This weekend was the Tanabata Festival (七夕まつり), a Japanese star festival. It celebrates the milky way and the coming together of two stars that only happens once a year. It's traditionally on the 7th day of the 7th month, but in Hokkaido it's usually have it a bit later. It ran for the entire weekend and consisted of a parade, school concerts, a food pavilion, comedian, live music, bingo (it's apparently very popular here), traditional dancing, a kids corner, hip-hop groups, and fireworks. There was also a showcase of posters made by different groups throughout the city and the entire main street was strung up with paper lanterns. Also during this festival it's tradition to write your wish on a piece of paper and tie it to a bamboo tree. It's been rainy here all weekend so it put a little bit of a damper on the festival. There were supposed to be a big fireworks display tonight but it's postponed until tomorrow night.

I got a clip of some Yosakoi dancing with my digital camera. The quality isn't the greatest and I was moving it around a bit but you get the idea. It was pretty amazing to see live.

I also tried out the local cuisine, including squid-on-a-stick... it was quite chewy.

Here are some pics of new apartment. It's a one bedroom with kitchen/dining room and kitchen. The kitchen has a medium sized fridge and a two burner stove with "fish oven" (it's like a long, flat toaster oven used only for fish). The living room fits a couch, tv, desk, coffee table and small bookshelf and is fairly comfortable. The bedroom has a big closet full of futons, a normal-sized bed and a dresser. There's also a toilet room and a shower room (I don't know what they're called in Japanese). The toilet is pretty sweet; everytime you flush, you can wash your hands with the water that refills the septic tank. Sugoi ne! The shower room is a little room that's an entire uh.. shower room... The shower head is outside the bathtub and your supposed to clean yourself before you get into the bath. The bath is narrow and deep so you can sit in hot water up to your neck. I have a washer but no dryer. Drying is done by hanging the clothes up using that rack thing in my bedroom or on the patio. Garbage disposal here is like pulling teeth. Garbage has to be seprated into their respective garbage bags (green for plastics, clear for recyclables, blue for styrofoam, etc... gah!) and taken out on designated days. So if you miss the 1st or 3rd saturday of the month for plastics your hosed and have to wait until the next month. It's a good system though compared to Calgary where everything you put in the garbage actually gets thrown into the landfill.

I'll be living here for at least a year or two. It's pretty comfortable and spacious for one person and has everything I need. I'd say it's about 600 sq. feet which is big enough for another 2-3 people to stay here temporarily. So if you want to come and visit me, I have a place for you to crash!

The genkan, where shoes are taken off before entering.

The living room complete with Canadian flag.

My toilet room and shower rooms?

My view of Japan from the patio.

The kitchen just off of the living room.
My bedroom as seen from the kitchen.

The bedroom again, with a real bed!

The living room and patio.

The garbage day schedule. It's so confusing..

My personal gym behind the couch.

I made it! I'm finally in my new town, Kamiyubetsu, and pretty much settled in. The past week has been pretty insane and busy. On Sunday, I arrived at Narita airport in Tokyo after a 10 hour flight from Vancouver. Right when I stepped off the plane it literally felt like I was in a sauna. The humidity was insane! It was around 37 degrees and luckily it was a cloudy day or the sun would’ve made it even hotter. After shipping a few of my bags to my new apartment they shuttled us to our hotel, Keio Plaza in Shinjuku, on buses which took another hour and a half. By then I had been awake for almost 18 hours (trying to sleep on an Air Canada flight is impossible, to put it nicely).

When we got to the hotel we checked in and I met my roommate, another ALT from Alberta who was also headed to Hokkaido. We went out that night to a few izakaya’s (Japanese pubs) with some other Canadians and by 11:00pm I was dead tired and crashed. The next two days were full of speeches and workshops in order to prepare us for our new jobs and for general living in Japan. The evenings consisted of more izakaya’s, tabe and nomihoudai's (all you can eat/drink) and more exploring in Shinjuku. We also visited the Canadian embassy which involved taking the subway. It was literally an underground maze. On the way back from the embassy it started to downpour and there we were in our suits and ties... but no umbrellas. Luckily, we managed to navigate the subway tunnels to get back to our hotel without even going outside. The tunnels are like a mini-city with tons of shops, stores and restaurants, it was crazy. I'm convinced you could navigate Tokyo through the subway tunnels alone.

Yokoso Japan! Tokyo from my hotel.
The next morning marked the end of the orientation and the departure to our home prefectures. At 9:00am, all 45 of us Hokkaidoans boarded a bus and headed to Haneda airport. We flew ANA airlines (which kicks Air Canada’s ass any day) to New-Chitose airport in Hokkaido, about an hour and a half flight. When we arrived they brought our delegation across the airport into a large meeting room where we met our new supervisors. Mine didn’t speak English very well so after a converstation in broken Japanese, he explained to me that we would be taking the train to my town. From New-Chitose airport it was a 30 minute train ride to Sapporo city and from there another 4 hour ride on the "express train" to Kamiyubetsu. It was 7:00pm when we arrived and I had been travelling for over 10 hours by then. My supervisor took me to his house to eat supper with his family and then I was dropped off at a ryokan (Japanese style hotel) for the night.

