. I was bundled up in 4 layers of pants and 5 layers of shirts so only my hands were cold - credit to the hundreds of cold nights of outrigger practice for steeling me to dark and cold ocean work.

The weather has improved and last night's work was fast and productive. We will finish sampling tonight but our group will be unable to leave because we have to wait to have a piece of equipment delivered that was left behind. So we will be delayed by one day to download temperature data that we can only do with this specific piece of equipment - bummer. The real kick in the behind is that we will wait around for another day after that so that we can take another midnight ferry ride back (the students prefer the night ferry trip over the daytime one that would get us back 12 hours sooner - we voted and I was outnumbered 3-1).

On this trip we had a group from Chiba University (north of Tokyo) here helping with the work. They are from the lab there that is collaborating on this project. Many hands made light work and we were able to complete the work in half the time. The professor from that lab was here too and he speaks excellent English (did his PhD in the US) and is comfortable speaking. It was surprising to me how much of a difference that made to me. Not only could he accurately communicate to me what needed to be done and what time things were happening, he was also forthright in doing so. Wow! Who knew that it could be this easy! The students are great and I appreciate their efforts, but because they don't like to speak with me (they are nervous about it or plain tired of it - who can blame them) I am left to bumble around without the information I need to actually make effective use of my time. Only one more round of field work (we have to re-do the site where we had bad weather) and then I can work on my own again for a few months.

Here is a photo of the Marine Research Station and dorms (dorms are the white building on the furthest right). One of the research plots is located on the far right rocky bit of shore shown in the background of this photo. At this location we have 5 of the 150 plots involved in this project. There is a jetty (foreground of the photo) directly out from the station and at the end is a Shinto shrine on a tiny island. I walked out to the shrine and looked out over the bay that is full of shellfish (oysters, scallops and mussels) aquaculture . Here is a photo of the the shrine at the end of the jetty. I have seen many Shinto shrines here and most are on tiny little islands like this or other scenic coastal locations. It would be nice to come back and see them again in daylight.

Blizzard Move In

Shawn spent the day today moving us into our new flat. It is a nice place and we are both looking forward to living there. I am leaving in about 5 minutes for the ferry to Sanriku so this will be a short blog. I did want to share this photo of Shawn and our friend Paul's car. The car was a huge help in moving (for obvious reasons) but unfortunately wasn't big enough for the mattress. And to make matters more complicated, by the time he got to the mattress moving load, it was starting to snow pretty heavily again. So here is a picture of Shawn with the mattress on the car and the snow coming down.

The good thing was that the drive there blew most of the snow off of the mattress so it wasn't too wet when he moved it in. Shawn plans to spend the weekend setting up the house and getting all of the rest of the things that we will need while I am off battling the wind and the waves for another few field days.

Cockroach Carriers

Shawn has been in Japan now for 1 week and seems to be coping well with life here. On his first night in Sapporo we went out for YakiNiku (basically pieces of meat cooked over charcoal at your table). It was expensive compared to other places, but I love the idea of BBQ'ing piles of meat right at your table. Shawn liked it and it was a good intro to yummy Japanese food. Here is a photo - on the grill are some pieces of pork and cow tongue.

We got the keys to our new apartment today. A huge relief, given that Shawn and I have been tripping over one another (nevermind our luggage) in the teeny little place that we were in now. My host researcher is the guarantor on our contract, so he had to phone the landlady yesterday to arrange a time to meet. He has been exceedingly helpful with silly things like making phone calls for me because I can’t speak well enough to phone people. He made the call and set up the appointment, then came back over to tell me the details. He was nervous and weird when he came back over and told me that the landlady is very anxious about letting us move in. As a landlord myself, I told him that I understand. He continued and said that she is nervous that we will have cockroaches. I am of course thinking that this is one of those language barriers and I said that I would be very unhappy if this nice apartment that we are paying a lot of money for has cockroaches. He said no, that wasn’t what he meant, he really meant that the landlady is worried that us dirty foreigners will bring cockroaches into our building.

