I was approached by a teacher at my high school a few weeks ago about the school's annual Parent/Teacher meeting they hold in November. He wants me to prepare a 13 minute powerpoint presentation on a comparison of high school club activities between Japan and Canada. Say whaat? It was pretty much out of the blue.. from left field. Apparently I'll be presenting it to a whole group of teachers and parents in an attempt to think of ideas on how to get the students more interested and involved in school clubs. You see, in Japan, once a student joins a club they basically sell their soul. They can only be in one club, have to go to every meeting/practice/rehearsal/etc. and usually stay after school for another couple of hours, and even meet on weekends, to be involved. My JTE said that most kids want to work part-time so they choose not to do any activities. It's gotten to the point where the men's volleyball team consists of 4 people, and the women's team.. 3.

It's a pretty interesting assignment and I'm definitely up to the challenge. It's different than my daily teaching routine and it gives me a chance to use my head again! I've missed doing things like this and doing research, makes me feel like I'm in University again. The catch is is that I have to present it in three weeks and I don't have much of anything done other than a page of chicken scratch for my ideas. The other catch is that it has to be in Japanese! Gahh.. I like challenges, but this is going to be like doing a rubik's cube while [insert witty metaphor]. I'll have to speed up my Japanese study if I want to do it in time... or I'll have to rely heavily on my JTE to make sure my garbled Japanese makes sense. Ganbatte ne!

I went out to get groceries right after work yesterday and as I was pulling out of my building I heard a loud "POP" sound. I wasn't sure what it was but didn't think much of it. I went and got groceries, did my thing and then came home. On the way back I could feel my steering vibrating back and forth and thought, "Sh*t, I know what that means." I did the standard test flat tire test and let go of the steering wheel. Sure enough, I slowly started to veer to the right. It was a slow leak so I was able to make it home safely. I intended to check on it when I got there but completely forgot about it.

I woke up this morning planning to drive to work but then I took one look at my car and yup, definitely had a flat tire. The rim was basically touching the ground! I ran back up to my apartment, got my bicycle key and biked to work. When I finished work today about an hour ago, the sun had already started to set (change of the seasons and all). I quickly biked home and raced to get the spare tire on before it got too dark to see. Luckily I was able to do it in 20 minutes after finding all the tools and sweating to get the bolts off. Once the tire was off I took a look at it and realized that the big popping sound I heard was a 3 inch screw entering my tire! I got the spare on and drove to the nearest gas station (which is literally a block from my house) and showed them my flat tire. There were three guys there so they said, "No problem" and fixed it right then and there for me. They took out the screw, stuck in what looked like a twig covered in glue and wha-la! Fixed. It took them less then 10 minutes to fix it, replace it, put the spare tire away and top up the pressure in all my tires.. and it only cost me 1575 yen! Japanese mechanics are awesome!

My apartment has turned into the Northwest Territories recently. I think it's the change in weather but something is forcing hundreds of flies into my apartment... and I don't know how they're getting in! I keep all my windows shut and have tried to close up any gaps I could think of but just keep on coming! I came home during lunch-time today and there were flies everywhere: between my window screens, on my tables, in my kitchen, etc. This pic is just a small sample of what I saw. They seem to only come in the afternoon because after I get home from work and its cooler out, most of them seem to have left. A few don't leave though and fly around my lamp and lights when I turn them on in the evening. I've been using my uchi-wa (fan) to kill them and then vaccuuming up the corpses afterwards but it's a pain in the butt. Does anyone know a way to kill flies en masse?

This past weekend I went with a few JETs on a roadtrip up to a place called Wakkanai, which means "I don't understand" in Japanese. It also happens to be the northern-most city in Japan. There are a pair of islands, Rishiri and Rebun, just off the western tip of of the peninsula that are famous for sightseeing. Most people don't even go to Wakkanai, they only go there to take the ferry to the islands, which is basically what we did. Rishiri island is essentially an island consisting entirely of a volcano mountain. Most people go there to do the intense 10 hour hike to the top, which is what we intended to do in the first place! We had planned this trip to Wakkanai almost exclusively to climb Rishiri-dake but in the week leading up to the trip, the peak of the mountain got over four feet of snow! We weren't prepared to do the hike in the snow so we decided to go to the other island instead - Rebun. Rebun island isn't as big or tall as Rishiri but there are a lot of hiking trails there to do.

The five of us - Me, Callie, Justin (Team Marimo!), Chris (a JET from Shiritaki) and Rob (a JET from Oumu) - drove up to Wakkanai on Friday night after work and got there a little past 11:00pm. It was pissing rain and dark out the so it took us a bit longer than we thought. We were staying at JET's house that lives in Wakkanai who wasn't even in town for the weekend, but still graciously let us use his place anyways! He just gave me a map to his place, told me where he left the key and told us to use it responsibly. Once we got there we had to get up early the next morning to catch the 6:50am ferry to Rebun so we went to bed right away.

