Perplexing Things About Japan 1: Toilets

So, I've decided to write a list about some of the most perplexing cultural aspects of Japan, but I had too much to write about so it's going to be a series of posts. Here goes!


Before I get into why they are perplexing, I suppose I should start by explaining them to people that are not familiar with them.

Basically, there are 2 different types of toilets here, western and squat toilets. The squat toilets are just that, you squat down on top of something that sort of looks like a urinal that has been knocked over and shrunk. It’s cool. You do your business, apparently it’s actually better for your colon (see here and here), all good things.

The western toilets are where the Japanese seem to have gone a bit crazy. They are like regular toilets, but more Japanese. Basically, any possible add on you could think of for a toilet to have, they’ve got it. Have you ever wondered why your toilet has no bidet for your unclean bits? Move to Japan, and you won’t have to do without! What about toilets that will play flushing sounds without actually flushing so people won’t hear you doing your business? We’ve got that too! You can control the volume of the flushing sound, the strength of your bum washing, how much soap you want, basically you name it, you can probably find it somewhere on a toilet in Japan.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that the toilets in Japan are awesome. I mean, there is no limit to what they can do! If someone came up to me and told me that the toilet in the other washroom was actually a rocket ship designed to send the user to the moon if they pushed the right buttons, I wouldn’t even be surprised.

But what I don’t understand is WHY. Why do we need toilets that are so high tech that you can’t even find the flush? Why do we need toilets that sing to us and talk to us? Why do we need toilets that have heated seats and lids that open automatically when you enter the stall? (sidenote: I actually really love the heated seats)

Also, in my school teacher’s bathroom, there is one stall with a traditional squat toilet, one with a regular western toilet, and one with a decked out japanese toilet. Why do we need 3 different options when going to the bathroom? Surely something as short-lived as using the bathroom doesn’t mean we need 3 different ways of doing so? Oh well, to each his own, I guess.


So yep. Toilets are weird.

Oral Surgery in Japan

I need to get my wisdom teeth taken out. Unfortunately, this is no longer an option for me, but more of a necessity. My straight teeth are slowly becoming less straight as my back molars grow in, and this is starting to bother me.

I know, I know, it’s not what you look like on the outside that matters, but who you are on the inside. Seriously, though, screw that. I want straight teeth.

So with that in mind, when I heard that one of my ALT friends had gotten all four of her teeth taken out in Japan for ONLY $100 DOLLARS, I knew that I would get it done here. It was now or never.

ANYWAY.

I had my first appointment a few weeks ago. I got my supervisor to call and get me an appointment. She spouted out a bunch of words that I didn’t understand, and let me know that I had an appointment with Dr. Saito on at Omni Dentix on Friday, February 3rd.

I don’t particularly like going to the dentist, or any medical professional for that matter, so when that Friday rolled around and Jessica drove me in for my appointment, I begged and pleaded with her to stick around until I was done.

“Stop being a little baby about it,” she said. “I’m going shopping, act like a grown up.”

She didn’t really say that, but I’m sure she would have if she wasn’t so ridiculously nice. Instead, I put on my big girl face all by myself, and told her to have fun shopping. I’d call her when I was done.

I sat down in the waiting room, filled out the forms, and waited for them to call my name. When I was finally called, I was brought into an impeccably clean, stylish room, with about 8 dental workspaces separated by chic barriers. Seriously, the most posh dentist I’ve ever been to. I was greeted by a dental hygienist who spoke no English, and when I gestured to the chair to ask whether I should sit down, she shook her head, and pointed at a tiny little stool thing.

“That’s a little weird,” I thought. “Oh well.” And I sat down on the tiny little stool. Immediately, she ran towards me, and shook her head, pointing at one of the tiny stools that was in a different dental area. It was occupied not by a human, but by a purse, scarf and jacket.

Oh. Oops.

I sheepishly climbed off the place I was supposed to put my stuff, and did things the right way. Go me.

