Canucks Versus the Volcano

Raise your hand if you have climbed to the top of a Japanese volcano. We had a weekend with nothing else booked so we jumped on the chance to get out of the city and do just that. Yotei-zan is an inactive volcano in the Shikotsu-Toya National Park south of Sapporo and is otherwise known as Fuji of the north or Ezo-Fuji. It is the tallest volcano in Hokkaido and is only a short drive from Sapporo. We didn’t want to miss our chance to climb a Japanese volcano and be the first to greet the red sun as it rises over the Pacific, so we hired a car and off we went.

We left town early on Saturday, took our time getting groceries and enjoying a meal in Niseko (a ski town close to Yotei) and got to the parking lot at the trail head around 2:00. The hike up to the hut takes about 5 hours and we were hoping to hit the hut by sunset. The trail initially winds slightly uphill through a nice park-like area; this continues for about all of 15 minutes before the trail takes a hard right and the uphill incline begins. The trail angle is about 60 degrees and this continues all the way up the mountain (honestly, 5 hours of that kind of incline without a break). It is a relentless trail and I felt like a bag of pathetic huffing and sweating my way up as we were greeted by happy, fit looking 65 year old ladies on their way back down from the summit.

The steep trail - me and our downstairs neighbour (a British masters student) behind me.


The forest soon gave way to scrubby, winter-worn shrubs, which in turn gave way to thick underbrush and beautiful alpine flowers. We were lucky to be there while almost every plant we passed was in bloom. The trail we took (the one closest to Grand Hirafu) led us up to a point a clockwise quarter way around the mountain from the hut, so we traversed through the alpine to get to the hut. We arrived to see about 20 other hikers already enjoying a rest for their legs and some dinner at the small picnic table outside the hut. We put our packs down inside, paid our 800 yen for the night stay and went back outside for a sunset dinner. Before we left we were told that there were no fires allowed in the park and that included camp stoves. We thought that was a bit odd, but went ahead and planned an easy no-cook meal of convenience store soba noodles, onigiri (rice ball wrapped in seaweed and stuffed with fish), cheese and a nice bottle of wine. It turned out that our adviser was wrong and camp stoves were allowed, but the ease of our meal (no cooking or washing dishes after) was a surprising treat.

Our sunset dinner with some fellow gaijin hikers.


The hut has a 9:00 curfew that we thought we would have a hard time sticking to, but with sunset at about 7:30, no lights in the hut or outside and most of the hikers intending to summit the next morning for the 4 am sunrise, it was just the right time for bed. It certainly would have been nice if we could have slept. The hut is a big open space with no separated rooms. Hikers all sleep side by side on the floor and I suppose if everyone just went to bed at 9:00 it would have worked out ok. There was a guy about 3 feet from us who thought it was a good idea to get some extra energy for the next morning and opened a bag of peanuts or crackers or some other insanely loud sounding food at 11:00 and continued crunching through till midnight. The guy next to him was busy sending text messages on his cell phone for a few hours. Another woman had to go into her pack and find things all night, and amazingly everything she brought was wrapped in 2 layers of noisy crunchy plastic that for some reason needed to be rewrapped before putting it away. Hikers started rustling around at 2:00 am to prepare for the sunrise summit. We tried to get another half hour or so of sleep but it was pointless. Everyone felt it necessary to pack their entire packs, bedrolls and have a chat while doing it before leaving, making an enormous racket. I guess if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, so we left the hut just before 3 am heading for the top of the volcano to watch the sunrise.
We made it to the top of the caldera with plenty of time to get a nice seat, eat some breakfast and watch the show.


Hanging out over the caldera - it was deeper than I expected.


The highest point on the volcano.


It was a beautiful sunrise (asahi is the Japanese word for sunrise – yes, like the beer) and the weather was good. The mountain was skirted in clouds that had moved in overnight and it made the ambiance even more fairy tale-esque. After greeting the sun, we walked around the caldera then back down to the hut where our hiking partner had opted to sleep while the noisy people were out. We packed up and hung around the hut for another few hours before the big walk down. For me, down is always more painful than up, so Shawn was patient while we took it slow.


We cleverly stashed ourselves an incentive beer and some fresh fruit in the cooler at the bottom. We savoured our rewards and headed back to Sapporo and city life. It was great to get out of the rat race even just for a couple of days.