We decided to get up at 6 o'clock because we thought it would give us plenty of time to catch the ferry. We got up, got ready and were out of there in twenty minutes. Still pleenty of time! We decided to make a stop at Seicomart (a convenience store) to pick up some breakfast for the trip. We took about ten minutes and then it was time to head off to the ferry terminal which (according to our map) was a five minute drive away. We were still good for time. Once we got to the spot on the map we looked around... and didn't see any ferry terminal! We drove around for a few minutes before seeing a huge ferry at the dock. Phew! We then drove around looking for a (legal) place to park. There was ten minutes to go so we pulled into a large, empty gravel lot right beside the ferry and ran towards it. There was a steep staircase that lead to a plank-like thing sticking out from the side of the ferry and seemed to be the only way to get on. Since I had gotten there first I headed up the staircase onto the ferry... but no one was on board! Something was eerie. I called out a few times and then looked around... and that's when I realized the boat was still tied to the dock! This was definitely not the right ferry! Five minutes to go. Chris and Justin were still on the ground so they ran around the dock and saw another ferry on the next pier over. One look at it and we could tell that it was the one we wanted to be on... it was getting ready to leave! We raced back to the car, jumped in and gunned it for the next pier. After a few traffic lights we got closer to the pier and finally saw the ferry terminal. We pulled into the parking lot, I opened the door and high-tailed it to the entrance. Two minutes to go! I ran to the counter and asked if we were too late. The lady behind the counter was surprised to see us and said, "Chotto matte kudasai" (Please wait a moment) before scurrying into the back room. It's only 6:49am and teeccchnically we're not quite late yet. She comes back out with a man who I presume to be their manager or someone important.. and tells us that it's ok! As I'm paying for our tickets, the man is on his walkie-talkie talking to someone who I assumed was on the ferry telling them to wait. I couldn't hear him but I knew he was saying something along the lines of, "There are five late gaijin, just wait a second." The other four had already ran ahead of me so once the tickets were ready, the lady came out from behind the counter with the tickets, handed them to me and personally showed me the way to the ferry. I ran out onto the dock and saw the other four already up the gangplank of the ferry so I ran towards it, quickly showed my ticket to the man there waiting for us and then I was up beside them. Right as I got on, I looked back and they had already started raising the gangplank. I looked at my watch - 6:52am. Ok, so we were a little late, but we had made it!

After that intense little episode we went above, found some seats, sat back and relaxed for the 1 hour and 45 minute trip. I got a map of Rebun from the info desk on the ferry so after a bit of deciding we figured out a plan of action for the day. We would rent a few bicycles, bike to the trailhead of Rebun-dake and hike it. We were planning on taking the last ferry from Rebun back into Wakkanai so we had to make sure we could get everything done by then. Once we arrived we got off the ferry then went to look for the bicycle rental place. We found it just outside the ferry terminal but there was no one there to help us. We thought it was closed but we didn't figure out until later that you needed to call a number in the window for someone to come and meet us. Oh well! After walking around for a while trying to figure out a way to get to the trailhead (which was 8km away), we decided to say screw it and chose a different trail on the map instead. We walked 10 minutes into town and then another 15 minutes until we got to a trailhead. We weren't sure where it headed but we decided to follow it anyways!

We hiked around the island for 4-5 hours and saw many of the islands famous natural landmarks, including a big 190m tall rock that looks like a peach called Momo-iwa (which in English means.. you guessed it, Peach Rock). Tourist season had ended about a week earlier so the island wasn't packed with hikers like it normally is during the summer. We basically had the whole island to ourselves. The island itself is absolutely gorgeous with panorama views everywhere you looked. It's only 29km long by 8km wide so once we got to the top of one of the hills we had a view of the sea from three sides. It rained a bit in the morning when we started the hike but it cleared up around midday. We only managed to touch the southern part of the island but there's an eight-hour hike that spans the entire length of the island. We could see the mountain from Rebun and it looked absolutely amazing. It's dubbed Rishiri-fuji because it looks really similar to Mt. Fuji. The peak was hidden in clouds all day so we couldn't see the peak but it looks to be a pretty massive mountain.