EDIT: If you are planning on coming to visit, this is not the only way to get to my place! It's in fact the long way. The short way would be to fly from Haneda airport to Memanbetsu airport (about 2 hours) which is only 15 minutes from my place. It's a lot faster than the trains and cuts off about 4 hours of the trip.

Hokkaido from above.
On my first day of work I was shown my desk at city hall and then taken around to see the mayor, vice-mayor, and the employees from all the different departments to do a self-introduction in Japanese o_O (a bit nerve-wracking..). I registered my new inkan (personal seal), alien registration card, opened up a bank account, signed my contract, brought my luggage into my new apartment and was left for an hour to get unpacked. That night, my supervisors took me around to go shopping for groceries, helped me pick out a new keitai (cellphone), buy everything else I needed for my apartment and then waited around with me to get my internet hooked up. After that I made supper (salmon and ramen) and then fell asleep at 9:30pm due to sheer exhaustion. Today my supervisor gave me a tour of the entire town and brought me to all six of the schools I'll be teaching at to meet the principles. All of the kids are out for the summer but school recommences on August 18th. We also went to the culture center, library and basically every other landmark in the town. The rest of the afternoon I spent at my desk at city hall trying to get more settled in and figuring out exactly what I'll be doing for the next year. I don't have any transportation right now but I am only an 8 minute walk from my apartment so at the end of the day I walked home. I should have a new bicycle in a few days though and once I do I'll be able to explore my town a bit more.

Anyways, I will be putting pictures up of Tokyo, Hokkaido, my apartment, the festival happening this weekend and I will also be posting a lot more soon. I promise!

Well, tonight is officially my last night in Canada. The whole JET Programme application has been a huge experience up until now but I'm finally glad the waiting process is over. It's a bit surreal how a paper application I filled out last year in November has led to me boarding a plane headed to Japan tomorrow. The reality of the situation hasn't really hit me until just recently. My life up until now has been pretty structured and laid out for me (not surprisingly since I just finished 17 years of school!) but I don't exactly know what my life in Japan holds for me. All I know is that it involves obtaining a Master's degree (although I still don't know how or when I'm going to achieve that yet). I also don't know what the gap between now and then holds for me either but I guess it's the whole unknown aspect that excites me. Besides, no one knows what the future holds until the second it happens.

What I'm looking forward to is stepping off the plane in Tokyo into 40 degree weather, spending the first night at my new apartment, exploring my town, meeting the locals, speaking the language, eating the food, being shocked by the culture, making new friends and experiencing something new every single day. That is what I'm really excited about.

I think a bit of wanderlust exists in my family. We all have the desire to visit and travel the world to see and experience new things. My older brother and his girlfriend left just two days ago to Thailand. They are in the same boat as me and don't exactly know what they're future holds either; they arrived in Bangkok with a pocket full of money and all the time in the world. In a few months a few more members of my family are hoping to relocate across the globe and move to Vietnam. With luck, most of the family will be in Asia by December and we'll be able to spend Christmas in Vietnam, which would be awesome. Anyways, I digress..

I plan on getting up early tomorrow morning (if I sleep at all!) to be at the airport by 9:00am. Most of my family is coming with me to see me off and my mom is coming down from Edmonton tonight just to drive me to the airport. My flight to Vancouver leaves Calgary at 11:15am and after a 2-hour stopover it's a straight 12 hour flight to Tokyo. I'll be arriving in Narita airport at 4:00pm the next day and then I board a bus for a two hour scenic drive to my hotel in downtown Tokyo. The following two days I'll be attending an orientation to the JET Programme which introduces us to our new jobs and lives. Then on Wednesday I head back to the airport and they ship me off to my home prefecture in Hokkaido. Once I arrive there, my adventure begins..

I was just reading my last post when it occurred to me I had written it over 3 weeks ago! Has it really been that long? I've been unemployed all that time, but I haven't even noticed! I've been trying to do as much as I can and I'm glad to say I've done quite a bit: I got free tickets to the Virgin Festival and saw a ton of good bands, went to few BBQ's and house parties, one of which I jammed on a friend's drum kit for about an hour (I think I am definitely going to buy one while I'm in Japan), played Glow-in-the-Dark frisbee in a park with my brothers until 2:00am, went out for sushi twice in a week, went White Water Rafting down the Kicking Horse river in what they said were some of the best conditions of the summer, went to the Calgary Stampede with Erika and almost got sick on one of the first rides we went on (we think we are getting old..), and finally a two-day roadtrip up to the Northwest Territories with Allison just for the hell of it. Now it's officially the countdown from 10 days until I leave. I am currently hanging out in Edmonton until the end of the week but when I get back to Calgary I have an intense five days of packing, more dinners, and more goodbyes. The goodbyes are definitely not my favorite..it reminds me too much of when I left Fort Saskatchewan. There were hugs and tears and faces that I still haven't seen after 5 years. I believe it's a part of life, and for me, it seems inevitable.

