Adventure Time With Jess and Jeri ep. 2: guest written by Jessica

Hello, I'm Jessica, a first year ALT in Kuriyama, and I spend a lot of time looking for places to adventure. Lucky for me, the other ALT in Kuriyama, Jeri, also loves traveling. Together, we adventure like a boss.

The end of October brought with it phenomenal fall colours and Hokkaido astounded me with her beauty. Everyone knows that cherry blossom viewing (hanami) is a famous activity in Japan. But did you know that viewing the fall leaves is also popular? As soon as I discovered this, I knew I wanted to take my newly purchased car and find someplace beautiful.

I planned a weekend getaway to Onuma Quasi National Park and Esan, both close enough to Hakodate. Onuma is a popular tourist destination and well deserves it. It consists of two lakes at the foot of Mt. Komagatake, which are dotted with over a hundred small islands. Esan is a mountain on the southeast tip of Hokkaido. On a clear day, you can see Honshu from the top.

This sounded like an awesome adventure to Jeri and I.

We set out in the early afternoon of October 28th, our goals clear in mind: get to Onuma, see cool things, take pictures, eat ice cream and see Honshu. The drive was long, even with me speeding along the expressway. Mix tapes (CDs) serenaded our travels. We rocked out. Jeri's mom, who was visiting from Canada, ignored us from the back seat.

Adventure began once darkness had set in (at like 7 p.m, really Hokkaido?) and our hotel was near. My car, which I had only had for about a week, started squeaking. Jeri looked at me. "Why is your car squeaking? Is there a bird in there?"

I thought for a moment. "Well, if there is, it will stop soon!"

As disconcerting as a squeaking car is, our hotel was only 15 minutes away. The squeaking went away after a few minutes and we made it safely to the Crawford Inn, a cute place near the station. I went inside while Jeri stayed in the car, and started the exciting process of checking into our room. One bad thing about being a foreigner is that I don't know how to properly check into a hotel. The good thing about being a foreigner is that as soon as they saw me, they already knew what my reservation was. Jeri's mom was staying in one room, while Jeri and I shared another.

The nice man at the desk told us where to park and followed me back out to the car to get our bags. When he saw Jeri, he said something along the lines of "Oh, the other person is a girl?"

"Yeah," I said, a little confused by the question. "She's my friend."

I should have realized that something was up then.

His statement made a lot more sense when he showed Jeri and me our room - with one double bed.

Ah. Naruhodo!

No big deal. Jeri and I laughed about it. Thats what happens when you reserve rooms online on a Japanese website!

Saturday morning brought lovely weather. I was itching with excitement to take pictures of all the things (+10 cool points if you get the reference. Check out hyperboleandahalf if you don't). And now for an embarrassing confession- the main reason I wanted to stay at the hotel was the breakfast.

And it was worth it.

We walked around the lake, enjoyed the stunning scenery, and took lots of pictures. We also stopped for a morning dessert at this fancy little restaurant.

There is a nice bike trail that loops around the lakes and you can rent bikes from several stores in the area- usually about ¥500 per hour or ¥1000 per day. You can also rent rowboats and paddleboats to enjoy the lake and try your hand at fishing- just like Link does in Zelda: Legend of the Twilight Princess!

We also saw, but did not sample, wine and squid ink flavoured ice cream. Excite!

The islands were beautiful, although I would recommend going a little earlier in the season. A lot of the trees had already lost all their leaves by the time we showed up.

We left at around 1:00 pm, heading for our next destination: Esan! But everything didn't turn out as planned. What happened? Tune in next time for the next episode of Adventure Time with Jess and Jeri!

(note from Jeri. I'm ending this with a great example of one of my favourite things about Japan: Engrish. :D)

Jeri's Mom Takes On Hokkaido!

So as you all probably also know (especially you, Mom), my mommy came to visit me in Kuriyama a couple of months ago. Wow, has it really been that long since I've updated my blog? Apologies. So I figured I'd detail some of the adventures that we got up to, in a new (and probably short lived) blog segment I like to call "Adventure Time with Jess and Jeri (and Jeri's Mom)!"

