Beer, Pachinko and Nuts

On the weekend Shawn and I had a "tourist" day. We finally made it to the famed Sapporo Beer museum (click here to link to the website). It was small but interesting. The history of the company would have probably been more interesting had there been english on any of the signs. The factory itself dates back to the late 1800's and Sapporo beer has definately been a big part of modern Japan and Hokkaido in particular. Here are a couple of shots from the museum. The second one is the museum display that describes the steps in beer making - it looks more like a cute Christmas display - very Japanese.



After that we walked past Odori park and checked out the military's progress in preparing for the snow festival that will take place in a couple of weeks. Click here to see a link to that website. It looks like it will be quite a show and we are looking forward to seeing it - stay tuned for a future blog that with more once we check it out.

Our next stop on the tourist day trip was to see what pachinko is all about. Neither of us are really interested in gambling or slot machines, but Japan treats this game like a cultural icon. My language textbook even has it listed on the Japanese cultural passtimes alongside sumo and flower arranging, weird. And these places are always busy so we felt inclined to finally go in and check them out.

Pachinko parlors are noisy, really, really noisy. And pretty smoky, although there are non-smoking areas the whole place is open so you can't escape the smoke. We watched over a few people's shoulders to try to figure it out, then sat down at a machine and tried to start. One of the attendants finally came over and helped us get going. The game is basically pinball on speed. You pay money into the machine and get a pile of tiny metal balls then you use a dial to adjust the pressure that the balls are shot into the machine at. The balls are shot into the machine rapid-fire and you go through money pretty quickly. There is one "goal" or place that the ball goes into for you to "win". It is all pretty random and we certainly didn't do very well, but it was interesting to try.

Here are a couple of photos from the parlor that I managed to snap before being told that photography isn't allowed inside these places (probably related to the fact that gambling is illegal in Japan - they get around the definition of gambling with Pachinko by somehow paying out with "prizes" instead of money...).






We finished off the day at a downtown pub owned by an Australian guy. The pub was small and packed with foreigners (click here for a link to the pub's website). There was a big sumo match on the tv so we had a pint ate an amazingly good burger and fries and watched the match. The area of town that this pub is in (tanuki koji) is a popular tourist destination where bus tours release their clients to purchase cheap trinkets and souveniers. One theme in this area is statues and images of small mammals with oversized genitalia - it has something to do with luck. So here is one last image that I will share to extend some good fortune to you all!

Seriously Snowy

We moved here expecting a snowy city. And, having grown up in Revelstoke, I know what that means. Despite my mental preparation, I am happily surprised to see that this place is serious about snow. We are into the third straight day of big fat fun snow and I love it. I walked to the grocery store today and took a couple of pictures to share because a written description just doesn't do justice.

Here is a picture of our next door neighbour's driveway and vehicle - I don't think that he/she plans on going anywhere soon....


Here's a shot of one of the main streets near our place. The cars in the photo give you an idea of the size of the snow banks between the road and sidewalk. It feels like you are walking through a tunnel when you walk along the sidewalk.


And here is one of a car on our street. The plows aren't bothering with the side streets yet (they'll save that until 3:00 this morning - no sleep tonight). So the cars have made a narrow passage and are repeatedly getting stuck in the banks when they try to pass one another.


I have been waiting for people to stop riding their bikes here but even this much snow isn't deterring the hard core bikers. For some it makes sense because they have big sturdy mountain bikes with studded tires, but others are still riding flimsy little bikes in this weather - crazy.

We have ended up in a good situation with the apartment that we are in. My office is in walking distance. Shawn has a friend at work who lives close and so he gets a ride to work. We have a few friends with apartments within a few blocks of us so we don't have far to walk for some laughs and good conversation.

This kind of weather certainly doesn't bother me, in fact I like it (could have something to do with growing up in Revelstoke...). This weather is all about knitting or reading a book beside a nice warm fire with good music and a big mug of hot chocolate. Now, if I could only find somewhere that has a fireplace....

Snowy January

It has been snowing pretty steadily since the beginning of 2008. It is nice to live in a snowy city again for a winter. We have both been working lots lately and so haven't had many interesting stories that stick to share on the blog. Of course working is a relative term now that Shawn is a snowmobile guide and I will uodate you on some of the "work" he has been doing later in this post. First, I have some random winter observations that may or may not be interesting to a Canadian audience experienced and comfortable in the ways that we deal with heavy snowfalls and beatiful crip days.

One thing that has been incredibly impressive is the winter driving skills. I have rarely seen drivers that look dismayed by roads so icy that pedestrians have a difficult time staying upright when crossing them and have yet to see even a minor fender bender. One factor that I am sure contributes greatly is the tires. I don't know what they make winter tires with here or what technology goes into them, but I would bet that the same team that designs toilet seats also works on snow tires. We need to get our hands on this technology too.