Sapporo Miso Ramen

I admit that I really don't find ramen an overly appealing meal. It is a sort of Japanese style fast food and is usually pretty greasy and bland (well, at least to me). Shawn enjoys it though and has been known to go for a bowl of ramen for lunch fairly often. He and a friend found a place that they really like and have gone there a few times, each time telling me that I don't know what I am missing by not going with them.

On the weekend, before going to a friend's housewarming party, I decided that it was about time that I tried this place that I had been told so much about (that, and we didn't feel like cooking). It is a tiny place, only 8 seats in the entire shop, and we met two friends there so we took up half the restraunt. This shop, like many others, has a vending machine near the door where you order. You push whatever button you want for the type of soup you like and whatever extras you want and then put in the cash and it spits out a ticket. You take the ticket to the owner/server/cook and he makes your meal for you. We ordered miso ramen, a Sapporo specialty.

Here is a shot of the soup when it was delivered to me. Honestly, I have to admit that this was pretty tasty ramen. The pork was cut in thick tender slices and there was lots of other tasty additions. Our friend brought some sake in from the conveni nearby (the vending machine at the ramen shop doesn't have a button for beer) - you can see the small bottle in the photo too. So we dined in fine Japanese style, slurping noodles and drinking sake.

When we finished our meal, it wasn't all that late so we chatted for a while and finished the last of the sake (not a common practice in a small ramen shop that only has 8 seats, you are supposed to eat your food and get out so that the next customer can sit down). It wasn't busy and the shop owner told us to take our time and not rush out, there weren't any new customers anyway so we felt ok sitting for a while.

The owner disappeared soon after telling us to take our time. We didn't think much of it until we got up to leave. We stood on the sidewalk discussing whether we should leave since there wasn't anyone left in the shop. In mid-discussion, the shop owner came running back down the street with a 6-pack of beer in his hand (and a tea for our pregnant friend). He ushered us back into the shop and handed us the beer, telling us that it was a present for us. Wow, a present for what.... taking up space in your shop??


Not ones to look a gift horse in the mouth, we enjoyed a beer with the guy (his name turns out to be Kubo-san). He mostly spoke Japanese which was ok since we had a translator with us. So we sat for a few hours and talked with him about his business and life in Sapporo while he prepared soup stock for the next day. It turned out that he had sold out of ramen so he closed the shop early (while we were sitting there finishing our sake) and decided to celebrate his successful day with a beer and picked up some for us too. I guess he didn't want to be rude. He was an interesting person, and certainly makes good miso ramen.

Park Golf

A couple of weeks ago on a sunny Sunday afternoon (ok - actually it was a windy cold Saturday afternoon.... but I thought the other opening sounded nicer), we rode out bikes down to the Toyohira River. Along the riverbanks, they have areas that they use for all sorts of recreation - baseball fields, walking trails, football fields and park golf courses.

The majority of the people taking part in the golfing were elderly Japanese people (the elderly Japanese are amazingly healthy and able bodied people - we really should work on finding out what they do to stay so healthy). The course had 18 holes and is a cross between mini-golf and pitch-and-put. The club is a short-handled driver style club and the ball is the size of a grapefruit and made from dense plastic. The course had the odd sand trap but really nothing that was all that challenging.

We paid our $5 each (that included green fees for 18 holes and rental of equipment!) and hit the links. It was a lot of fun, although not a lot of challenge. Initially I found it a bit hard not to take a full swing, which sends the ball screaming through the the srubery at the end of the fareway. The course even had a resident "golf pro" who walked around the course giving tips to the older ladies who were golfing.

It was a fun way to kill an afternoon, and it will be nice to return on a sunny warm day.

Yosakoi

This past weekend was the Yosakoi Soran festival in downtown Sapporo. This event, like so many others, was held in Odori park and attracted thick crowds to the center of the city. Yosakoi is a team dance competition held annually in Sapporo. It is loosely based on traditional Japanese dancing and dancers must incorporate a clapper and some version of the traditional fishing song "Soran". To read more about the event, check out their official website here. I say it is loosely based on traditional dance because it is much more upbeat than traditional dance with dancers moving quickly and to music that is faster and uses modern music mixed with traditional music.

