The annual HAJET (Hokkaido Association of JETs) Summer Meet is a perfect time to get together with JETs from all over the Hokkaido for a weekend of camping, food, friends and fun in the sun. Last weekend, the summer meet was held at beautiful Lake Toya, the site of last years' G8 Summit. It also happens to be inconveniently located on the other side of the island from my house. On a rainy Friday evening after work, Justin and I left Eastern Hokkaido in his car, Roy, and made our way to Sapporo through the scenic Daisetsuzan mountain range. We spent the night at Callie's (new) place and left early the next morning (fueled on Starbucks) in order to make it in time for the morning meetings at 9:00am.

As Justin was in the meetings, I spent the morning setting up the tent in the scorching heat and exploring the Lake Toya campground. Toyako is a caldera lake with a picturesque island in the middle and the area is still volcanically active with numerous onsen around the lake. Mt. Usu, a stratovolcanic mountain on the south end of the lake, erupted just nine years ago and a smaller mountain next to it called Showashinzen is a lava dome that was formed by earthquakes and spewing lava.

Over 30 JETs from around the island showed up for the Summer Meet. There were meetings held in the morning and activities like a sumo competition (of which I didn't win :( ) and capture the flag to tide people over until the BBQ enkai for supper. It was a hot and sunny weekend (finally! after a month of non-stop rain) so a few of us took a dip in Lake Toya to cool off. At night there was a trivia contest, a lot of socializing and a lot of drinking. Alcohol + A big group of Gaijin = Loud. I felt a little bad for the other Japanese campers next to us, but fortunately they were warned earlier that day about how loud we were going to be (and were suggested to move their tents further) but said they would be fine with the noise. So polite, ne?

The next morning we woke up early since the tent became a sauna from the sun (this is at 6:00am, btw) so we ate breakfast, took down the tent and prepared to make our way home. We left the campground in the morning and made our way back to Sapporo, making a quick stop at Jozankei onsen along the way to clean up and another stop in the city for kaitenzushi (conveyor belt sushi) before hitting the road again for the long drive home. We got back in to Kitami just as the sun was setting, nine hours after leaving Toyako. It was a condensed, exhausting, but incredibly fun weekend (over half of which was driving) but I'm glad I made the trek out there. Toyako will definitely be a place I'll return to next summer to hike that island in the middle of the lake. 'Til then!

Remember back in the day during Elementary and Junior High school when we had Track and Field day? That one day doing events like the three-legged race, spoon & egg race, 100m dash, 400m relay, long jump, water balloon toss, sack race, and tug-o-war? winning badges regardless of what place you came in? In Japan there's a similar day called Undokai - or Sports Day - with a lot of the same events.. with a Japanese twist. Their society is big on cooperation over individualism so a lot of the events are geared towards that in mind. The Junior High school kids, for example, take the three-legged race and expand to an incredible twenty-three-legged race! They also have the skip rope event where not only one or two students jump simultaneously, but up to 20 students at a time! Another event called the Canoe race had one student, the "rower", balanced with a pole walk on the backs of their teammates across the field as they raced to give him a platform to walk on. It was crazy to see all the teamwork involved. For the elementary kids there was the 100m dash and the relay races, from the standard 400m baton relay to one where they run with a pole and flag. There are a lot of events that include the parents too such as the bean bag toss, the kids vs. parents baton relay and the tug o' war. Another difference with the Sports Day in Japan are the Yosakoi dance and athletic demonstrations where groups of kids make crazy poses like handstands and human pyramids. Sports Day is a pretty big deal here and the kids spend up to three weeks before the day practicing and rehearsing with their teams. I went and watched two Undokai's, an elementary school and a junior high school, but unfortunately it rained on both of the days. The kids were genki enough to ignore the rain though and still had a lot of fun. I enjoyed watching all the crazy events had fun at the (free) enkai's they held afterwards with all the teachers and parents!

Every Spring my town of Kamiyubetsu holds the most famous event we have all year - the Tulip Fair. Millions of tulips are planted in rows upon rows in our Tulip park, blooming like clockwork at the beginning of Spring and creating a dense landscape of vibrant colors and sweet odors. The fair is a month-long event and the entire town gets involved by planting tulips along the main street and decorating their gardens with tulips. The fair has grown in such size and popularity that our town mascot is Tupid, the tulip. Tour bus companies include the Tulip Park as one of their sightseeing stops so the fair brings in a lot of tourism to my sleepy little town of 5,600 people. Here's the English website for the park.