We had a laugh over it and I told him that he must think that this is all very funny. He knows fully well that Canada is too cold for cockroaches (as is Sapporo for that matter) but he said that he told her he would pass on the message to us regardless. So this was my first encounter with an outwardly racist Japanese person. Not to worry though, she didn’t spray us down with de-lousing chemicals when we met her. Quite the opposite, she was very nice and it may have helped that I made sure that I had a gift ready to give her as a token of our appreciation for her allowing us to pay her loads of money to rent her house.

Shawn got a chance to see the new place and he is as relieved as I am that we will soon live in a proper place with a reasonable sized bathroom. After seeing the place again, I am confident that the furniture that I have acquired won’t all fit into the space. No matter though, I have a feeling that I will be able to offload a few things if needed. Here are a couple of photos of the place.


The leaves and the snow have fallen here in Sapporo. Winter arrives abruptly and it seems that both happened within a few days of each other. The first snowfall came the first morning that Shawn was here in Sapporo and it has been pretty cold and snowing ever since. Interestingly this weather hasn’t prevented the young Japanese women from wearing stiletto heeled boots and mini-skirts and riding bikes around town. It was comical walking to language lessons this morning in my down jacket all bundled up and watching cyclists crashing on almost every corner. I do tip my hat to the women who can walk (pigeon-toed slightly) in those crazy boots over curling-rink slick ice with bare skin exposed while sending text messages on their phone. Now that is dedication to fashion!

I am off to do more field work this weekend. I will be going to an area of the northeastern coast of Honshu (the main island of Japan). We tried to get Shawn permission to come along, but unfortunately that won’t be possible. So he will spend the next week or so exploring Sapporo on his own while I take an overnight ferry to Sanriku for frigid night work. I won’t be in touch for the time that I am gone because I will leave my computer for Shawn to use. I will be back in touch soon with news of Sanirku and the “interesting” ferry ride that will get us there – I have a feeling that BCFerries will suddenly feel like a long lost friend in my mind.

Tokyo Rendezvous

Shawn arrived a couple of days ago and met me in Tokyo. We have had a couple of days of fun, interrupted only by my mandatory attendance at the meeting of the JSPS fellows. It was evident that JSPS really meant it when they said that attendance at all lectures and workshops was mandatory when the meeting chair knocked on my hotel room door on the second day of the meeting when she noticed that I wasn't on time for the first lecture of the morning. I was hoping that I would get away with attending the odd lecture here and there and skipping out to go for lunch with Shawn but it was not in the cards. Shawn was understanding and spent the time while I was in meetings to wander around the Imperial Palace (photo above).

While Shawn watched Sumo on TV, I was on an evening “study tour” to Tokyo tower. We were there at sunset so we got a nice chance to view the city at dusk. It seemed that the city goes on forever and with the smog, you can't see anything beyond. I have included a photo of the city at twilight from the observation deck of the tower, and the tower from below lit with the signature orange light. That night Shawn and I headed to a pub with some other researchers that I had met at the meeting. We were all from pretty different research fields so the conversation was light and mostly centred on the shenanigans of a British seismologist who has been enjoying the night life in Hiroshima.

The next day we smuggled Shawn onto the bus with us for the all day Tokyo tour. I had found a fellow who was not attending the bus tour and got his name tag from him for Shawn to wear. Shawn spent the day as Sam, a postdoc working on string theory at Tokyo University. If anyone I know is creative enough to BS his way through string theory, it's Shawn! On the tour, we went to an earthquake simulation centre, the Edo-Tokyo Museum, and ended off at the oldest Shinto shrine in Tokyo, Senso-ji temple. Here is a photo of the shrine.

The shrine and Buddhist temple were built in 680 A.D. and were beautiful. We were told that this place was unique because it is not very common to have a Buddhist temple and a Shinto shrine next to one another although many Japanese people practice both religions. As expected, it was bustling with tourists which was a bit weird for me to see because I haven't really seen many white people around in Sapporo. We learned how to properly pray at both the Shinto shrine and the Buddhist temple (they are slightly different because you have to clap at the Shinto shrine to get the attention of the Shinto gods, while the Buddah is always listening so you don't have to clap). Here is a photo of me cleansing my hands and mouth at the temple fountain. And here is another photo of Shawn using the sacred smoke, which is considered a gift from Buddah, to clean his body of ailments.


