It's Snow Time! [Part 2]

Snow snow snow, that's what it did all night, but I got up bright an early for some free breakfast. Being in Japan means the continental breakfast had some items you usually would not expect to see: soup, onigiri, and potato salad. The soup and onigiri were probably the more normal ones, but I'd never seen potato salad served up a six in the morning. It was also how I discovered that Hokkaido uses a more elastic nori to wrap their onigiri in, which was something I did not enjoy at all, but if you're a fan of konbu or Korean seaweed you would probably like it.

Somewhere outside Chitose

With the sun shining, but knowing that it was still snowing heavily in Sapporo from the weather reports, I bundled up lightly and hopped on the rapid train for Sapporo. Because my train is at the end of the line, it meant I was able to grab a seat by the window to enjoy the scenery for a lovely...three hours. I was actually on the train as it switched lines in New Chitose, so that was pretty neat, as was seeing the mountains and snow throughout the ride.

When I arrived in Sapporo, I knew the first thing I wanted to do was visit the corporate headquarters of one of my favorite companies: Crypton Future Media. They're responsible for starting the VOCALOID trend in Japan, and created the most popular one world wide, Hatsune Miku. It was an adventure finding the right elevator in the building, but when I did I left them a card from all the overseas fans. It was pretty big, and I hope they liked it because my art was terrible. I wish I had been able to take a picture of the creator's and producer's art on their whiteboard wall or had a chance to talk to a staff member, but I was just as excited to even be there.

After picking up their special guide for the festival and some information on the hotsprings at the station, I headed underground to catch the subway. Unfortunately, that's something that never happened as after I bought my ticket and followed the arrows for the area I was heading I discovered that it's entirely possible to  walk anywhere in Sapporo underground. With the blizzard and icy conditions, that's exactly what many people were doing, and some places were advertising things to do throughout Japan. Ise Grand Shrine had priests there advertising the rebuilding and giving out information about the shrine. Because they had their own snow sculpture that year, it was nice to see them all the way up north.

It's the 62nd rebuilding to be precise

The Ise sculptor also included an image of the river goddess.

Once I made it topside at 1-chome, I worked my way down to the concert stage and this year's Snow Miku. Of course, I took my time and still managed to fall down once or twice but I wasn't alone in that fact. I   mostly felt bad for the grandpas and little grandmas who were slipping and falling. It was probably during all this commotion that I lost my train pass, which of course I didn't notice until I needed it later that night. Some of the biggest highlights during the snow festival were of course the Ise sculpture, a 1:1 model of a Thai Buddhist Temple, and for me that year's Snow Miku.

The right hand side of Ise, where a trivia show was going on.

1:1 Buddhist temple

They even sculpted a boddhisatva onto it

Snow Miku 2013 also had her bunny friend

After spending most of the day at the snow festival, I was ready to hit up the famous Jozankei hot springs. With the special deal they were having I was able get access to one of the springs plus a round trip bus ticket, and seeing as Jozankei is about an hour away from Sapporro it was a pretty good deal. To top everything off, the town is known for kappa, which would not usually be a good thing as the water creatures feed off of a part of your anus, but can also be rather beneficial, giving people medicinal knowledge as well, and in this case, knowledge of where the best hot springs are.

Way up in the Jozankei mountains

After soaking the troublesome problem of losing my weekend train pass away (which meant I couldn't travel to some of the places I wanted to), I headed back towards New Chitose to wait for the next train which would get me back at midnight. I decided to try and find something to eat while I was there and ended up taking my worst fall just outside a 7-11 (yes, I really like 7-11, because Hokkaido is strangely lacking in Family Marts). After I got up I noticed someone smoking a cigrarette looking at me like I should have been up sooner, so I'm guessing it's something that happens frequently in the area.

With my plans out the window from the loss of my pass, I decided to surrender myself to the nerd madness that is the Snow Miku stamp rally, and started my adventures early the next morning.

~Zenko~

It's Snow Time! [Part 1]

The Snow Festival was probably the last big trip I took, and I think it will take me a couple posts to, so here's part one!

The Snow Festival, or Yuki Matsuri, is a pretty old festival in Sapporo. By pretty old I mean it's old in a modern sense, starting in 1950 when some high school students decided to be inventive and built snow sculptures in the local park. Now snow sculptures of ridiculous proportions adorn seven districts, or chome, of Sapporo and festivities extend throughout the area.

This is a 1:1 scale snow house

When I arrived I was surprised they let us land at all.

