Sapporo Beer Garden

Every year, the city of Sapporo allows the big beer manufacturers from around Japan to take over an entire square city block of downtown, 1 square block for each major label, and lets them run a beer garden there for 3 straight weeks. The scale of it is massive and the number of completely obliterated people is shocking. Despite the frequency of stumbling blind drunks in the crowd, the atmosphere is relatively tame.

Each beer label has hundreds of tables, all packed with people, and they all serve beer by the glass, jug or 10 L mini-keg. Here are a couple of examples.




As if serving beer in amounts like that isn't enough, these beer gardens also have beer chugging contests organized by the beer companies (hey Japan, the 1980's frat party called - they want their party games back). All of this was very entertaining and leads to masses of really drunk people pouring themselves into taxis at the end of the night (and probably lots of unhappy cab drivers washing out the taxis the next morning).


And the men's toilets are "interesting". Our friend pointed out that the foreigner on the left seems to need far less attention on what he is doing in there.


We visited our favorite brand last night with some friends to enjoy one of the only sunny summer afternoons we have had so far this summer. Otaru Beer is our first choice, it is a local micro-brew that follows the German purity law. They make great beer and always have a couple of strong dark beers on tap. Because they offer stronger beers, the Japanese people tend to prefer the lighter Japanese-style pilsner on offer elsewhere so the Otaru garden fills up with lots of foreigners.

We made friends with a family at the table next to us and the father of the family thought Shawn was so funny that he bought him a couple of rounds (of 1 litre glasses!!). Pops didn't speak any english, and from the Japanese we can understand, all we know that he said to us was "we are friends, you are funny".


It was a good time and a nice send off for us. We are on our way to Malaysia today to meet up with the Gorging Dragons. The team is competing in the world championships of dragon boating this coming weekend. We are going to show our support and visit with old friends. Shawn will even get a chance to race since he was irreplacable (me.... not so much). I have put a link on this site to the Gorging Dragons blog where they will update their progress. Check in to see how things are going.

Bump in the Night

I experienced my first big Japanese earthquake last night. The epicenter was a good distance south of us so we experienced only a tempered version of the quake. At it's center the quake was 6.9 on the Richter scale and I have been told that we felt about 3.5 here in Sapporo just after midnight last night.

Tokyo Metro's earthquake safety for foreigners poster

I have felt other earthquakes while living in Victoria, we experience small ones there quite regularly. I had even been woken up by a small quake in Japan last fall while on a field trip. That one was about a 4.5 and at the time we were closer to the epicenter. This one was different though. It may have been because I was on the 6th floor of an apartment building so the building did more shaking than other buildings I have been in. This one was also much longer in duration than others I have felt. It lasted for at least 10 seconds after it woke me up - not sure how long it was rocking before I woke up but I was sleeping hard so might have been a while. I know, it sounds like a short time, but when the world is shaking it seems really long. Nothing in our wee apartment fell over or broke, and despite a little anxiousness before returning to sleep, there was no harm done.

Here is a link to a news story.

When we were in Tokyo last fall, we went on a trip to an earthquake simulator where they teach you what to do in the event of a big one. This real quake was surprisingly similar to the simulator (at the time I wondered how much the simulator could really be like the real thing). At the simulator, we did drills of how to jump under the nearest table during the shaking, how to navigate through a burning building and then got to watch a great 3D movie about the "big one" that hit Tokyo 1923. Here's a photo we took while taking things really seriously....


I am glad that I woke up, although it took me a bit to understand what was going on. My sister sleeps like the dead - I wonder what level of quake it would take to wake her up?

Rock Dentistry Part Deux

Shortly after my arrival, I posted a blog about the field program that I am part of here, called Rock Dentistry (read it here if you are interested). That field program continues and we just got back from a low tide set where we scraped rocks with big metal toothbrush-looking brushes, picked off intertidal plaque-like critters with metal picks, and drilled holes. All of these activities make me feel like a doozer from Fraggle Rock, working away on giants' teeth.

This past trip took the rock dentistry to a whole new level. One of the experiments that I am running this summer will examine how barnacles end up in patterns like this.

They hang out in cracks, but this pattern isn't the case all the time and everywhere, so I am looking at why their affinity to cracks changes in space and/or time. To do that, I have to measure tiny microscopic cracks and irregularities in the rock surface. An easy way to do that is to use dental alginate and make a cast of the surface, then use the alginate which is easy to cut and manipulate, to measure crack properties.

