This past tuesday was the Fall Equinox which is celebrated in Japan by making it a stat holiday. w00t! The possibility of a four day weekend was too good to pass up so I took a day of precious nenkyu (paid leave of absence of which I only get 20 days a year) on the Monday and made it a four-day weekend. I already mentioned before, but the HAJET Southwestern meet was being held at a campground in Shakotan peninsula, about two hours west of Sapporo and all this time off gave me the perfect opportunity to drive down to the meet and explore the island even more.

I was taking another JET, Rebecca, and her twin sister (the same sisters as last weekend) who live in Biei (near Asahikawa) with me to Shakotan. They graciously let me stay at their place on the Friday night so we would get an early start the next morning. That Friday night, however, was a welcome enkai by one of my schools. That afternoon we went for a hike with all the school kids and once we returned and the kids went home, they set up a few tables and we had beer and jinghis kahn right there in the school. At some point during the evening I mentioned that I was going to drive to Biei that night, which I realized afterwards that I shouldn't have mentioned because they wanted to end the enkai right then and there. I said I wasn't in a rush but they wouldn't have it. After a bit of gentle persuasion to the other teachers from the principal, we decided to end the enkai at 6:30pm that night. They gave me a little farewell and plenty of food to bring with me on the drive and I left my town by 7:00pm. It was dark out by then so I made pretty good time (after one or two wrong turns..) and made it into Biei by 10:00pm. I was exhausted from the day's hike, the enkai and the long drive so shortly after I got there it was time for bed.

We left Biei the next morning at 8:00am with a packed car. There's a toll expressway that runs between Asahikawa and Sapporo but, since we weren't in a rush, we decided that we'd take the "scenic route" and drive on the normal highway instead. On the way, we drove through a bunch of little towns and cities which had a lot of traffic lights so it was a bit slow going. We made it into Sapporo around noon and - thanks to my trusty map - successfully navigated our way to Callie's house. We chilled there for ten minutes or so before we set off again for Shakotan. We took a different toll expressway this time and made much better timing. The drive out to Shakotan is right along the coast of the Sea of Japan so our view for pretty much the entire trip was coastline, forests and tunnels. It's a beautiful, natural coastline compared to the eastern coast which is full of cement water breakers and no beaches.

When we arrived in Shakotan I only had a vague idea of where our campsite was from the directions I received. I had circled it on the map so while we were driving I knew we were getting close but wasn't exactly sure what I was looking for. As I was rounding a cliff, I could see a beach in the distance with a little city of tents and knew immediatley that's where we were headed. The campsite is literally a strip of grass on a little bluff that goes down to the beach. We unpacked the car, set up our tents and then me and Callie drove ten minutes along the coast to a place called Cape Kamui. It's famous for it's "Virgin Rock", a stone pillar that stands by itself just off the cape. When we got there we walked the path from the parking lot to the top of the cliff to get a better look, but we weren't able to walk out onto the cape because they were doing repairs. We talked to one of the guys working and he said it wouldn't be open until next year. Zannen! It was a gorgeous view from where we were standing and it would've been even better from the lighthouse but ah well, it just means I have to go back next year.

After that we headed back to the campsite and hung out with the other JETs for the rest of the night. There were about 30 of us who showed up for this meet, a little less than last weekend. When it got dark we had a bonfire on the beach by burning random pieces of wood we managed to scalvage including trees, sign posts, benches, etc. There was a raffle, the standard impromptu fireworks display (which occurs at every HAJET meet) and a few hours of talking and good times around the fire. We were right on the beach so when it got dark and the wind started to pick up, it got really cold really fast. I was sitting and talking with some other JETs when 11:00pm rolled around and I decided to call it a night. I went with another JET, Olivia, to find Callie to tell her I was going to bed.. and found her and three other JETs spooning on the beach! They had fallen down in the sand from their photoshoot shenanigans earlier and ended up spooning for warmth. It looked pretty comfortable.. so me and Olivia joined in to make an alternating line of guys and girls spooning on the beach. It was random, but also very fun.. and warm. We ended up lying there talking for another three hours until early in the morning. Since there were no lights on the coast we were able to see the stars really clearly and even the occasional shooting star. It was nice. Eventually it got even colder and we had sand in absolutely every nook and cranny so we decided to head to bed. I didn't end up falling asleep until 4:00am.

We got up the next morning at 8:00am when the tent became a sauna and the crows wouldn't stop being annoying so it was impossible to sleep in. It was a pretty lazy morning with quite a few of the JETs nursing hangovers or groggy from the lack of sleep. Me, Callie and the twins had decided to go hike a mountain in the area called Shakotan dake so we roped in two more JETs and the six of us headed off. We got to the trailhead around 11:00am after driving up a sketchy gravel road to the base and then headed up the trail. It was a fairly easy hike and we made it to the peak in only two hours. When we started out it was overcast and cloudy but by the time we got to the top the sun had burned away the clouds and we were left with a view of the entire peninsula. We stayed up there for half an hour before slowly making our way back to the base. The first thing we did - as everyone should do after taking a hike - is go to an onsen. A really nice onsen was literally right above our campsite so we headed back there first. When we arrived, all the people had already left and every single tent except ours were gone. They went home because they had to work the next day and only a few of us had actually taken nenkyu for the Monday. We had decided to stay another night so the four of us plus another JET who decided to camp the night again with us, Ross, went to the onsen to get cleaned up (to get rid of all the sand!!) and then we drove out to a cliff to watch the sunset. After that we headed into town to eat at a restaurant and then returned to the campsite. It was already pitch black by then and there was no bonfire that night so the five of us just pulled up some chairs next to one of our tents and talked in the dark for a while. It was really relaxing to chill on the beach in the dark at night with a few friends. There's nothing in this world better than that... except maybe doing the same thing while spooning :). It had been a long and exhausting day and we were dropping off one by one so we called it an early night and went to bed by 9:00pm.

