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.