I believe in fate, or perhaps destiny. I look back on the path my life has taken it just seems so... right, like everything was meant to happen. All the time I've spent in Calgary instead of my hometown, all the friends I've made here and the times I've had with them... it just seems like the decisions I've made or everything thats happened in my life these past five years were the correct ones. I feel like this next stage of my life - moving to Japan - was also meant to happen. I got accepted onto the JET program that generally only a fraction of people make it through and I'll test fate yet again next year when I apply to get into Grad school. It's funny how life steers you in certain directions without you even realizing it.

This may just be a poetic and roundabout way of saying it, but I got fired from my summer job a few days ago.

This is what happened:

We had a job on the third floor of an apartment building. It was an apartment cleanout meaning the tenant had been evicted and had left all of his stuff. If the tenant is evicted for over four weeks, the apartment and its possessions legally reverts back to the landlord. Naturally, they wanted to clean out the apartment so they called us (I worked at 1-800-Got-Junk?). The entire apartment was filled, literally to the roof, with stuff. The landlord had only booked us for 2.5 hours but this job would've taken all day, especially because it was awkwardly positioned on the third floor of the apartment. There was no balcony so all we had to use was a window positioned directly above the entrance to the building. In order to finish the job quicker, we had the go ahead from the landlord to park the truck next to the building so we could throw the junk into the truck from the window. So myself, being the driver, started to position the truck while my partner was upstairs in the apartment trying to organize everything into piles. It was a fairly tight fit to get next to the apartment building as I was driving a 14" truck on the grass and sidewalk. Since my partner was upstairs and I had no way to reach him, and also since I was a bit impatient to finish this colossal job, I was gently backing up the truck when I misjudged the distance behind me... and ended up denting a parked car. I made a 2-3 inch dent on the front panel of the passenger side which even left some blue paint from my truck. Luckily, the guy who owned the car came up shortly after and we were able to swap insurance information. I was a little shaken up because I knew what the consequences were so right after the accident I called the office and let them know what happened. They said to not worry about it and to just finish off the day. So putting that out of my mind, we managed to finish the job and the rest of the day without any more mishaps. They said they would call me the next morning and let me know what would happen with the insurance, etc.

The next morning I had some errands to do by the office so I called them and said I would stop by. When I got there I went directly into a meeting with my supervisors Alan and Corrin. They had just had a meeting half an hour earlier and had argued back-and-forth about what to do about the situation. They said I was a hard worker and good employee, even to the point where I was training new employees, and were looking for ways to keep me but would hit red tape each time. Basically what it came down to, if they allowed me to stay, was setting a precedence. Company policy clearly outlined what the consequence was for backing up a truck without a navigator and, regretfully, they had to let me go. They fired me in the nicest way possible, even offering me a good letter of reference despite what had happened. It was a bit sad having to leave the company because what I really enjoyed most about the job was the people and the friends I had made. I had already told them my last day of would be July 17th so the sudden gap in my schedule was surprising, to say the least.

There are two morals to this story: Patience is definitely a virtue and impatience can be costly, especially when your dealing with vehicles. The other is that there are always advantages to any situation. I may not be able to work and earn money, but I have virtually no obligations until I leave for Japan. Maybe I'm just putting a positive spin on a negative situation but either way, I plan on taking advantage of this unexpected vacation and make my last five weeks in Canada as meaningful as possible.

I love packing, and moving in general. It gives me a chance to get rid of all the crap I don't need, to whittle down my posessions until I'm left with the things I can't live without. I've been slowly doing this for the past month or so and mentally figuring out what I'm leaving and what I'm taking with me. I still have another 7 weeks to go before I take off but I'm the type of person who likes to get things done ahead of time.

My entire life as I move to Japan has to be condensed into: 100 lbs of checked baggage, 22 lbs of carry-on baggage, and 22 lbs of a "personal items". It sounds like a lot but when you think of how much stuff you've collected over your entire lifetime, it ends up being not a whole lot. However, I've realized I can get by with a surprisingly small amount of stuff. I've already decided the essentials that I am taking with me: 1) my laptop 2) camera and 3) snowboard. Aside from clothes, I plan on selling everything I own and buying what I need when I get to Japan. Luckily there isn't an airplane weight restriction on the amount of Yen I can bring.

The one thing that's going to be a bit tricky is my snowboard. With Air Canada, the length of my board alone exceeds the maximum linear dimension restriction so it will cost me an extra $100 to take it with me. To get around this (and to protect my board from being bumped around) I invested in a travel snowboard bag. It's still in the mail but I'm pretty stoked about it. I've already bought my big 29" suitcase and decided that the snowboard bag would be my second piece of checked baggage. The extra stuff I can cram into the snowboard bag will be worth the extra $100. It will also save me the cost of shipping it over via snail mail (like I'll be doing with my books I need to bring with me..) I also figured the bag will come in handy later on since one of my life goals is to snowboard the mountains in New Zealand and the Alps in Switzerland.

So if anyone is looking for anything, John's stuff is for sale at bargain prices.