We got back to the ferry terminal in time to have an hour lunch before taking the ferry back to Wakkanai. The amazing thing about Japanese ferries is that instead of seats, they have tatami flooring where you can lie down and sleep! We quickly took advantage of it and slept the entire way back. An exhausting day of hiking + the gentle rocking motion of the sea = out like a light. Once they called the five minutes to docking on the intercom we all woke up, groggy and red-eyed, and got off. We headed back to the place we were staying to drop off our stuff and then quickly headed to the local onsen in town. We lounged around there for about an hour and a half and then went out to eat okonomiyaki for supper at a restaurant. When we got there we were the only ones there but later on a group of Japanese people came in celebrating something. They had obviously been drinking before but they were really friendly to us when they found out we were all english teachers. One of the guys even bought us all drinks! We finished up there after hanging out for an hour and headed back. We were all still exhausted from the day so we all went to bed right away, crammed into one small tatami room. We even hung a blanket over the window to block out the light the next morning.

We didn't have much planned for the next day so we slept in until around 9 o'clock, almost 10 hours of sleep! Rob had gotten up earlier so he went out to buy a couple things for the JET who's place we were using. We got him some groceries (that he had written on his little whiteboard) and some beer as a thank-you. We packed up all of our stuff and then headed to the JR station for Callie to buy her ticket home. She was headed back from Wakkanai on the train instead of driving back with us. After that we made a quick stop at a department store to get some purikura done (always a must when travelling) then we drove to a place called Cape Soya, the northern-most point in all of Japan. There are a bunch of wind turbines installed all over northern Hokkaido - and for good reason. The wind was intense! When we got to the parking lot where the cape was I opened the door and it basically blew the door shut back at me. I was trying to put on my sweater but the wind kept whipping it away and there where whitecaps on the waves way out to sea. It had to have been at least 75 km/hr wind. We spent some time there taking some pictures and checking out the gift shop before heading back to Wakkanai. There really wasn't much to see or do at Cape Soya other than to say you've been to the northern-most point of Japan. We drove back into town to find a kaitenzushi we had heard of for lunch. After driving around a bit and finally managing to find the restaurant, it was closed! Instead we went to a placed called "Russian Restaurant" which served Russian food. Apparently there's a large Russian presence in northern Hokkaido because the Russian sailors dock at the port towns all the time. You can even take a ferry to the Russian island of Sakhalin from Wakkanai.. but I've heard it's really sketchy. After lunch we went to the "Wakkanai Dome" which isn't even a dome at all and is just a long, cement breakwater which the Lonely Planet crowned as the best reason to come to Wakkanai. Total dud.

We decided to call it a day after that since we had a long drive ahead of us. We dropped Callie off at the JR station (where she met her new friend, a pot-bellied pig) and then headed home at 4:00pm. I fell asleep on the way because I was exhausted (even though, strangely, I had slept in the night before and we didn't do too much that day) to Rob's place in Oumu where I had parked my car. I drove the rest of the way home and dropped off Chris and Justin before making my way home to get there at 10:00pm. It was a long - yet short - whirlwind weekend where we did a lot and was a ton of fun. Most people spend at least 3-4 days to explore Rebun and Rishiri but we explored Rebun in basically one day. I plan on coming back next spring when the snow melts to tackle Rishiri-dake - it's on my "To Do" list.

It seems like my list keeps getting bigger and bigger.. so much to do, not enough weekends!

Last Friday there was a Halloween Party at one of my elementary schools. A bit early, yeah? They know Halloween falls on the 31st but I wasn't sure why they decided to have it then (I forgot to ask). The day before they had carved pumpkins and set them out on display in the hallway for their parents to see because that day was Parent-Teacher interviews. Callie came down the day before to help me teach and the teachers told me the week earlier that there would be Halloween activities planned, so we decided to dress up in Halloween costumes. I was told that the kids would also be wearing costumes but when we got to the school we found out that we were the only ones dressed up! Everyone else was wearing their normal clothes. Oh well, how's that for grassroots internationalization? I went as a toilet paper mummy and Callie went as a purple-striped pirate. I bought six rolls of bandages from the 100 Yen store, wore white clothes and wrapped them all over me, and then stuffed myself with toilet paper. Not sure how kowai (scary) I was but I thought I looked like a pretty good mummy. It turned out not to be the best costume because once we got to the school the kids got really excited at seeing us and went nuts! They kept trying to fight me and then started picking apart my costume! There was toilet paper strewn all over the hallways as they would grab fistfuls at a time. Eventually, after trying to fend them off and pretending to eat them, most of the toilet paper was gone and I ended up looking more like a guy wrapped up in bandages and less like mummy. I learned my lesson on wearing costumes in elementary schools: If its not stuck to you, the kids will try to take it. Callie learned that too when they kept trying to steal her sword and pirate hat. I think next time I'll buy 50 rolls of bandages from the 100 Yen store and avoid toilet paper altogether. Check out Callie's blog for a more pictures of the Halloween day with the kiddies.