Also, if this blog post is less coherent than usual, you can blame lack of sleep. I am writing this in a hotel room in New York City, right after a 14 hour time zone change and approximately 24 hours without sleep. It has quite literally been the longest day ever.

So yes, my mom came to visit me in Hokkaido. Jessica had just gotten her brand new car and was excited to show us what it could do, so Andromeda, Jess and I all piled in to go to the airport to pick up my mother. We had decided to go a little early to get some shopping done at the outlet mall right next to the airport, so we drove and drove, getting closer and closer to Chitose. Once we'd gotten close enough, Jessica asked me where the mall was.

"I don't know," I replied. "I was taking us to the airport!"
"Well, could you take us to the mall?" Jessica countered.
"Umm, sure, what's it called?"
"I don't know"
"Well how am I supposed to plug it into my phone?"
"I don't know! Just get us there!"
"Uhh... okay, Jessica!"

After a lot of backtracking and failed attempts at typing hiragana on my phone, we finally managed to get to the outlet mall, but not before we drove down two roads that threatened to take us to the end of the world. Seriously. Scary. Anyway, once we got to the mall, we realized that it was closed, so we backtracked once more, all the way to the airport.

When we got to the airport, we amused ourselves in the arcade, by doing purikura for the first time (photos to come). For those of you who don't know, Purikura is a Japanese photobooth, designed for beauty shots, from what I can tell. It's a popular pastime with friends, because it makes your eyes giant and super "cute" and then afterwards you can draw on the photos and add backgrounds and stickers before you print them out. It was a little bit terrifying, but I think that's only because I'm super camera shy.

We also happened upon a crane game filled only with sausage, which Andromeda obviously had to try out.

Eventually, my mother's flight came in, and we managed to make it home without any major problems. The reunion was stunning. I'm pretty sure we smothered each other in hugs. I think the Japanese people were a little scared at the airport, what with their aversion to physical contact and everything.

When we finally got home, she unpacked the suitcase she had for me. It was like early Christmas! My winter clothes, vegetable bouillon cubes, kraft dinner, cinnamon toast crunch, peaches and cream instant oatmeal, infusium shampoo. All my comforts from back home were all of a sudden in my apartment again. It was heavenly!

I didn't plan for this blog post to be this long, but apparently that's what happens when you haven't posted for a while. I am going to stop here for now, but I promise I will write part two later.

Also on the list for me to write about:
- christmas traditions in Japan
- my work situation
- travel plans

If there is anything else you'd like to hear about, feel free to leave it in the comments! Until then, I'm going to go sleep away some of the jetlag.

Love, Jeri

Up Google Creek Without a Paddle

Alright, so I know I have been absolutely pathetic at keeping the blog up, but I swear I have an excuse! In keeping with the last post, you all know that I wrote a novel last month. It's not very good, but I figured that I’d prove to you that I wasn’t lying by giving you an excerpt of it to read, so here it is:

March 11th, 2012

Starting Point: Somewhere in the Jungle
Ending Point: Somewhere in the Jungle
Hours Clocked according to Google: none. Absolutely none.
Distance Covered: nowhere.
Injuries sustained: one. Still.
Sight of Jaime: of course not.

Dear Diary,

We’re on day three with no Jaime. We had planned on refilling our water bottles at streams that we passed along the hike, but since we’ve been camping for so long, we haven’t found anything. We are beginning to run low on water. We’re still good for food for a little bit, but I’m going to have to get Anna back as soon as possible. Her leg seemed to have been healing okay, but I think it might have become infected. It’s turned an unnatural purple colour, and she is starting to look quite sick.

I’m getting really antsy, alone with my thoughts. Anna and I have had a few conversations, but mostly she just sleeps. After all, that is the only way she can dull the pain. This is a different kind of alone than I’ve felt befre. It’s not the kind of alone you feel when you’re driving down the highway, alone, listening to music and feeling happy to get away for a bit. This is the kind of alone you feel when you know you are miles and miles away from the nearest person, and even further from anywhere you would call home. It’s the feeling of having no one by your side, no sounds to keep you company, not even the gentle hum of traffic that you used to hate but have grown to relish the comfort of.

Like I said, I am alone with my thoughts. And the bugs. And sometimes Anna.