For those of you who don't know (I didn't know before starting this work) what dental alginate is, here's a description. It is the goopy, mint-smelling stuff that dentist's use to make replicas of your teeth. You know, the stuff that they put in the oversized tray, shove in your mouth then hold it there for a while, making you feel like you are going through waterboarding torture at Gitmo. That stuff. The advantages of the alginate for use in the intertidal are that it sets fast, you can use it on wet surfaces (it actually worked best on the wet rocks), and it is easy to mix and apply (good tips for those of you budding intertidal ecologists who might try it yourself).



That part of the dentistry work is now over. Too bad, because it was fun and something a little different. I will be back in the field again in August to finish the crack tests and to carry out another series of observations - and yes, more doozer teeth cleaning.

Missing Japan

A few months ago, if asked, I would have had a hard time listing off some things I would miss about Japan. I guess living somewhere helps you lose sight of those sorts of things. Our recent trip to Portugal was a good chance to bring these things to light again.

One thing I missed was the easy open, well-designed packaging in Japan. Although they over package virtually everything including things that don’t need any packaging at all, they really have packaging down to an art. Most people can think of a time that they met with a difficult to open bag of chips that resulted in chip fireworks and a return to the store for another bag. Or a packet of sugar that you try to tear along the line, that doesn’t tear along the line, and then you try tearing another spot and that just stretches the package but it won’t tear, and in the end you have sugar in your lap. Well, these things don’t happen in Japan. There is always a clever spot that it designed to open easily and elegantly when you apply pressure in just the right way. I admit, there was a learning curve associated with this system and I messed up plenty of packages by not being patient and looking carefully for the directions, but now that I understand the system there is no replacement.

The efficiency of travel in Japan was also something that I missed. In Japan you know that the trains will arrive and leave on time, practically to the second. It is really amazing and easy to get comfortable with once you have it. While we were in Portugal, we waited for a bus that was supposed to be arriving on a 15 minute frequency for over 30 minutes – something that is unimaginable in Japan. Another incredible efficiency in Japan is air travel. Here, we can arrive at the airport 15 minutes before our departure, walk right through security (who allow water bottles on domestic flights – hooray) and to our gate and directly onto the plane. The security checks are quick and the boarding is like clockwork. In other places, boarding a plane takes a while (think about how long in advance of the flight boarding starts – usually 20 minutes or so), but in Japan they knock it off in about 5 or 10 minutes. They don’t mess around with checking photo id at the gate, but that can’t be the only time saver, and I still haven’t figured out how they do it so fast, but it sure is nice.

Another thing I missed about Japan was the way that people seem happy to do their jobs. I can imagine that some people don’t actually like their jobs, but the customer won’t know it. Japanese workers do their job with as much pride as they can muster regardless of what that job is. You can go to the 7-11 counter and ask for a green tea and the clerk will hop the counter and run (no joke – they run) to the back shelf and grab you an assortment of chilled and hot choices with a smile. In Portugal, you can pay top dollar for a hotel room and the staff at the hotel will give you an annoyed eye roll and reluctantly answer your query of how to access internet with a terse “only in the lobby” before they go back to checking their email on the reception computer. I shouldn’t make it sound like that was the case everywhere, but it certainly stood out to us when we dealt with disgruntled employees in Portugal because that is something that you just don’t see in Japan.

We have arrived back to Japan now, and I am sure that I will continue making comparisons and considering the things that I miss about Canada while living here and quickly forget all of these things that I praised while I was on holiday.

Portugese Getaway

Portugal isn’t exactly a short, easy travel destination when your starting point is Japan but I had a conference there and Shawn came along and we stayed for a couple extra days of relaxation. The trip there from Japan is long but relatively painless. When we first arrived we had a day to explore the downtown area of Lisbon so we spent the day walking in the old district.

We stopped at an old church, soaked up the sun in the bustling main square, drank sangria at the base of St. Jorges castle and had a nice dinner. In Portugal, you have to make an effort NOT to have wine with dinner, and when you order wine the waiter brings a bottle, not a glass. We enjoyed a local vino verde (green wine, but it’s not actually green, it’s white with a bit of sparkle to it). The next day was conference time for me, and Shawn spent the day at the zoo in Lisbon. Day three, I was still in conference and Shawn spent more time exploring the city.