It was really entertaining to watch. The costumes were elaborate and most teams had multiple costumes that were switched in mid-act with a quick flick of velcro. The colours were vivid and the choreography made the stage look as if the dancers became a kaeidescope of hues. Some teams had singers, some had drummers, one team even had about 25 traditional guitarists. They all seemed to incorporate a flag or two - some of which were massive works of art that must take incredible core strength to wave around. A few teams used Japanese umbrellas to create all kinds of dizzying effects.

It is a contest and the teams were judged on their performance. We weren't sure how the scoring worked, and it often didn't seem to make much sense to us. We had tickets for the semi-finals on Sunday and had bought our tickets early because the semi-finals and finals sell out early. Seating was limited so we were glad to have tickets, otherwise you were stuck watching the performances on one of the many massive screens that were posted around the park.

Here are a couple photos of the event. I will work on posting a video as it gives a much better idea of the show.



Throughout the park there were "Paradise" stands. Tents that had been set up by a cigarette company to attract smokers to come and sample some of their new products in the company of beautiful young girls dressed in outfits that made them look like something Captain James T Kirk would have shagged. Only in Japan....

Learning English

Since snowmobiling has wrapped up Shawn has been keeping busy by teaching English a couple times a week. He was reluctant at first, but teaching english is one of the only jobs that pays decently, has flexible hours and can be held by those of us with limited Japanese. A bit of a stretch initially for a guy who doesn't love the classroom setting and prefers to spend his time with tools rather than books. He has been getting help from a friend who has been teaching here for 10 years. Our friend even shared access to his online teaching resources, check out the link on the right (Anthony's english site) or click here to check it out.

One of the classes he teaches is a drop-in type group at the university. They had a party on Saturday night and invited us to join them. The food was delicious and afterwards we went for drinks with a few of the students. They are a really interesting group of people and it was fun to hear their backgrounds Here is a photo of Shawn addressing his students after the dinner and a shot of the group.



He is teaching everyone from kids to retired folks and has now hit a stride and enjoys it. It is strange how hard it is to teach english when you are a native speaker. We really don't understand grammar rules very fully, and have a hard time answering questions about why this is plural in this case and singular in another. In a lot of ways we learn the language along with the students. Who knew we would come to Japan and end up learing english!

Hokudai-sai

Every year the university that I am at hosts a sort of open house weekend. Well, more of a long weekend. The university gives all of the undergraduate students Thursday and Friday off for the event and many of the faculties open their doors to the public to show off what they do.

The main attraction of the event if the food fair. Student groups are encouraged to set up a tent where they can sell any type of food or drink they want, so long as it is non-alcoholic. The party used to involve drinking, but a couple of years ago a couple of students overindulged and died as a result so since then it has been prohibited. They block off the main street on campus and set up tents and generators for the young entrepreneurs to use. One end of the street is dedicated for Japanese students and the other is for the foreign students to use to showcase their native cuisine. The food in the Japanese end was the same kind of typical fare you find in any festival, so we have spent most of our time sampling delicious food from elsewhere.

My faculty (Environmental Science) also set up interactive displays and opened up for public tours on Saturday and Sunday. I only found out when I was leaving work on Friday and there were movers bringing large display boards into our foyer and hanging a slide show screen from the ceiling. One of the professors who was there putting up posters told me all about it. I was a bit sad to only hear about our faculty's participation so late because it would have been fun to take part and put together an intertidal touch tank.

Here are some photos of the fun - the crowded street on Saturday and the American Cookie booth. The international food was incredibly delicious and we ate way too much because you just can't walk past your friend's booth without buying something, and all of the foreigners know each other here....

Daylight Savings

The cliché "you don't know what you have until it’s gone" doesn't readily conjure thoughts of setting the ol’ clock back, that is, until you have lived in a northern region that doesn’t. I had never really considered what summer days would be like if William Willett hadn’t come up with the genius of rolling back the clock in the spring to take advantage of the early sunlight hours. In addition, here in Hokkaido, not only are we the farthest north in Japan but we are also hanging out slightly to the east.