I have to admit, having her here is somewhat of a comfort, even though her broken leg is the reason that we are in this situation. I’m not saying I blame her for breaking her leg, but would it have killed her to be a bit more careful?

No, I don’t mean that. Accidents happen and we have to make the best of the situation. After all, even in her semi-conscious state, she’s still a great conversational companion. Last night, waiting for Jaime’s return, we had an interesting conversation about love. It started with my very subtle hint that Jaime might have been interested in her.

“So, Anna,” I started, knowing that tact was of the utmost importance in this situation. “Jaime’s a really great guy, huh?”
“Yeah, he’s really sweet. I can’t believe he went out of his way to go find me a splint. I feel so guilty about it.”
“Don’t carry that weight on you, you have enough to worry about as is. I sent him out into the jungle, I’m the one that should take the blame for this. Although, you know he’d do anything for you.” I added playfully.
“I know. He’s got the biggest crush on me, I can tell. And he’s such a gentleman. But he’s not the kind of guy I normally go out with. He’s younger than me, and he’s so small. I don’t normally date guys I could beat up, and I could take Jaime in a second.”
“Oh, give him a little more credit. He’s tougher than he seems.”
“I suppose he’d have to be with his past, but it’s just… I don’t want to be the one to break the poor boy. Look at me,” she continued, moving slightly to showcase her body art.  “My history is written all over me. I’ve got a past; I’m not someone he should be with. This is even more obvious now, given what’s already happened with the two of us, and we’re not even dating! The idiot ran off into the jungle to help me and now he’s either injured, or captured by the FARC or the Panamanian police or worse. Don’t get me wrong, if we ever get out of this alive, I’ll give the man a kiss for the effort, but we just wouldn’t work.”
“You don’t know until you try! I mean look at me and Grace. Sure, it isn’t working out right now, but I thought she was way out of my league when I met her. If I hadn’t taken a chance, who knows where we’d be right now. Probably not here, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t have had the amazing life I had up until now, with my two wonderful kids. Damn it, I’ve been such an idiot.”
“Don’t beat yourself up over it, Will. She loves you, and she’s still cooling off. It’s a big thing that you did, just up and running away like that, she had every right to be as angry as she wanted.”
“I guess. I’m just so worried that I’ve messed everything up for good. I love her so much, what on earth was I thinking?” The more I talked, the more of a mess I became, until I was lying in the tent with Anna, my head on her shoulder, sobbing like a baby. For once, though, maybe because of the kindness I’d shown her when she broke her leg, she didn’t mock me. She didn’t make fun of me; she didn’t push me away, reminding me that I was not to touch her. Instead she just lay there, stroking my back, and softly singing a sweet melody, calming me down, and reminding me that it was all going to be okay.

When I awoke this morning, I was still cuddling with Anna. It should have felt wrong, but it was nice to have someone to hold, even if it was just as friends. I got up, heated up some of the remaining water for coffee, and poured two cups. I sweetened hers with sugar, poured the rest of the hot water into some instant oatmeal for breakfast, and returned to the tent with my hands full of goodies.