On a weekend in mid-May I went down to the Tulip Park to check out what all the fuss was about. I'd heard about the tulip fair before coming to Kamiyubetsu so I was eager to check it out. Right in the middle of the park is a wooden windmill that looks like it was lifted straight out of Holland with numerous rows of tulips strategically planted to create beautiful designs on the landscape. There are pavilions selling food and tulip-flavored omiyage (gifts), info booths about the city, a roofed cart giving guided tours through the park, a mini helicopter giving five minute aerial view rides, and needless to say, a lot of tulips! I walked around the park among the rows of flowers, checked out the information booths, had some tulip-flavored ice cream, and ran into a bunch of my students at the park before heading to the museum next to the park to chat a bit with the curator. The museum has a permanent exhibition on the native Ainu who lived in Hokkaido and on the Furusato soldiers who helped populate Eastern Hokkaido. The museum itself has some crazy concrete architecture that looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. If you weren't able to check out the fair this year, come by in the Spring next year! I'll still be here to show you around :)

So, I've given my blog a fresh, new look! One day while I was writing a post I looked at the page and realized how boring it was, so I brushed up on my ol' HTML skillz and installed in a new template. Too bad I haven't been posting as much!

Seriously though, writing blog posts are pretty time-consuming. I'm not one of those people skilled enough to write a polished post from scratch. First, I have to think of what to say, then I write it down, then I painstakingly go through what I've written a few times to edit and fix all the grammar errors. A short 3-4 paragraph post with 8-10 pictures can take me over an hour to publish and I usually have to be in the mood to write. So, apologies to you readers (the 4 of you) for nothing recent!

A few of the main reasons I keep this blog are to:
1) Let my friends and family back home know what I'm up to,
2) Improve my writing (considering I've only written one essay during my entire University degree), and most importantly:
3) Keep a journal of my time in Japan

I think a lot of us would love to remember all the things we've done or places we've been to in our lives. Some people keep journals, others keep picture albums; I keep a blog. Since arriving in Japan over 10 months ago, I've written 66 snippets of my experiences here and my travels to other countries. I think the greatest loss I could think of would be to lose these memories. If you think about it, everyone saves up money for two things: physical items and experiences. When you travel or see a movie or go to a concert, the experience itself is ephemeral but the memory of it lasts forever. It's the memories and experiences we're paying for, not the plane or concert tickets.

So anyways, that's why I write this blog. Sorry for all the rambling, I'm just thinking in my head.. out loud.. on the internet.. I'll get back to real posts again soon.

Huashan is one of those places, like the Great Wall, that can't be described in words but has to be experienced in person. As I was planning my trip to China I came across this photo:


It's one of those photo's that makes you think, "Wow, where is that?" I discovered it was an ancient mountain in central China called Huashan, and it was this photo more than anything else that made me decide to go to Xi'an.

Huashan, or Mt. Hua, is heaven on earth. It's one of China's five Sacred Daoist Mountains with precipitous cliffs and lofty peaks that tower over the surrounding plains like daggers sticking out of the Earth. There are five peaks on Huashan, four in each cardinal direction and a Central peak, the tallest being the South peak at 2160m. On the peaks are different hostels and lookout pavilions that give panoramic views of the mountain range and countryside. There's a cable-car that goes to the North peak at 1613m, but to get to the other four peaks you have to hike further up the mountain along Black Dragon Ridge, up the Heavenly Ladder and finally reaching Golden Lock Pass. The Chinese have really grand names for all of these place. The other way of getting to the North peak is to simply hike up from the bottom, which was the route I took.

The path begins at a temple at the foot of the mountain and gradually becomes steeper further along. Half way through, The Stairs begin. I was literally climbing a mountain! Most of the steps are cut into the mountainside and continue for over 2000 steps until they reach the North peak. It was quite the workout! The path normally takes four hours but I was able to conquer it in two and a half hours, reaching the first peak an hour after noon. I spent the rest of day making my way to the four remaining peaks and exploring the trails on top of the mountain. It was like walking on a floating island with sheer cliffs connecting each of the peaks and beautiful, flat, tree-lined walking paths between them. I'd only planned on a day-trip to Huashan but the atmosphere, scenery and feeling of well-being I had was too overwhelming for me to leave just yet. I got a bed in one of the hostels so that I'd have more time to explore the next day. When evening crept up I returned to the West peak and found a comfortable spot on top of the bluff to watch the sunset. As I was sitting above the clouds, looking down at the sun as it slowly slipped into the horizon, I discovered why Huashan is considered Holy...

I spent the next day exploring the rest of the peaks I hadn't visited yet. I went over to the East peak to see the morning sun reflecting brightly off the mountain walls. I walked over to see the lonely Chess Pavilion but decided not to pay it a visit due to the strong winds that day. When it was well into the afternoon I had visited all the peaks, walked up and down countless stairs, and walked almost every path that was on top of Huashan. I was tired, dirty, and exhausted so I decided to head back down. I opted for a quick 5 minute cable-car ride to the bottom because I wasn't quite up to tackle those stairs again. I fell asleep on the bus ride back to Xi'an that was stalled by engine troubles, heavy traffic and randomly stopping to pick up and drop people off on the side of the road.