Now, I am sure that some of you are thinking “really, so what? How much difference can it make?”. The result is that already, in late May, in order to greet the rising sun, we have to roll out of bed at 3:45 a.m. On weekdays, when we try to “get up early” and get outside for a walk or a run in the morning before work, the sun is already high in the sky. It also means that we don’t get those lovely warm nights after work is over. Again, I can imagine that you are thinking “just shift your schedule and hour earlier and it will be fine”. Not so easy, this country is the land of the night-owls. When we leave the house at 7:30 in the morning on a week day the streets are still quiet. People like to sleep late and work late here; even the coffee shops don’t open until 9:30 or 10:00. So shifting my schedule would definitely be fighting a losing battle.

Strange to think that this is one of the things that I miss about home.... More efficient use of sunlight.

Golden Week Tour

Early May is a big National holiday in Japan called Golden Week. It is a combination holiday involving constitution day, greenery day and children's day. If you are interested in more info about these days, check out this wiki (then you will know more than most Japanese people about these holidays because anyone I asked told me they weren't sure what the meaning was, but it was a long holiday).

Almost everyone in Japan goes somewhere or takes a day or two off to celebrate this holiday. Shawn and I joined another couple of friends (guy from New Zealand and his wife (Japanese) and their son) and did a tour of Southern Hokkaido. They own a car and drove us all over and showed us around.

First stop was a nice townhouse/hotel place in the forest in the Sahkotan area. This side of Hokkaido faces the sea of Japan and if it hadn't been brutally cold and windy that night, our BBQ on the beach would have been much more enjoyable (the hotel didn't have an area that allowed BBQ and we had meat that we needed to cook so were forced to brave the wind and cook the meat). After dinner we enjoyed a few drinks and a nice onsen in the hotel.

Our cold BBQ.


The Japanese coastline is re-inforced with concrete everywhere you look.


The next morning we headed across Hokkaido towards the Pacific and enjoyed another BBQ along the way at a nice river. We were glad to have the BBQ because the smoke kept away the swarms of biting bugs that were there. We all managed to get a few bites but the sun was nice and warm and we were hungry so stuck it out. After lunch we continued on to Onuma Quasi National Park where we stayed in a B&B.

Our riverside BBQ.



I have no idea what Quasi National Park is supposed to mean, but my feeling was that it meant they would protect the ecological integrity of this place so long as there wasn't something economically intriguing enough not to do so. Onuma is a big lake that is at the foot of a stunning volcano called Komagatake Yama. After waking up and a nice breakfast and check out, we rented bikes and rode around the lake (14 km trip). The weather was fairly nice, but low clouds meant that we didn't get to see the nice views of Komagatake as we made the trip. There was a nice camping ground on the lakeshore so we hope to return some time this summer to spend a night there and maybe hike the volcano (not active any longer, don't worry mom!).

There are also lots of nice walking paths around the lake and arched bridges connect the small islands along the end of the lake. Here's us on one of the bridges.


There were also heaps of fishermen sitting on specialized platforms. They baited their hooks with mashed potato (seriously, they had to replace the dissolved bait every couple minutes) and didn't use a reel, just yanked the fish up onto the platform before releasing them. They were well equipped and entertaining to watch.



We left Onuma and drove south to Hakodate, an important historical port as it was one of the first international trading ports. The influence of this can definately be felt in the city as there are many churches, lots of park space and even a citadel in the center of the city. On our first night we took a trip up to the top of the tower that overlooks the star shaped fort but because it was pretty dark we didn't see much. It was raining that night so we grabbed a bite and took shelter in our hotel room for the rest of the night. Our friend and his son had a bad reaction to the bug bites from the prior BBQ and their legs were swollen so too much walking wasn't in the cards anyway.

The next morning we took a nice walk around the star-shaped park called Goryokaku (click here for more park info). There are about 1600 cherry trees in the park and while we were there most had already dropped most of their blossoms, but there were a few late hanami (=cherry blossom party) on the go so the atmosphere in the park was fun. Here are a few shots of the cherry petals that had fallen. This is definately a place I would return to have hanami if we were here next year at this time.




Next we took a drive up to the top of Hakodate yama (the mountain overlooking the city). It was a very windy day, but it was clear so we got a good view of the city. We couldn't see Honshu but I was told that on clear days you can see the north end of Honshu from the lookout. Before leaving town to drive back up to Sapporo we stopped at the dockyard area of town to eat lunch at a nice restraunt and brew pub there.