“Any sign?” Anna asked, not having to say anything more.
“Not that I could tell.” I replied, wishing with all my heart that I could give her a different answer.
“Well, isn’t that just shitty,” she replied, taking the coffee and oatmeal off my hands as she said so. She quickly ate the oatmeal, not stopping to savour its taste, then asked for my help getting out of the tent.
“Why do want out?” I enquired sweetly, acting innocent.
“You know very well why I want out. Don’t act all high and mighty. My leg is broken. I am in pain. Someone I care about has been gone for days now, and he is God knows where. I’m stuck in the middle of the jungle. Now help me out of the tent so I can have a cigarette, or I will try using my leg, and you’ll have to re-set it again.”
I couldn’t really argue with that logic, so I put my arm around her, and helped her hobble to her seat outside the tent. I gave her back her cup of coffee, and her pack of smokes, and set her down, plopping myself next to her.
“You know, you’re going to run out soon. If this is how bitchy you are now, how bad are you going to be then?”
“Will, you don’t want to know.” She replied, puffing on her cigarette to light it, and blowing a little smoke back into my face.
She had a point, so I left it at that. We sat there in silence for a few minutes, me drinking my coffee, her finishing her cigarette. When she had stubbed out the butt, I figured it was as good a time as any to broach the subject with her.
“So Anna, it’s been a few days now. I’m finding it harder and harder to believe that Jaime is going to be coming back any time soon. You really need to get to a hospital. I don’t think we can just sit here and wait for him anymore. What should we do?” I asked, seriously hoping that she’d have some sort of magic answer.
“I don’t know what we should do,” she sighed, obviously unhappy with her own answer. “I have been thinking about it non-stop. There’s no one perfect answer, but I think the best thing I could come up with is this. We leave a few notes here, in case he somehow manages to make his way back, saying that we’ve headed back to Yaviza to get me some medical attention. Then we head back, moving slowly, and leaving plenty of marks, so he can follow us if he gets lost. I really can’t think of anything else we could possibly do,” Anna admitted, sounding slightly defeated.
“No, that’s good. That’s probably the best we’ll be able to come up with. We should leave some supplies here too, just in case he turns out to need them. We have no idea what kind of shape he’s in after his three day foray into the jungle.”
“Sounds good. Let’s get me to a hospital.” Anna finished, and with that, we were ready to continue on our way.

Now, we’re packing up the camp and getting ready to start moving again. I gave Anna tasks that she didn’t have to move very far to do. She’s writing the notes for Jaime, putting together his pack, in case he comes back, and cleaning up her area. I’ve been stuck with everything else, since I seem to be the only able-bodied person in the entire jungle. We will walk until tonight, set up camp once more, and hopefully be out of the jungle in three days. Then the only thing we need to do is deal with the Panamanian police, get Anna to the tiny hospital in the town, hope they have the services that are necessary to care for her, and get her the care she needs.

I hope to God that Jaime has made it out of the jungle. I hope he was captured by Panamanians, if he was captured, and he’s waiting in that military booth that we were ushered into when we first got there. I can’t even begin to think of what else could have happened to him.

No, Will. Think positive. It’s the only way that you’re going to make it out of this alive and relatively sane.

Here’s to not dying,

Will.

So yeah, that’s from my book. It consumed my life for a bit, so hopefully I will get back to posting Japan related things shortly! I’m headed home for 3 weeks on Thursday and the ridiculously long trips will hopefully give me plenty of time to blog about a bunch of things!

Sorry once more!

Jeri

November

Dear blog,

I am immensely sorry for neglecting you over the last month, but i've been participating in this crazy thing called National Novel Writing Month. Which means that I am currently in the home stretch of writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

Rest assured though, updates and everything will come as soon as december starts. I look forward to getting back in touch!

<3 Jeri

Jeri Tries Out Japanese Fashion Trends

My Apartment

Hello lovelies!

Sorry that it's taken me so long to get to this blog post, but I cleaned my apartment today in anticipation of my mother's arrival tomorrow, so I figured that now would be as good a time as any to share it with you guys. Normally, it's fairly clean, but it is particularly lovely now, so yep! Time for a tour!

Room 1: The bedroom.

This is one of my 2 tatami rooms, and it's where all the magic happens. Or at least would happen, if I had someone to make magic with. :P. Regardless, it's quite a decent size. As you can't really see, I sleep on a Japanese futon instead of a bed, but it is on a stand, which I feel is a little more unusual. 

Here is Jessica modeling my lovely futon:

I've also got a desk, surprise surprise, where I've got a calendar up, my laptop, and pictures of friends and family. 

Here's my desk/window from a different angle. Look at my lovely JET Japanese poster. So far it's been a little bit of help!

Room 2: The living room area.

I don't really have that much in my living room. A few pretty curtains, a couch. A coffee table book about Canada. Hopefully, I will get a nice rug in here before it gets too cold, but I'm waiting for my next paycheck. There is a door behind the orange curtains that opens to a porch, which is quite nice for sitting outdoors and pondering my existence.

I've also got my postcard collection hanging on my wall. It's a little bare, so if anyone would like to send me a postcard, send me a comment or an email and I'll hook you up with my address.