The doctor then came in, told me I needed an x-ray, and made me take out all 7 of my earrings. One of them just wouldn’t come out, so after about 10 minutes of effort, Dr. Saito just told me that it was fine, and that it shouldn’t make that much of a difference. Great. So I go in, get my teeth x-rayed, and come out relatively unscathed. I go to put my earrings back in, and drop one on the ground. Dr. Saito comes back in and looks really confused when he sees me crawling around, muttering to myself in English with my little dental bib still on.

And we wonder why the Japanese people think foreigners are strange.

I straightened up, gave another sheepish smile (I think I’m getting quite good at it) and sat back down in the dental chair, accepting the fact that my earring was forever lost. He then went into an explanation about wisdom tooth removal, and how the roots of my bottom teeth were dangerously close to the nerve that runs across my jaw, which meant that I could end up numb for days, weeks, or possibly permanently.

“I see,” I said, trying not to openly panic. “And approximately how common is that?”

“Well, it’s happened twice and we’ve been open for over seven years,” he replied. “No need to worry. Also, your roots curve in, so we might have to saw your teeth in two to be able to take them out. And you’re only getting local anaesthetics. But don’t worry, it will be fine.”

He then left while I got my top teeth cleaned. Apparently, according to Japanese insurance policy, they are not allowed to clean all your teeth at once, so they must clean your top teeth during one appointment and your bottom teeth during another. Don’t ask, I don’t know.

Then, I grabbed my card, paid for my appointment (only $17!!) and went to meet Jessica, a new appointment made for extraction 2 weeks later.

I fretted and worried for the next two weeks, but my next appointment came way too soon.I was practically crying as Jessica drove me into Sapporo for my appointment, scared to death that something would go wrong. “BUT YOU ARE GOING TO BE THERE THE WHOLE TIME, RIGHT?” I asked Jessica. “Yes, dear. I’ll be right outside waiting for you.”

Seriously, Jessica, you rock. I can’t sing your praises enough.

Once again, they called my name, and this time led me into the room where it would all go down. The oral surgeon came in, and with surprisingly good English, told me exactly what was going to happen. I admitted that I was a little nervous, and he assured me that it was all going to be okay. I liked this guy already.

He wasted no time, putting some numbing cream on the spot, and leaving for a few minutes while it worked its magic. When it was done, he came back in with a giant scary needle, and quickly assured me that it would be over before I knew it. I opened my mouth, and he shoved the needle into my skin about 2395846 times, making sure the entire area was numb. I was holding my breath the entire time, and halfway through he had to tell me to breathe, because I was too tense for him to put the needle in again. Oops.

After the anaesthesia, he left for a little bit longer so it could become effective, then came back. He mentioned that there was going to be a bit of pressure, but if I felt any pain I should raise my left hand.

And then he put a giant set of pliers in my mouth and yanked out my tooth. I mean, not quite, but almost! He put a lot of pressure on my tooth, and I raised my left arm in pain, then he injected more anaesthesia in, and all of a sudden he was waving my tooth in front of me!

That was it! No having to cut it, no anything!

I was all excited that it didn’t even hurt and ready to have the next three teeth pulled out, when he said “Well, that’s it for today!”

“What? I thought I was going to get them all taken out?”

“No, we only do one at a time! Otherwise, you’d never be able to eat anything!”

“Oh, so I have to come back three more times?”

“Yep!”

Great.

He gave me a piece of gauze to stick in the area and keep there for 30 minutes, and with that, I was done. I paid, picked up my prescription of antibiotics and painkillers and hopped back into the car with Jessica.  On the way home, the anaesthesia started to wear off, and man did my mouth hurt. I popped 2 of the heavy-duty painkillers, and my mouth went back to it’s previously painless state.

Pretty sure the painkillers I was given were just like extra strength tylenol, but they did the trick, and I managed to get to sleep immediately when I went home.

The next day, I was feeling fine, so  I took the drugs as prescribed and went out to sing karaoke with Jessica and some other friends. We also drove all the way back into the city for a check-up, which Jessica was more than happy to do. Have I mentioned how much she rocks recently? Well, she does.