Tonight I had to sing in a Karaoke Competition, the one I was volunteered for about a month ago. I had decided to sing YMCA at the suggestion of one of my friends. At first I was dubious but the more I thought about it the more appropriate the song became. It has english that even non-english speakers can understand and I can get the audience involved too, so YMCA was what I decided on. A few nights after I made my song decision I went to a karaoke bar with a few of my co-workers after an event and they got me to sing YMCA in English and then afterwards in Japanese. Apparently I did such a good job that they said I should sing the Japanese version for the competition! I agreed since the competition was a month away and I had toonnns of time to practice.

Fast-forward three weeks: I still hadn't started practicing and the competition was in a week! I'd been so busy I didn't have time (truthfully, I forgot about it...) to practice. Last Tuesday my co-workers, some other new employees who also got "volunteered" to sing in the competition, asked me if I was busy the following night and if I wanted to go to a karaoke bar and practice. It was the first time being reminded of the competition so I said I would definitely go with them. That day I printed off the Japanese lyrics and started my attempt at remembering them, like cramming before a test. I still hadn't remembered them the following night so I was reading off the paper while practicing. We were in the karaoke bar for two hours, alternating our songs back and forth and by the end of that I was pretty damn sick of YMCA! We finished at 11:00pm, I was tired, I didn't want to say "young man" anymore and just wanted to go home and sleep. I reassured myself that I'd memorize the lyrics over the next following days.

This weekend I got distracted after spending some time in Abashiri and Kitami with some other JETs so my piece of paper of lyrics was left, forgotten... until today. I woke up this morning almost in a panic about tonight. I still hadn't remembered the words! I went all day today at my highschool reading the piece of paper and repeating the lyrics in my head over and over again. There was a rehearsal from 2:30-4:00pm so I left the school right after my last class to go and rehearse. They had the stage and everything set up already and it looked to be a bigger event than I had originally thought. They had a guy on scaffolding with a spotlight, a mock windmill on the stage with an actual turning propeller, a backdrop, flashing lights in tune with the music, a judges booth.. this was the real deal! When it came time for my turn I got up onto the stage, trying to maintain my grasp of the lyrics that seemed to slide right out of my head. I placed the sheet of lyrics on the pedestal in front of me and gave it my best!

I remembered maybe half the words, was constantly looking at the sheet, sang off pitch (although.. I don't exactly have the best singing voice in the first place), got my "C" in YMCA backwards (which I realized as I was thinking about it later), and probably looked like I was having a seizure due to my rendition of Seiji Hideko (the singer of the Japanese version of YMCA). I needed some practice.

I went home right after that with two hours to go until I had to return. I got on my computer, found the YouTube video of the Japanese YMCA and listened to it religiously for almost two hours straight. Other than deepening my dislike of YMCA, it actually helped me remember quite a bit. I was able to sing the lyrics without using the sheet! I felt I was ready which, of course, I had to be because there wasn't any more time to practice.

When I returned to the competition there were a lot more people than before. It seemed like the entire town had showed up. I was the 10th person on the list to perform, the follow-up act after the competition's professional guest singer! As he was singing I was waiting backstage, furiously reviewing the lyrics in my head. I realized at that point that I would never be able to memorize the song on my own (all the lights onstage were messing with my memory) so I asked to use a music stand so I could put my lyric sheet on. I would lose points for not remembering the lyrics, but its better than the alternative of not having the lyrics and drawing a blank onstage (*cough* speech contest *cough*). Once the guest singer finished and they called my name, I got onstage all pumped up and ready to go.

My second time singing on the stage went much, much better. I didn't use the sheet all that much and I got the audience pretty involved too. A lot of my students there were pretty excited to see me singing onstage. I finished the song successfully and even received flowers at the end from some people. The MC interviewed me afterwards and told the audience I was from Canada. Then she asked me my age and then said stuff in Japanese which I'm pretty sure was directed to the female members of the audience. After that they called up the next person and I was done! All the hard work of the past few days (more like stressing about remembering the lyrics) had paid off.

I had to wait until everyone else finished singing before they invited us back onstage for the award presentation. Unfortunately I didn't win anything but that's because I got beat out by one of my JTE's - who dressed up as half-man, half-women and sang a duet by himself - and everyone else who were all natural singers. I think maybe I didn't win because they had remembered their lyrics.. yeah, that's it ;) They gave out trophies to each of the winners and then surprisingly, gave out 3000 yen to each of the participants. I wasn't expecting it but it was a nice "Thank you for participating" prize.

It was a really fun experience. I'm wasn't nervous about performing in front of a ton of people (teaching hundreds of kids a day kind of eliminates that) but I was nervous about forgetting the lyrics onstage. I think in retrospect, next time I'll choose a song that's easier to remember.. in a language that's easier to remember.. but I'm also glad I chose YMCA because now I never have to listen to it again!

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.