Here's the door to the next room. Also, here's my TV stand with no TV. I'm hoping to get a TV as soon as I get my next paycheck, once again. 

Room 3: The Second Bedroom.

This is the room that my mom will be staying in. I've done it up all pretty for her, obnoxious patriotism and all. :)

 

Room 4: The Kitchen.

This is the room where I cook. Obviously. Interesting fact: Japanese houses (even in Hokkaido, apparently, where it can get to -30 and 5+ feet of snow) do not have central heating. This giant thing between my living room and kitchen is a kerosene heater. And that is going to be my one source of warmth for the next 8 very cold months. Joy. If you don't hear from me during the winter, I probably froze to death.

Here's a more up-front picture of my kitchen. As you can see, not very much counter space and no oven. Also, the giant white thing on the right is the water heater. As I blogged about before, these are one of Japan's greatest ideas. It's wonderful!

Room 5: The Third Bedroom:

This room doesn't get an entire photo because it's boring, but here's one from the kitchen! Basically, I hang all my clothes in there to dry because I don't have a dryer. I know. My life is tough. But I'm getting used to it, slowly but surely.

Room 6: The Bathroom.

Note how I say bathroom and not toilet room. 2 separate rooms. This part of the bathroom branches off from my kitchen, with only curtains I put up to separate them. I've got my Japanese washing machine and my vanity, and then to the left, you will find the shower/bathing area.

This is a picture of the shower/bathing area. The bathtub is twice as deep and half as wide as bathtubs back home. They are made for soaking, not washing, so Japanese people normally take a shower with the little showerhead and clean themselves before bathing. They also will save the bathing water for anyone else in the family. I live alone, so I don't bother with any of this. I was a little hesitant to use the Japanese bathtub at first, but now I've quite warmed to it. :)

Room 7: The Genkan/Entrance Way

This is a room that all Japanese apartments/house have, I believe. It's got a concrete area where you leave your outdoor shoes, and then a little entrance area before the main part of the apartment. As you can see, my door leads to the living room from the area. Often, the toilet area of the bathroom branches off from this place, as does mine.

Room 8: The toilet room.

This room holds my toilet. Pretty self explanatory. One thing that I love about it is that there is a sink on top of the toilet bowl that recycles the water you wash your hands with. Genius. Also, however, it's going to be ridiculously cold in the winter, since this is as far away from my one heater as you can get.

 

So yeah! That's my place! Let me know what you think by commenting, and I'll be more than happy to hear from you!

Updates

Its been a while, my apologies. I have plenty of excuses, none of which you want to hear, so I will save you the agony of listening to me explain myself, and hop right into the heart of the blog instead. I know I said that I’d post more themed posts and fewer “I did this, then I did that” posts, but I don’t feel like it. So you can deal. This is going to be one of those “I did this, then I did that” posts, because I’ve done some cool stuff in the last month!

Things I’ve done (In chronological order, not order of awesomeness):

1. Helped run DOKEN conference- this is a conference run for JTEs in Ebetsu by the lovely Dr. Olenka Bilash at the University of Alberta. While there, I sang the hokey pokey, jumped up and down, illustrated a book, and had a surprisingly good time communicating with other ALTs and JTEs!

2. Taught at a couple of other schools- woo school visits! I have now officially been to 4 of my 5 visiting schools, which means that hopefully I only have one more day of self introductions to go! The next time I visit, I'm gonna snap a couple photos of some of my schools, but for now, I can tell you that I have taught at Nanporo High School, Nanporo High School for Challenged Children, Naganuma High School, and Yubari High School for Challenged Children. It's been a blast so far. I never really know what's going to happen at the school visits, which makes them way more exciting than Kuriyama High School sometimes. :)

3. Partied it up in Sapporo- I think I'll let the photos speak for themselves:

 

 This is Tanukikoji, the covered street devoted almost entirely to shopping in Sapporo. LOVE.

There are too many arcades in the city. We didn't actually play this one. Only posed with it.

Jesse and I also took a ferris wheel up to look over the entire city. Unfortunately it was night, but I still managed to snap a few shots.

Sapporo's streets at night are pretty.