We strolled the tourist trap area and enjoyed a cup of hot sweet sake and some very average kaiten sushi. Here is a picture of us having sake at a street vendor. We had a great time and saw some of the fun sights of Tokyo.
I found Tokyo to be a very easy place to be for a non-native speaker. There seems to be many more foreigners here and more Japanese people who are willing to make efforts to help out and to speak with you. It will be nice to return and see some more of the interesting and historical places in Tokyo. We are in the airport now on our way back to Sapporo. I am looking forward to showing Shawn our apartment and the university. Tonight, we will go for yaki niku (BBQ meat) and sleep late tomorrow.

I have now included Shawn as an author on the blog, so look forward to updates from him from both of us from now on. He writes as Booken (=adventure) and I write as Canadian Onna (=woman).

Poseidon Weilds his Trident

We have been in a holding pattern in our little marine research station near Hakodate (actually about 1.5 hour drive from Hakodate in a small fishing community called Donan). It seems that Poseidon had different ideas about whether we should continue with sampling at this location. The wave swells and wind have been far to strong and are preventing us from working here. We waited patiently in the car on the side of the road the past two nights for the tide to drop far enough for us to work, but the nami (=waves) were too high. Looking out from the shore at the station today, it looks like we are in for bigger waves tonight and the ocean is brown with sand for about 200 meters offshore.
This photo shows the shore directly in front of the dorm while the waves were still about 1.5 m swells (we had 3 m last night and are in for 4 m tonight). One of the students has told me that tomorrow's forecast is for bigger waves still. It is likely that we will be forced to throw in the towel and not complete sampling within this tide window and so be forced to return here in December. Nothing like ice-covered slippery rocks to crawl over at midnight.

At least I brought a lot of reading to do while here so I have been able to keep busy. The sky and sea are grey and the wind is cold and I find myself missing a crackling fire and a comfy couch right now. The chairs in the cafeteria (that is the only place to sit) are terribly uncomfortable and there are no couches or beds. I braved the wind and rain today and went for a walk to clear my head. I spent yesterday morning on the phone (via internet) in the wet lab next to the dorms. The lab is pretty thick with salt, fish and formaldehyde smells so I need some fresh air. I had a nice chance to chat with friends and family and at least for the first part of the conversations, the students were still in bed so I had a small bit of privacy (a luxury of late).

I am in Donan with three other students this trip and we were all starting to get a touch of cabin fever. At least there is a TV in the cafeteria and one of the students talked me through watching my first sumo match. I have to say that it is one of the least attractive sports I have ever seen, and if there wouldn't have been someone watching with me and explaining what was going on, I would not have had any interest in continuing to watch. The student who I watched with was right into it and that helped me to find the stomach to continue watching.


Later, the same student patiently taught me to cook a Japanese staple – Okonomiyaki. Basically it is pancake batter with shredded cabbage and carrots mixed in. The pancake is topped with whatever you want (for us: more cabbage, bacon, shrimp and cheese), then fried and flipped. It is served smothered in mayo and a sweet BBQ sauce. It is a heart-stopper, but it is tasty (and contained no trace of eyeballs or other fish parts that were difficult to place). Here are a couple of pics of the students cooking Okonomiyaki. They got a kick out of making me make and flip one for them but I cheated and made it small and easy to handle.


We will head back tomorrow (Monday here) then I will have one day to get laundry washed and re-pack my bags for a short trip to Tokyo. I am going there for a meeting of the JSPS funded scholars from around Japan (JSPS is the agency who has provided my research funding for this work in Japan). I will get half a day of meeting time in before Shawn arrives to meet me there. Once he arrives, I don't think that I will have very much interest in listening to difficult english (most of the other foreign scholars are from Asia) and lectures on "how to interact with your Japanese host". I guess I'll see if I am “feeling very sick” and need to leave the meeting early *wink*.