Anyway, one week later I had my stitches taken out and I made an appointment for my next one. I’m left with just a hole where the tooth used to be and no pain whatsoever!

Here’s hoping that it will be equally easy when I go to get the next 3 taken out!

Sapporo Yuki Matsuri

Once upon a time, there was a young girl named Jeri who dreamed of one day traveling to Japan and witnessing the glory of the giant ice and snow sculptures at Sapporo’s Yuki Matsuri. She waited and waited, until she could wait no longer. Then, one day, all her dreams came true.

Okay, so that story isn’t completely true. It’s more like “Once upon a time Jeri got placed in Hokkaido and subsequently learned that the one awesome thing about the winter was the aforementioned festival”. But hey, both are equally valid reasons to attend, right?

Whether you’d been dreaming about it for ages like imaginary Jeri, or had only heard about it this year like real Jeri, chances are you were looking forward to the Yuki Matsuri this year. Let me tell you something, it did not disappoint.

 

I don’t live in the city, so I didn’t have a chance to visit until the weekend. When Friday finally rolled around, I was ecstatic and giddy as I hopped into Jessica’s car at 2 pm to go pick up Tracy and head into the city. We drove for an hour, sampling classics from my winter playlist, and finally arrived, parked the car, and walked out towards Odori park, where the festival was being held. 

 

According to the website, there are thousands of spectacles to behold at the festival. They had 2,416,000 visitors last year, virtually doubling Sapporo’s population (although I’m slightly confused as to how they count visitors at a free festival). The festival also boasts 228 ice and snow sculptures at its three sites. Most of them are small, but many are massive and unbelievably impressive. In fact,  there is so much snow needed for these sculptures that it takes them 6.500 five-ton trucks to move it all around. With all this in mind, I was ready to check out the sites for myself.

The first thing I saw when we got to Odori was a giant castle made of ice. The intricacy and detail of the sculpture was stunning, and I couldn’t take my eyes away. Everywhere I looked I saw smaller pieces of art made of snow, the subjects being anything from Totoro to the Taj Mahal. 

 

The second thing I noticed was the insane amount of foreigners that had come into the city. In general, I just assume that if I run into another foreigner in the city, I probably know them. I know this isn’t always accurate, but it holds up a lot of the time. Not this weekend. As soon as we got there, the three of us were accosted by a group of very drunk American Navy soldiers who promptly made it their duty to make Jessica very uncomfortable. Tracy and I acted like bad friends and laughed and snapped photos. Oops.

 

We walked along the park, admiring the artistry and ducking into a conbini every so often to try to bring some feeling back to our numb toes. Once we had travelled the length of the park, we decided to walk to the Susukino festival site, with help from Jesse, our incredibly wonderful Sapporo guide. 

 

The sculptures at that site were more beautiful in a sense. Since they were made of ice and not snow, they seemed more delicate, more dainty than the ones at Odori. We walked and looked and walked and sat in ice cars and had our pictures taken, and did all the wonderful fun Sapporo Snow Festival stuff. At that point, we were starting to get hungry, so we decided to indulge in what is probably the best (and most underrated) part of the festival: festival food.

 

 

We returned to Odori and frequented the Indian food stand, since as a vegetarian, it was probably the only stall I could eat at. I got hot mango juice and vegetable curry, which turned cold as soon as I sat down to eat it. In the never-ending war of temperature, the heat of my food definitely lost this battle. That being said, the food was delicious and hit the spot. Also, if you haven’t tried it, hot mango juice is absolutely delicious. It’s my new winter drink. For real. The others satiated their taste-buds at the international area of the festival, where they could purchase the kebabs that they had been craving all afternoon. Was it worth it? I don’t know, ask them.

