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