Chains are also an everyday item instead of occasional use. Vehicles like buses, postal vehicles including scooters, and taxis all have chains on constantly, which helps to break up the packed snow on the roads and create some navigable places to cross the streets.

The sidewalks that are heated stay cleared of snow, but otherwise the snow gets walked on and left to become slick packed snow or blocks of ice which makes the walk in to work an excersice in balance. At the dollar stores you can buy what they call crampons, but are actually plastic straps that you can attach to your shoes that have little metal spikes on the bottom in case you need extra traction. A friend of ours actually went to a cobbler to get his boots "winterized". His boots now have short aluminum screws in the soles to give him some grab on the ice.


We have been surprised that the ice and snow and cold weather hasn't stopped the fasionable young Japanese women from wearing stilleto heeled shoes and mini skirts. We leave the house with down parkas, long johns, mittens, scarves wrapped around our faces and pass by these women with their perfect hair and exposed skin teetering along the sidewalk. That is commitment to a style. Makes me wonder how often they have to treat frostbite at the hospital here.

Toques are also a rarity here speaking of fasion. Aside from that no one knows what a toque is because that is a Canadian word - you just don't see people wearing them even when the weather is nasty windy. They will however wear juvenile looking earmuffs without worry.

I was surpirsed (not sure why) that all of the apartment buildings either have a small tractor that they use to move snow from the parking lots, or a big snowblower. After a big dump of snow everyone gets busy moving snow out of the parking lots - but still no one touches the sidewalks. The city, however, waits until 3:00 in the morning to plow (sort of, as there is always lots of snow left on the streets despite their efforts). I know this because we are roused every night by the beeping and grinding of the machinery and the requisite polite sounding recording of a Japanese woman asking for people to please be careful and excuse the noise. Every large verhicle and most lampposts have these same recordings that play on an incessant loop - the creepy thing is that the woman's voice is the same no matter where you are or what the message is.

Now onto Shawn's busy work schedule.... He is loving his job as a guide at Snowmobileland and he and his boss have an interesting rapport. We giggle over the text messages that he sends to Shawn in the evening. His favorite way of referring to Shawn is "big boy", a term he uses in most text messages - this is a happily married man, just to clarify. Here is one message that he sent at the close of a string of texts between he and Shawn - the message leading up to this one was Shawn saying "sleep well, see you tomorrow". I'll let you read the boss's response below.

Here are a couple of other shots of Shawn's work life. He and a coworker found an automatic weapon (bullets still in it) in one of the sheds on the property. They of course busied themselves for the afternoon posing photos of gunning down fleeing victims and other random Rambo'esque images.

The next shot is of the boss's mom (she's the real boss around there) riding on the newest addtion to the fleet. There will be a comedy show (slapstic comedy shows are HUGE on Japanese television) coming up to shoot an episode at SnowmobileLand in a couple of days and they are getting ready for the visit. Yesterday Shawn and a few of his new Japanese friends (also guides there) spent the day field testing this rig. Today mama'san and one of the cooks took a ride (Shawn's boss is the one driving the snowmobile).

Boarding at Kokusai

The past weekend was a long weekend in Japan. We had a nice long weekend, but both of us worked for part of it - I still don't get told of Japanese holidays until the day before the holiday. On Friday night we had some friends over for dinner. Shawn cooked us a nice meal and the Japanese woman who attended watched Shawn cooking away and me not helping him at all in utter amazement.

On Sunday we hit the slopes at a local ski hill called Kokusai. We bought a package ticket and for about $50 we bought a full day lift ticket, full gear rental (it wasn't until we got there that we realized that included ski pants and jacket if we wanted), and a bus ride to and from the hill. The bus ride up was about 1.5 hours and the weather was pretty chilly and windy but the snow conditions were great and we had a fun day.

Because it was a long weekend the hill was insanely busy and a lot of our day was spent in line - line for the bathroom; line for rental gear; line to get lunch; line to return rental gear; line for the skilift.... In Hokkaido the schoolkids get an extended holiday through almost the entire month of January. The thinking is that it will allow the munchkins to really enjoy the beautiful Hokkaido winter - so the hill was swarming with miniature speed demons ripping past us. The cafeteria was a ratrace as you could imagine, but as proof of my earlier statement that Japanese people can sleep anywhere - here is a photo of a guy dead asleep amid a loud and crowded cafeteria.