 

 

Then, finally, came the moment we had all been waiting for. Ever since we had showed up, Tracy had wanted to go to an ice bar. She’s from Australia, you see, and is completely unused to all the interesting and exciting things that the winter can bring. That said, with our stomachs full, we headed to one of the many ice bars. We ordered warm drinks and stood next to a table made of ice, smiling and chatting with each other while reminiscing about the wonderful day that we had had. It was truly a great, albeit cold, end to a great, albeit cold, day.

In conclusion, if you missed the festival this year, shame on you, but I  just gave you the highlights so fret not. If you were there, I hope you had as much fun as I did!

The Interview

I figured I'd write about my interview so that anybody looking to prepare for interviews next year could have a little bit of help, so here goes!

To prepare, I asked everybody I knew to help me come up with possible interview questions, and I made answers to all of them. I did as much research as possible on Japanese culture, language, history, politics and geography. I memorized some phrases in Japanese (my language ability at the time was zero). I did practise interviews with my friends. I bought a business suit, which I recommend to anyone regardless of whether you get the job. I scoured the forums for tips.

The day of the interview, I had class beforehand, conveniently located in the building right next to the interview building on McGill campus. I went to class in my suit, then I walked to the building. I arrived about 30 minutes early. There were 2 former JETs working the tables outside, and I highly recommend using this time to ask any questions you have about the job and their experience, no matter what the questions are. It was really helpful.

Then, they called my name. I walked into a bright room and sat down on a tiny wooden chair 6 feet away from the 3 interviewers. One was Japanese, and two were foreign. They did the whole sort of good cop bad cop thing, with two being very strict, and one of the foreigners being super down to earth and accessible.

Some of the questions I was asked:
- where did you say you wanted to be placed? Why did you pick this placement?
- why did you choose to do JET?
- what do you want to do in your life and how do you think JET will help you get there?
- what cultural aspects of Japan are you most excited to experience?
- what cultural aspects of Canada would you teach Japanese people about?
- tell us about a time when you overcame an obstacle to achieve something.
- do you know what the JETAA is? What would your role be in the JETAA?
- what are the three main goals of the JET programme and how would you contribute to them?

After this, I was asked to do the role play portion. They told me they the JTE had just left the room and I was in a class full of seventh graders. I was supposed to teach them about winter in Canada. During this period, one of them (the happy one) played the role of the super genki student. The Japanese lady played the role of the troublemaker, throwing erasers at the other two and the foreign lady played the role of the tired student, sleeping at her desk. During this part I ended up attempting more class managing than teaching, and I was pretty sure I bombed. But that's just my experience.

Then, they told me they'd let me know, and off I went.

Words of Advice:
- I did a lot of research on Japan that I didn't need, but Id recommend doing it anyway. Just in case.
- show up very early.
- prepare questions to ask, but don't be surprised if you aren't given the chance to ask them. In my case, they said if I had any questions to ask the two ladies outside.
- Be succinct, but answer their questions.
- invest in a suit and wear it.
- no matter what happens, stay calm and go with it. One of the main characteristics they emphasize is adaptability. You will probably have to show this.
- smile when you walk in the room and as much as you can during the interview.
- don't worry too much! They just want to see what you can do!

Sorry that was so long, but I hope it helps!

Christmas in Japan

Alright, as promised for the maybe 3 readers who consistently read my blog, here's my post about Christmas traditions in Japan.

I decided to write on this topic because of the tens of classes Id been asked to give on the opposite topic, Christmas in Canada. The more I taught about it, the more perplexed my students seemed and I realized that this was because their customs were completely different to ours. I mean, sure, they celebrate Christmas, but they celebrate it in the most curious way. Like anytime they adopt Western culture, they celebrate Christmas in an attempt at Westernism that is so amazingly Japanese. Because of this, I’ve made a list of my top five Japanese Christmas traditions.

5. Christmas Cake

For some reason unknown to me, Japanese people buy cake to eat on Christmas Eve, whether it be with their families or friends. And not just any kind of cake. In general, the cake is a very special white sponge cake, covered with whipped cream and strawberries. It’s like strawberry shortcake, but in actual cake form. In fact, I actually got to make this with some of the san-nensei Home Economics students before I went home for the holidays. It is delicious!