The drive back from Hakodate is short (only 250 kms) but as is typical in Japan, it takes a long time (around 6 hours of straight driving). I can't really explain why driving here takes so long, part of it has to do with low speed limits and I guess that there are a lot of stoplights along the way... but we took the toll highway... so that can't be the whole story. It has been the case no matter where we have gone though, short distances take a very long time to drive. At that rate it would take months to drive across Canada.

Glass Blowing, Sealion Tricks and Fairies

We have been to Otaru before when mom and Meg visited, but when our friends planned a Sunday trip there, we decided to join them. This all happened a few weeks ago now, but I am pretty behind in blogging and I am finally now getting these photos off my camera.

We enjoyed Otaru last time we had been there, and this time I had my mind set to visit the aquarium there. The photo above is the Hokkaido mascot holding up me as his catch - this photo's for you mom! The character's name is Marimokari. He is an algae ball - and has algae balls... It is a special species of algae that lives in some lake here in Hokkaido and this mascot is everywhere you turn in this place. I guess his "physique" has something to do with health and longevity...?

Anyway, we wandered the streets for a while in the morning. Shawn stopped in at the local glass blowing shop and tried his hand at blowing his own glass cup. Otaru is famous for glass crafts and you can buy all manner of beautiful unique items there. Shawn did really well, under the attentive assistance of a couple of experienced glass blowers. In the second photo below you can see that the girl on the left is really impressed with Shawn's skill!




For lunch we hit a sushi shop, another Otaru speciality. We stuffed ourselves on incredibly fresh fish before continuring on to visit an historic home in the city. One of the friends who came with us is Japanese so she was able to help us with figuring out directions and plans. It makes such a difference being with someone who can fully understand their surroundings, instead of us who understands about 75% and guesses (often wrongly) at the other 25%.

After the historic house tour, we stopped at the aquarium. To our surprise it was a really great place. They had excellent displays of local fauna including really well presented invertebrate displays (my fave). They also have a large collection of marine mammals - seals, sea lions, walruses, and dolphins. All of the mammals and the penguins are trained and perform daily shows. We arrived there later in the afternoon so we missed some of the shows and it was raining and cold once we arrived so we definately want to go back on a warm sunny day to take it all in again. Of the shows we saw, we were most impressed with the massive sea lions who climbed a huge ladder up to a high diving board, made all kinds of noise once up there, then dove off!!!! No kidding, here are some photos. This diving board was really high, and that animal was something like 800 kg (that's 1760 lbs)!!!





We unfortunately didn't have enough time there to see all of the displays but we thoroughly enjoyed what we did see and can't wait to go back. After the aquarium we went back to the downtown area to track down some grub. We ended up at the Otaru beer factory, an old warehouse on the canal that reminded Shawn and I of the Canoe Club in Victoria. They served great food and excellent beer (our current local favorite) and even had live music that came on half way through our meal. The band was mostly wind instruments and a bit of drums and singing and the band members wore weird flowing hippie looking pastel-coloured outfits. They looked a bit like fairies or something. It wasn't music that I would go back for, but a performance during dinner was nice.

When the band came on for their second set, they did an interactive stretching and low impact excersice routine. They had the crowd doing warm up excersices then lead everyone in more involved dancing and a congo line. We played along (how can you not when you are the "foreigner table" stuck right in the front of the stage). So we ended the night with a belly full of good food doing the congo line around a warehouse with fairies. Perfect!

KY and the BJ

Japanese love to shorten words and use acronyms. These creative words became a source of some good jokes and fun during "English Conversation Hour" hosted by yours truly, to help the students work on their spoken english skills. Here are a few of my favorites.

The BS News is a national news show aired on NHK.
I have mentioned this one before in a prior post (click here to read).

B.J. is the Japanese basketball league.
"He plays for the BJ doesn't he?"

K.Y. is a word to describe a person who doesn't know when to keep quiet or how to act in a given situation.
"That person really needs K.Y."

It certainly lightened up the mood in the room as I tried to explain these concepts in English to them. I laughed out loud lots as you can imagine. At the end, one of the students made a point of noting to everyone how strange it is that I laugh so outwardly. I asked him if he didn't find this funny, he said no, that he found it very funny but is able to laugh "inside" at these kinds of things. He found it strange that I don't have that ability.