4. Attended Iwamizawa’s Mochi Matsuri (I don’t know if thats what its called, but that’s what they had!)

We went to a Ramen shop and I had some sort of vegetable rice bowl. It was delicious, but filling!

Jessica danced in the streets with all the festival-goers. They left me with their bags to snap pictures. Thanks, guys!

I played some of the festival games and won a carebear cell phone charm! go me!

This was the main event of the festival. They are pounding the living daylights out of some mochi! For those who are interested, mochi is glutenous rice. Here it seems to be eaten mostly as a dessert. It's very sticky, and when done right, quite delicious!

This is the mochi-pounder! Apparently it's one of the biggest in... somewhere.

We also stopped at a cute taiyaki shop, where we got taiyaki! I was nervous, because it sounded a lot like takoyaki, which is octopus balls. Turns out it's just fish-shaped pancakes filled with whatever fillings you order. DELICIOUS.

5. Formed a band with some fellow JETs. Tracy, Jessica, and I are now in a "band". We don't have a name, but we jam once a week, and we have 3 voices, 3 guitars and a ukulele sometimes!

Andromeda snapped some photos of us while we played some songs.

She also invited over a couchsurfer who was hanging at her place, and was kind enough to pose for us in this photo!

6. Decorated my apartment some more. More photos will be up once I clean up and take some, and write a full blog post on my place. For now though, I'm content. :)

7. Attended Kuriyama’s Aki Matsuri and carried a shrine down the streets to the temple! This was really exciting. It's the first time I've really actively participated in Japanese awesomeness, and I have photos to prove it!

Day 1:

Chocolate covered bananas are even more delicious when you're sharing them with friends. :)

This is Jessica at one of the temples in our town. The one that we carried the giant-ass shrine to the next day. Yep.

The festival also had a haunted house, which was surprisingly scary for a 6 dollar adventure set up right downtown!

Rows and rows of stalls. Apparently Kuriyama's Aki Matsuri is one of the largest shrine festivals in all of Japan. Love where I live :)

We also got to see a few yosakoi performances in the evening, and I was absolutely blown away. Especially by this guy. His make-up was so pretty, and his dance moves were bomb.

Day 2:

So basically, Tracy called Jessica and I up and asked if we wanted to carry a little shrine in the festival. Having nothing better to do, we said yes. Jessica wasn't feeling well and bailed, and Andromeda took her place. So we got picked up at around 4, and driven to this lovely Japanese lady's house, where she proceeded to dress us. I still had no idea what was going on. About an hour later, we looked like this: Apparently the robes are happy robes, and they are required for shrine-carrying.

I don't know if we did it right, but it was fun! And we got free stew I couldn't eat because there was meat in it. Also. ALSO ALSO most of the men don't wear pants with their happy robes. I saw a lot of butts. Yep that's about it.

8. saw a traditional Rakugo play in Japanese in Yuni. I went with my school. It was definitely interesting, although to be honest, I don't speak any Japanese, so I had no idea what was going on. Also, I was really really cold. 

9. Went to Otaru for HAJET’s fall meeting. This was a lot of fun as well. Sometimes it's nice to be surrounded by foreigners and party like a rock star. I took a few photos of this as well. 

 

Andromeda and I are on our way to Otaru! Let the road trip begin!

This is the symbolic fork of adventure! So many roads going so many ways!

And somehow we ended up in a shop where I held a giant 30 year old 20 pound crab. Peer pressure.

The canal is beautiful at night. I absolutely loved the colours. The city didn't really feel like Japan, it felt more European. And you could tell they were playing that up with all they had, considering the number of gondolas there were offering rides. And rickshaws. Etc.

On the way back, I got to pick the route. So of course, we avoided the freeway and took the most roundabout route possible. I took us up a mountain, and we played at a park in Otaru for a little bit.

Then, I took us to Ishikari beach, where the rain didn't stop us from running down to where the water was and getting our feet absolutely soaked! (also my camera lens)

I tried to take us down this tunnel as well, but sometimes your routes don't work out quite as well as planned. Thanks, google maps.

And that's been all so far! A giant blog post to make up for the fact that I haven't posted in a few months. I promise that they will be more regular from now on! Hopefully shorter, too!

<3 Jeri