4. Dating

For many young Japanese people, Christmas is seen as a dating holiday. Many young couples go out on super romantic dates, and profess their love to each other, or whatever people do on dates. I haven’t been on one in a while, so I kind of forget.  I’m also unsure of how this tradition started, but I know that many Japanese women get quite upset when they are single on Christmas. The poor things.

3. One-way Gift Giving

Apparently, since the Western idea of Christmas is relatively new in the country, they have adopted some practises but not others? Japanese parents tend to give their children gifts, but the children are not expected to give any back. Also, I don’t think they give anyone else gifts, just their kids. And only until they are the age when they stop believing in Santa Claus. Because like in Canada, the parents ARE Santa. Sorry, kids.

2. The complete absence of Religion

One of the most perplexing parts of these Christmas rituals is that according to the very scientific completely scholarly source of Wikipedia, less than one percent of Japanese people are Christian. The main religions are Buddhism and Shintoism. Because of this, many Japanese children think that December 25th is the birth of Santa, not Jesus, and even more people don’t even realize that Christmas in other parts of the world has a religious origin. 

1. KFC on Christmas.

This has got to be one of the best things about Christmas in Japan. I know I’m a vegetarian, so I shouldn’t be repping this, but many Japanese people eat Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas. This tradition has become so popular that many KFC chains offer special Christmas packages. Once again, I’m not entirely positive how this tradition started, but from what I understand, it is all part of an advertising campaign done by KFC back in the 1970s, when they started promoting the idea that Christmas = Kentucky. This was done because apparently one group of expats realized that in the absence of turkey, fried chicken was the next best thing. Obviously, KFC capitalized on this possibility and the trend grew and grew, being adopted by the Japanese people as an essential part of Christmas in Japan.

So yeah, that’s Christmas in Japan! Next time, I may or may not write about something more relevant to my life. We’ll see how I feel.

Adventure Time With Jess and Jeri part 3

Alright friends, so we left off on a huge cliffhanger, heading out towards E-san at 1:00 p.m, ready for anything. We were super excited to climb the mountain, then spend the evening relaxing in the wine-red water at the E-san onsen, before Jessica drove us to our hotel in Hakodate and she headed home to make it to church the next morning.

We were driving down the road, heading through Hakodate to make it to the mountain on time. The wind was in our hair, and our minds were untroubled. Then, all of a sudden, Jessica mentions cautiously, “Hey, guys, I don’t want to freak you out, but my battery light came on. I think I should get it checked out.”

Oh no.

We found a service station within the next kilometre, and pulled in. This was the second time we had stopped at a service station without buying gas, and as we pulled in, Jessica tried to tell them what was wrong in Japanese. In my eyes, she did a pretty great job! After a lot of pointing, nodding, and words I didn’t understand, Jessica told me that it was her alternator belt, and that they didn’t have one at that station, but they did at the Nissan dealership in the city.

So much for E-san!

We hopped back into the car and drove into the city, grudgingly obeying the speed limit. Although we still wanted to climb the mountain, we also didn’t want to get pulled over. Eventually, we found the dealership, and they took her precious car away from her for an hour. By this time it was 3:30, and we were pretty sure that we weren’t going to be climbing any mountains. Instead, we settled for a walk down the street, where we found a wonderful patisserie and stuffed our faces with macaroons and cake.

Not a bad second choice, but still not exactly what we were looking for. Eventually, we walked back to the dealership, and found Jessica’s car fixed. “Horray” we exclaimed in unison, causing stares from the Japanese passers-by. We hopped in the car and resigned ourselves to heading to our hotel in Hakodate, where Jessica would drop us off before she headed back to Kuriyama.

We got to the hotel, and I could tell as soon as she laid down on my bed for a tiny rest that Jessica wasn’t driving home that night.

“Guys, I think I wanna stay here tonight. I really don’t want to drive,” she said, and that was that. We booked another hotel room, and all of a sudden, E-san was back on the horizon!