I spent the better part of the day with my face in the snow, but Shawn seems to have picked up snowboarding fully now and didn't fall much at all. I now have whiplash and very sore forearms from using my hands to break my falls. By the end of the day I was having more success though and I am looking forward to going out again in the hope that I will remain vertical more often than not. Overall the hill was really nice and had nice long groomed runs and the snow was great. We are looking forward to more days in the Hokkaido snow.

White Wedding

When one of the students in the lab first told me that he would invite me to his "wedding party" I thought that was nice but I probably wouldn't want to fork over the cash to travel all the way to Chiba (his home town to attend). When I opened the invitation, my mind changed. He had put together a beautiful invitation, but in addition to that he included a full translation of the entire thing just for me. He included a promise to help "compensate" those of us travelling to the wedding and to translate the entire wedding just for me. With an invitation like that, who can refuse. Here is a photo of the inviation.

Shawn and I left on Saturday morning. We flew to Tokyo and then took a train out to Makuhari (the city where the wedding was held). We arrived with enough time to enjoy a bit of Makuhari and took a nice long walk at a local Japanese garden and along the beach sunset. The beach there is the northern border of Tokyo Bay and we could just make out the Tokyo skyline through the smog. Makuhari is a beatiful modern city with amazing architecture. The hotels in the downtown are really something to see.


While we were walking in the garden we saw some young women wearing kimono. Their father told us that they were celebrating their 20th year. During January of the year that young people in Japan turn 20, they celebrate by wearing kimono and having some sort of party with friends and family. It was kind of a special treat for us to see these women in formal traditional clothing in a beatiful garden.

We stayed in a hotel that was.... well lets just say that it wasn't in the heart of Makuhari. Our breakfast was included with our stay, but I think that I have mentioned before that Japanese people don't eat what we think of as a typical breakfast. They were kind enough to bring us "American" breakfast, but the scrambled eggs were pretty raw and the weiners were still cold in the middle so we ended up in Starbucks after we checked out of the hotel.

Before we checked out, however, we asked the front desk staff for help preparing our wedding gift. In Japan, it is customary to give money instead of a gift, and the cash is supposed to be new notes directly from the bank (called shinsatsu). There are also special envelopes that are used for the cash which look deceptively like envelopes used for funerals - I asked repeatedly in the store when I bought it which one I was buying. I had been tipped off to these customs beforehand so was ready with the envelope and the crisp bills, but I was also told that there was a complicated way of placing the notes and folding the card back up. I had tried to get instructions online but failed, so in the morning conscripted the help of the front desk staff (photo below). It took 4 of them 10 minutes of consultation, a phone call to a friend, an internet search and a special pen, but they managed to do it for us.

The wedding was very fancy and not traditional Japanese style. We were made to feel like very special guests too because at every transition in the event, there was a staff person waiting in the wings who would appear in front of us and hand us a translation sheet describing what was ahead and directing us where to go. The ceremony was called Zinzen-shiki (=ceremony in front of guests). It is meant to be a "western style" wedding, and it was.... mostly. Some things were not quite what we would expect to see, but overall it was a western wedding. They got married in a church-style room, walked down the aisle, exchanged rings and made a pledge to each other. They also had a "first kiss" but that was a bit awkward and Shawn and I did well to keep from laughing out loud when he went in for a kiss and she turned away and he ended up kissing her forehead.

After the wedding we went out onto the steps of the "chapel" and threw rose petals on the new couple. The bride threw a bouquet for the single ladies in the crowd, but in proper Japanese form, the girls were too shy to catch it and it bounced off one girls head and landed on another's shoe and no one wanted to be the first to pick it up. I guy from the crowd picked it up and handed it to one the lady whose head got in the way initially.

With the ceremony out of the way, it was on to "party time". The lunch was held at the same hotel in a beautiful banquet room. The decorations were simple and beautiful and the food was amazing. We feasted on shark fin soup (ok, I wasn't tickled to be eating this as a marine ecologist... but did so just the same - photo below), tempura, abalone, heaps of sushi, desert, cake and loads more. There were toasts to the bride and groom, cutting of the cake, a couple of slide shows and one special song sung to the bride and groom by a talented guest.

The bride and groom both wore white for the ceremony in the chapel and initial toasts. They left the lunch after about half an hour and returned in traditional kimono (kimono). There were a couple of other guests who also wore kimono, but the male guests were all wearing dark suits and most of the women wore dresses. Despite being unable to understand most of what was said at the wedding, we were made to feel very welcome and comfortable and enjoyed attending very much.

The weather down there was sunny and much warmer than Sapporo. We are back home now, 36 hours later (including 3 hours flying and 4.5 hours on trains) to another snowy night. My language lessons start up again tomorrow morning - I think that I will have a hard time getting out of my warm bed.