Later that night at the hostel, I looked through the pictures on my camera and wondered why I never saw that one photo that brought me to Huashan in the first place, those precarious planks of wood jutting out from the side of the mountain. After consulting the internet, I knew exactly where that photo was taken: it was in the one and only path I didn't bother trekking on, the one I came across just before the sun set and resolved to go back the next day to explore but didn't because I was too tired and decided to head down the mountain instead.. "F****CKK!" was all I could think once it hit me. "So that's what regret feels like!" I had the huge urge to head back to Huashan the next day just to hike that one last path, but my schedule and flight prevented me from doing so. I still have the urge to go back to Huashan one day to do that one path I missed but, apart from not seeing the photo that brought me there in the first place, I enjoyed my time on that beautiful mountain. Just having been there is good enough for me.

Check out my album for more pictures of Huashan.

My last stop after Beijing was Xi'an, a city in central China. I left Beijing from the colossal train station for a 15-hour overnight train to Xi'an. It was around Golden Week (the busiest time of year for traveling) and all the sleeper trains were booked up, so all that was left were seats and "standing room". I bought a seat. I wasn't sure what to expect but was up for anything. Besides, who could complain over a $23 ticket? Little did I know, there was plenty to complain about after that train ride! My seat was pretty much padding set against the wall and I didn't have the luxury of getting the window seat for something to lean on. At about 3:00am, exhausted and frustrated at being jerked around by the train and being unable to get any rest, I finally managed to get an hour or two of patchy sleep by sitting sideways in my seat, crossing my arms, leaning over, and resting my head on my arms. The people who bought standing room tickets and were sleeping on the floor looked more comfortable! Fortunately, as all things do, the train ride came to an end when I finally reached Xi'an.

I arrived early in the morning and planned on heading to Huashan that day, but I had to take the day off to recoup from the train ride. I got to my hostel and slept on my bed, dirty and fully-clothed, until 1:00 in the afternoon. I woke up feeling refreshed, took a shower, ate then went out to explore the city in the remaining amount of daylight left. I visited the Bell and Drum towers, walked around the malls, spent some yuan and a few hours at the outdoor Muslim market then went up onto the ancient City Wall that surrounds the downtown core. I rented a bicycle on the wall and spent an hour riding on the bumpy cobblestones around the entire wall. It was a hot and sticky day so the novelty of riding a bicycle on a 640-year old wall that was used for centuries to fend off attackers, combined with the nice breeze and exercise, definitely made my day.

I spent the following two days on Huashan, just outside Xi'an, but on my fourth and last day I made a half-day trip out to see the world-reknown, super famous Terracotta warrior statues, dubbed the "8th Wonder of the World"! ...It was kind of a dud. The size, scope, and historical significance of them are pretty amazing but it was a bit over-rated and there wasn't much to see. I went to see statues and they were literally just a bunch of statues. You could barely see some in display cases and the rest from railings 100 feet away. I saw the entire museum (some parts twice) in an hour before returning to Xi'an.

I spent the rest of my time in Xi'an discovering delicious Chinese food restaurants and exploring the rest of the city. I met up with two Japanese people in my hostel who took me to a small, local restaurant for delicious spicy fish soup (for $1!). As I was wandering the city at one point I decided to follow a big, dense group of people walking down the street, figuring they were heading somewhere interesting. It wasn't until ten minutes later when I realized that it wasn't a group of people, just a normal, overcrowded amount of people on the sidewalk heading nowhere! On my last night I caught a moto-taxi to the Big Goose Pagoda to watch the nightly water fountain show. It's basically a huge public fountain that sprays colored jets of water into the air in turn with music. It was wicked! Who would've thought water and gravity could be so entertaining?

When it was time to leave Xi'an I caught a 2-hour domestic flight on Shenzhen Airlines for $80 instead of taking another overnight train. I was done with trains! I arrived in Shenzhen, directly across the border from Hong Kong, and went through a harrowing 2-hour experience from the airport to the Hong Kong border, switching buses, going through customs during the Swine Flu scare (when HK "quarantined" 280 in a hotel because of one sick Mexican), switching buses again and then getting to my hostel in Tsim Sha Tsui. I didn't stay at the same hostel as when I arrived but got a different one in the same building. I spent another two nights in Hong Kong before catching an early flight back to Sapporo on the Sunday before I returned to work.

It took me the following week to recover from my travels and catch up on sleep. It's been almost three weeks since I've been back but it seems like so long ago. Time here moves so differently! I'm really glad I decided to go to China and it was a great experience to travel solo, which might be a bad thing because now I am hooked! I want to go back to China again to see all the spots that I missed on this trip. China's a huge country with beautiful landscapes and I was only able to see a tiny fraction of it. I managed to do what I went there for - to hike the Great Wall - I ate amazing Chinese food, met travelers from all around the world, learned to become more independent, and I didn't catch Swine Flu. I'd consider this trip pretty successful.

My next trip overseas will be during Christmas time.. hmm.. Where to?

Check out my album for more pictures of Xi'an