Our fourth day was the mid-point of the conference and the organizers built in an afternoon off with some planned excursions. Shawn and I joined the 4WD winery tour. We piled into 4WD trucks that took us along a coastal route to the winery where we stopped along the way to take in breathtaking views of the Atlantic Ocean. We drove along a dusty road through a vineyard and made a short stop to see a cork tree before arriving at the winery. We visited the Jose Maria da Fonseca winery, one of the oldest and largest in Portugal and famous for Moscatel wine (read more about them here). We toured their newly built computerized winery first where they have capacity for 7 million litres of wine in fully automated stainless steel vats. From there we drove through a small town to the original site of the winery that is still in use today. We saw the old handmade mahogany wine casks that they can’t replace so have to still keep in continual use so they don’t shrink. We also got to peek in to see the family’s wine collection where they have been storing one keg and 30 bottles each year since 1834. The room, with dim lighting, spiderwebs covering every surface and Gregorian chant playing, was the perfect way to end the tour. From there we went to the tasting room and tried a few of their wines. We enjoyed all three that we tried, and liked Portugese wine in general.


The next day was another full day of conference followed by the conference banquet. We had an amazing dinner in a building that had been resorted after the Lisbon earthquake with beautiful arched brick walls and ceiling. Through dinner we were entertained by a Fado group, traditional Portugese singing accompanied by guitar (more info on fado here). The room that we were in was perfect acoustics to accentuate the strength of their voices. After the banquet, most of the conference attendees made their way to the bar district in downtown Lisbon, where narrow streets wind up and down hills and small bars spill out into the cobble streets. Shortly after we arrived, the bars were supposed to stop serving and the police arrived to keep the crowds moving. The police didn’t really stop any of the drinking and just seemed to move us periodically from one bar to the next and the party continued for a few hours after “closing time”.

After the conference wrapped up the next day, we joined up with another couple of conference attendees and their spouses for a trip to Sintra. We stayed in a nice guest house near the train station, ate a tasty dinner and discussed our plans for the next day. Sintra is a small hillside town full of castles and amazing old architecture. A Moorish castle, dating back to the 7th century, overlooks the entire area and commands views of hundreds of kilometres in all directions. While at the top of the mountain, after walking around the castle walls, we visited the Palace of Pena which is only a short walk away. The palace is more recently built and is a unique mix of styles. It is colourful and well kept and contains plenty of treasures accumulated by the royal families.

The view of the Moorish Castle looking up from Sintra.

Us on the castle wall overlooking Sintra and the Atlantic.

Looking across the hilltop to the Palace de Pena.

Our final castle in Sintra was Quinta da Regaleira. This was by far our favourite and we could have spent an entire day exploring there. Built in 1910 by a rich doctor, the place is more a puzzle and piece of art than it is a castle. On the grounds of the estate, passageways, secret doors and hidden staircases interwoven with symbolism create a spooky and exciting atmosphere. We explored down winding narrow passageways in complete darkness, our camera batteries dead from using the flash to try to peer into the black to see if the tunnel ends of continues. The castle itself was also breathtaking, but we didn’t have much time to look around because we spent so much time on the grounds.
Looking up from the bottom of a well - we ended up there after taking a passage hidden behind a waterfall and exited via the winding stairway.

We enjoyed another nice meal and more Portugese wine, then visited a local pub on our way home. We sat and had a couple beers and chatted with our travel partners and soon the bar owner shut the doors explaining that the bar was “closed” but patrons who were already inside could continue drinking so long as the doors were closed. We stayed for another beer then gathered our things to leave, but the bar owner (who had joined us for the last beer) insisted that we stay for a taste of his uncle’s homemade cherry liquor. He poured it from a dusty old Jack Daniels bottle and it was sweet and strong, and failed to warn us about the potency of the cherry in the bottom of each glass. After more chatting with the bar owner about life as a young entrepreneur in Portugal, we finally made our way back to our guest house.



Groggy from the night before, we piled on a bus the next day in search of a beach. If we had more time, I would have stayed in Sintra for a few more days. It was such a romantic and beautiful spot and we didn’t see even a fraction of the things that there were to see there. We ended up at Praia das Macas, a small tourist town on a nice beach northwest of Lisbon. We found a room for the night and went to sit on the beach. The water was pretty cold, and the wind off the Atlantic was chilly so we hid out at a beachfront bar and sipped sangria and chatted with our travel partners (a couple from the US). Praia das Macas is quiet and had less European tourists than Sintra and has two other beaches within walking distance to the north and south.
The town and beach at Praia das Macas



The next day it was time for us to make our way back to Lisbon and prepare to return to Japan. Along the way we stopped in Cascais, another tourist destination west of Lisbon. We only had time to take a walk along the waterfront and eat a nice meal, but Cascais seemed like a place that would have been nice to spend some more time in too. Our last night in Lisbon, we poured ourselves into a nice hotel facing the Rossio Square. We had a beautiful room with a view of Castelo St. Jorge from the balcony so we sat there and ate nice Portugese cheese and bread and toasted our last night with Port wine. The trip was too short to really see very much but it was nice and easy to travel there, and the weather was unbeatable.