I got to Sapporo, or at the very least, Hokkaido, on Peach, a Low-Cost Carrier flight service. Had I done the smart thing and booked two separate tickets it would have cost me about fourty-dollars to get there. It ended up being a bit more than that, but combined with a cheap hotel the trip didn't cost me all that much. In fact, transportation ended up costing more, partly because I lost my one day pass my first day in Sapporo (probably from falling so much), and partly because where I was staying was about an hour and a half by train away. I was just happy to be in Hokkaido, though, as my flight was nearly canceled and we landed in the middle of a snow typhoon. That's right, a typhoon made out of snow.



Because I had arrived on delay, I was left baffled and confused as to how to get to the town I needed, as the only train system that crosses Hokkaido is JR, and JR Hokkaido has some pretty confusing maps and schedules because of all the snow. I had meant to take a local train, but instead ended up on a limited express train, which annoyed me somewhat as I had already ridden one that day to get to the airport. These trains can cost an extra ten dollars to ride, but I did not have too much of a choice if I wanted to get checked in before eleven. Incidentally, the platform numbers and symbols (triangle, circle) aren't painted on the ground like they are in Kansai and Tohoku, but hung on wire lines above it so that snow does not obscure them.

I was also surprised the trains were running still...

When I did get to town, it seemed like it would be a short walk but that short walk from the station turned into a twenty minute one with the blizzard going. The sidewalks and roads weren't plowed or shoveled, and never were, because they're so used to it with such a long winter season.I found out that not only was I staying in a college town, but at a business hotel, which meant I both fit in on the streets and was an odd sight without a thick down jacket (I ended up layering underneath a wool coat which was fine with all the walking). I was also surprised to see it was the ice hockey capital of Japan, as the sport is not really all that popular, except, apparently, in Hokkaido.

It was this. But at night.

Because I had to get up early to head to Sapporo, I went to bed as soon as I finished up dinner from the nearby 7-11.

The next day I was less lucky about falling on the streets, but that's for another post!
~Zenko~

Ain't no party like a JASO party because JASO parties are nice and sometimes invite nonmembers

I'm not a member of JASO, but they do on occassion send out invites to students that are studying abroad in the area. There's usually a limit to the number in each university, but I don't like passing up opportunities to attend important events, because there's always that opportunity to network.

JASO is an organization that hopes to strengthen relationships between American and Osaka specifically, but let's be honest, Osaka is a pretty great place so there's no reason people shouldn't be interested. Sadly, they usually are because Tokyo offers more of what people expect Japan to be like, while being slightly more foreigner friendly. It's about as close as you can get to America while staying in Japan, but Osaka has a lot more of Japan-Japan to offer I guess. Either way they have a neat mission and if I had thought about it more at the beginning of my time in Japan I would have tried to join.

In any case, I was able to attend their New Year's party, and was really fortunate to be healthy for..that one day before getting sick again. I think what made me really want to go in the invite were the words "delicious food" and "mochi pounding." I had missed out on mochi pounding because of sports day, and it's something done traditionally at New Years. When we did it there it was in a team, with volunteers changing out for pounding. I probably could have done it for a while but there was a set time for each person. They were actually a little surprised that I kept up with their counting with how heavy the wooden hammer is.

I was also really afraid of hitting their hands.

Of course before all this could begin, the equally important start to the New Years had to happen: breaking open a casket of ceremonial sake. It was a little hard for me to understand, but I think it was done to help purify yourself for the New Year. Usually it's done at shrine festivals for that reason, so I can only guess it's the same. I was equally lucky to be keeping super important company, and I still have the list they gave us as we entered to let us know what companies we were dealing with. I was a little intimidated by the crowds and that I might mess up somehow because I was a guest at the event and not an actual member, so I spent the night drinking with the company president of Asahi in Osaka. I was also invited to tour the factory, though I never received the opportunity to do so.

There was also a raffle at the end of the event, with some awesome prizes, like tickets to San Francisco and overnight stays at local hotels. I didn't win any of them, nor did anyone else I know, but we were all given thank you bags for attending on our way our. Apparently at business parties, this is customary in Japan, your ticket price going to buying what's inside.They were entirely randomized by the color ticket you drew before entering, and mine contained snacks donated by some of the attending companies and a gift certificate to Hankyu Mall. I was never able to use it, simply because walking into the building gave me the sense that I had just entered a Hollywood big-shots house and sent me beelining back for the nearest exit. When I say it was fancy, I mean chandeliers and crystal everywhere fancy. Before I left Japan, though, I gave it to our Seminar House's 'mom' for looking after us and putting up with the dirty kitchen.

Unfortunately, I'm so far behind that I'm actually back in America writing this, but I'll be sure to keep up my retelling.

Until next time~

~Zenko~