With that settled, we went off to find a place to eat. The hotel recommended this tiny little locally owned place. We couldn’t find it no matter how hard we tried, so eventually we gave up. We came across this place covered in lights and Christmas decorations, with a large quote on the front that said “everything in the restaurant is in the full spirit of Christmas”. We HAD to give this place a try.

 Apparently the place is quite famous with anyone who lives in the area. They serve burgers, omuraisu, and curry, from what I can tell. This seems mismatched enough, but the most startling thing was how many Christmas decorations there were. They seemed to stick out from every single wall and every corner. I counted no fewer than eight Christmas trees, all of them completely covered with decorations. They photos do not do it justice at all. You had to see it. If anyone is in town, the place is called Lucky Pierrot, and their logo has a clown. visit http://www.luckypierrot.jp/ for more info.

Jessica and I were exhausted, and wanted some relief, so we headed to an onsen in downtown Hakodate to relax a little. It was nothing special, but there was a nice outdoor pool where we soaked and chatted with some of the locals. Mom declined to come, to our great dismay.

 After our soak, we went to the hotel, and rested up for another exciting day ahead of us.

When we awoke, we packed up the car, checked out, and drove up Mt. Hakodate to see the beautiful view. We contented ourselves with the view and with playing twister on the giant compass on the ground. Mom thought we were crazy. We giggled a lot. It made us happy.

After this, we drove to Hakodate Tower and paid to go up to the very top to see a bird’s eye view of the Goryokaku fort. It was shaped like a star and looked absolutely stunning from the tower. I amused myself by snatching an English leaflet and reading facts out to Jessica and my mother, pretending that I knew a lot about the history. They were impressed until they noticed the concealed pamphlet. I took this as a hint that we should actually go look at the fort.

We took the elevator down and walked around a bit, not really caring that it was raining. The park is beautiful, and well worth a walk-through, although you might want to visit it on a sunny day. We turned our bodies into a star to pose for photos.

Finally, we made the journey to E-san. We drove and drove and drove down the endless road. 

Finally, when we though we could no longer bear to be in the car, we came across the mountain in all its glory.  We drove up as far as we could, parked the car, and then started the hike.

Being an active volcano, the smell of sulfur was strong and we saw plenty of air vents spewing steam. 

I’m not going to lie, I was a little wary of the hike. My mother came with us for the first little bit, then bowed out when we started to climb the steps. And climb the steps we did! One after another, we went further and further up, stopping only occasionally to take pictures. Eventually, after much effort, we reached the top. 

It was really cloudy. We couldn’t see Honshu.

As anticlimactic as it was, it was still a good hike, and on the way down we counted all the stairs we’d come up.  We took turns counting to hundreds in different languages. I practised my Japanese. I was proud of myself. 918 stairs.

After this long hike, we decided to cap off the trip with a soak in the famous E-san onsen. We drove around, looking for it, and finally found it right next to the mountain. It was so tiny that we almost didn’t see it, but we were excited for a soak nonetheless.

We went in, and it was very disorganized. It looked like no one had been there in ages. We called out, and eventually someone came and answered our calls.

“Uhh... is the onsen open?” we asked hesitatingly.
“Sure is!” The man replied, asking us for 4 dollars.

We then walked down a hallway with carpet of at least 4 different colours, and into the changing room, roughly the size of my closet. We changed quickly, and entered the onsen. We were completely not expecting what we got.

The onsen was just as small as my bathtub, and the water seemed to be more rust-coloured than wine-coloured. The entire room was grimy and small, and we were the only people there. This fact, at least, was unsurprising. We showered and cleaned ourselves, although we hardly saw the point, and got into the bath. From my point of view, it seemed like the perfect setting for a horror film. I kept looking around for the villain. Once I got over that, however, it was quite relaxing.

Famous onsen? I’m not so sure.

Finally, relaxed and clean, we started the long drive back to the city. We got in eventually, and promptly fell asleep, ready to work the next day.

And to cap this one off, more Engrish!

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)