The Fuzz

The Japanese establishment is especially proud of their incredibly safe and secure society, a fact that I have come to enjoy and get very used to. There is no need to worry about locking many things here (although everyone does, religiously), the streets – nearly any street – is safe for a young woman to walk alone at any hour, there is homeless but you don’t see them and they certainly don’t bother you for change or a treat for their dog. I will have a hard time adjusting to keeping track of my wallet full of cash during a night at the pub or making sure not to leave my laptop unattended in a public place once I return home.

In about 1 week, Hokkaido will host the 2008 G8 summit at a Lake Toya. The Japanese establishment is also very proud of their incredibly non-confrontational society. Of course, hosting the G8 summit brings with it a fair share of controversy and host countries are always the launching point for all sorts of protest and debate over the summit. Japan, however, has decided that they will absolutely not allow such bad behaviour while they are hosting important guests (and international press) who might not believe their country is one that follows all the rules without question and never has any crime. They intend to implement this no-protesting hooliganism strategy by laying waste to any progress in the way of racism and human rights.
For starters, they have spent more money on security for this event than any other country has in the past (again – this in a country where I could have stolen 72 cars by now and two of them were police cars). They have enlisted additional police forces here in Hokkaido, bringing cops from every corner of Japan. They are preventing any police currently working in the southern Hokkaido area from taking even one day of holiday during the month before and the month after the event. We just drove through the region of the summit on our way to field work and there were police inspection points at every highway intersection for miles around the summit location. The police were very serious about their work and were sure to stop our vehicle and take a peek in all the windows, who wouldn’t with a dangerous looking white woman in the front seat!

Here is a picture (sorry - it is a terrible photo - of one of the roadblocks).


One would assume that the natural beauty of the forest surrounding Lake Toya factored largely in the decision to host the event there. Well, security has also trumped that one! They have cut a swath of old-growth forest in a belt around the hotel where the delegates will be staying in order to ensure that no “bad people” can sneak in under a cover of beautiful pristine national park forest.
One of the excursions planned for the event will involve the delegates going from the hotel to a nearby attraction. It seems that the current road connecting these two locations wasn’t secure enough so they built a whole new “secure” roadway. It so happens that this road passes through and destroys a long-term forest research plot used by one of the labs in my faculty. Certainly, a smoother and less noisy car ride for Bush and his cronies is worth years of carefully planned and ecologically relevant research down the drain.

Others foreigners have told me that they have had some difficult times lately with random police asking to inspect their backpacks and ruthless checks of foreigners (even those of us who are living and working here) at airports and train stations. We are on our way to Portugal this weekend for a symposium on larval biology and ecology and as expected, we had more fun with the fuzz at the airport. Here is a security guard on a stepladder carefully watching the airport trainstation traffic.

Summer Field Season

This week was the start of the summer field sampling for the rocky shore team (team iso). Six of us loaded into a big rental van on Monday morning and we headed off to the southern Hokkaido field station for sampling.

Last time I was out at these sites it was late fall so we were sampling during night low tides so I didn't get a very good look at what these places look like. It was nice to come back and do this sampling in beautiful summer weather. With low tide at about 8:00 am, we had to be packed up and leaving the field station to go to the sampling locations by 4:00 am. These sites are all on the eastern side of Hokkaido so we started work with the beautiful Japanese red sunrise to warm our backs as we worked.



Since last time was dark and I didn't get many photos, I thought I would share some images. In most of these you can see that the Japanese coastline in upshore from us is highly reinforced. This is pretty typical of all of the coast that I have seen so far (east and west). In many places small fishing villiages are built right on the edge of the coast and roads pass within meters of the high tide mark. Miles and miles of the coastline is fortified with massive concrete tetrapods (shown in the background here) that we carefully navigate our way through and over to get down to the shore.




We were lucky to have some extra hands helping out and were able to sample all of our sites (5 shores and 25 sample plots) in just 2 days. It meant long hot days, but it was worthwhile to get home a day or two early. The next field trip will be to the northern Hokkaido region in a couple of months. I am crossing my fingers for more great weather.