We woke up at 7:00am the next morning, ate breakfast and got ready to leave Shakotan. After getting the 10 lbs of sand out of our tents, we packed up everything and leisurely made our way back towards Sapporo. We made a stop along the way at the Space Apple in Yoichi - which has a little space museum - and then continued onto a city called Otaru where we stopped to look around. It's famous for it's canal that runs along downtown and has a few shopping arcades, a ton of glass-blowing shops and a sushi alley. After walking around for a few hours we went for lunch at a snazzy kaitenzushi restaurant before continuing onto Sapporo. We didn't take the expressway back because we weren't in a rush so we braved the Sapporo traffic and managed to make it back to Callie's house by 4:00pm. We recouped there for a short time and then went on a journey to Costco! There were five of us and only one membership card and they have a dumb rule in Japan that you can only use a card to bring in two friends so three of us went in to shop while the other two waited in the car. Costco here is like Costco at home... except a million times better because it's actual food from home! Rebecca was absolutely stoked when she found oats in bulk that she bought three massive boxes to bring back to Biei, enough to last her a few months. I bought a new jacket, a huge chunk of cheese (this stuff is normally unbelievably expensive) and some other random goods that will last me until I go to Costco again. Over 38,200 yen ($382) was spent between the three of us but it was definitely worth it. We loaded down Ross' car with all the food we bought (his camping gear was also still in the car) and headed back to Callie's place to drop off the food. We were going out that night for another JETs birthday dinner so the twins and Ross took off to another JET's place where they were staying the night to get refreshed. I took a shower and a quick nap before we were back out the door at again to meet with others. We went to an amazing Indian restaurant where we gaijin smashed the place and basically took over. After that we took the subway downtown to return to the same club as the Sapporo Orientation, A-Life, for three hours of nomihoudai (all-you-can-drink) that started at 10 o'clock. There were a couple of DJ's from around the world performing that night. It went until 5:00am but unfortunately I didn't last that long. We ended up leaving the club a bit early and didn't sleep until after 4:00am (again!).

We woke up around six hours later because we already know sleeping in is impossible in Japan. That afternoon Callie's angel, Mayumi, came over and we went to a park on the edge of Sapporo to watch a Taiko event. It was a regional competition where teams from all around Hokkaido came to compete. First place would go on to compete in Honshu at the national competition. The ages in each team varied from little elementary kids to adults but they were all amazing! Midway through the event they had a demonstration session where members of the audience could go onstage to do a mini taiko lesson. It didn't take much persuasion for me and Callie to get up there so Mayumi came up with us also to help translate. As usual, Callie being the only blonde on stage (and at the entire event) she had a million photos taken of her. Here's a video of some pro taikoing. Sorry about the sound quality but my camera couldn't handle the awesomeness.


We decided to leave the event a little bit early so we could make it back to catch a bit of the Autumn Festival that's going on right now in Sapporo. On the way back into downtown we saw a a huge statue of a Buddha on top of a temple so we decided to make a quick stop and check it out. When we walked into the temple there were a couple of booths set up because they were celebrating the unveiling of the new Buddha statue (I think) including a welcome booth where they asked us to write down our names in the guestbook. When I wrote down my name in English the lady there asked me if I was Japanese and I told her I was from Canada. She got really excited and starting asking me questions and then asked if we would pray at the temple! Apparently it brings good luck to us and the temple if we prayed there so she guided me, Callie and Mayumi over to a huge urn with incense and showed us how to do a Buddhist prayer. After that she brought us over to a picnic table and gave us tea and snacks and asked us to stay for a while. We had only planned on stopping by for a quick look but we ended up there for at least half an hour. It also didn't help that when we asked an innocent question about Buddhist statues it turned out that no one knew the answer so they proceeded to ask every single person there! When they still couldn't find someone that knew they called someone and politely asked us to wait. Mayumi, our poor interpreter, was stuck listening to a lecture on Buddhism while we waited. Once they had managed to find out the answer and tell us (about ten minutes later) we were able to leave politely. We drove back into downtown but didn't have time to make it to the Fall Festival. I had to leave by 5:00pm so once we got back to Callie's, we quickly went shopping at a 100 Yen store for last minute goods then I loaded the car, picked up the twins, refueled and we were off.

I made it outside the city at 6:00pm and took the toll expressway back to Asahikawa. It only took us two hours (and $32) to get back to Biei but it was worth it. I was pretty exhausted from the day and from the lack of sleep the last few nights so I wanted to get home as soon as possible. Once I got to Biei I had some tea to wake myself up and then I was off again. It took me another three hours from Biei to get back to Kamiyubetsu and by then I was super exhausted. I made it back at 11:00pm but by 10:00pm my eyelids kept wanting to close. I was considering pulling over on the side of the road to nap for half an hour but I forced myself to go on. When I got home I brought my clothes up to my apartment, took a quick shower and then slept like a stone. This morning I went to work as usual and then taught an eikaiwa so I didn't manage to clean out my car until a few hours ago. I'm still exhausted from the weekend so I think I'll call it an early night tonight. Luckily it's a short work week because then I can sleep in on Saturday... or at least attempt to.