Misadventures in Translation

My trip to Hokkaido was an epic adventure.  The Sapporo Yuki Matsuri was one of the most fun things I have done during my stay in Japan.  There was so much to see, do, and eat.

My travel companions, JD, Grace, Natalie, and Brian, during our first night in Sapporo. Later that night, we had to make a mad dash back to the last train to get back to our hotels. Sliding across snowy roads and hopping over cars should be an Olympic event.

A picture of downtown Sapporo just outside of Susukino Station.

A major Japanese city would not be complete unless it has a tower. Godzilla has to have something to tear down.

The mammoth snow sculptures were amazing. I can’t imagine the amount of time and effort it took to complete these detailed works.

An Antarctic themed sculpture.

Japan loves Disney stuff a little too much.

I was told that snow had to be brought in this year since there was less snow than usual. The amount of snow on the ground could have fooled me. It snowed everyday while we were there.

There were also MANY smaller sculptures.

If you want to see more pictures of snow sculptures, click here.

The name of this restaurant was Ebi Kani Gassen. It was one of the many all you can eat crab establishments in Sapporo. My primitive land-locked taste buds could not comprehend the awesomeness the fresh crab. It was by far the best crab I’ve ever eaten.

A hairy crab that we named Harry the Crab. Because of his tough exoskeleton, Harry would later become a star at the Yuki Matsuri. Thanks to my charisma, a British girl’s purse, and a daring escape plan, we were able to get Harry back out in the wild.

So, Spongebob looked a little lonely. Since we had convinced Natalie to stow a crab in her purse, we decided to put it to good use. The crab was the perfect addition to the sculpture. Previously, no one was stopping for the sponge. For some odd reason, everyone had to stop and look at the crab. “Eh? What’s this? A crab?” Watching everyone whip out their camera-phones and cameras to take a picture of the crab was priceless. We probably wasted a good 10 to 20 minutes just laughing at the photographers.

The victory pose for scamming Japan. Actually, this was our effort to traverse the Sapporo rail system by means of three-legged race. We were quite successful.

One day of the trip was spent snowboarding. This is the view of Sapporo from the top of the Teine Ski Resort.

Too much rock has been known to cause avalanches.

You don’t have massive piles of snow? Well, you can suck it.

Natalie decided to make a mockery of her homeland’s lack of snow.

I can’t believe we taught these kids how to say, “Suck it, Britain.”

To see more snowboarding pictures, click here.

The entrance to Sapporo Beer Garden

The Sapporo Beer Museum

The history of Sapporo Beer. They learned their techniques from the Germans. Sapporo has been around for about 130 years.

A brief look at the poster ladies throughout Sapporo Beer’s lengthy history.

The Sapporo Bear asked for a kiss. I obliged.

If you want to see more photos from the Sapporo Beer Garden, click here.

Two wild and crazy guys.

Ice mazes and slides! Too much fun at the Sato Land Site.

Getting lost in the maze makes you freak out.
For more pictures from the Sato Land Site, click here.

The last thing we did in Sapporo was go to a club near Susukino Station called A-Life. We were there from eleven until it closed at six in the morning. I had my dancing shoes on all night. We took the morning subway back to the hotel, grabbed our stuff, then took the train to the airport. The hour and a half on the plane was the best sleep, ever. For pictures of other good times in Sapporo, click here.

Hokkaido was definitely one of the more interesting adventures I’ve had while in Japan. I plan to go to Hokkaido again this summer and check out the more rural areas there. Hopefully, I’ll have more time to try out some of their famous onsens.

Now, for you Japanese moment of zen:

A while back, Justin Timberlake was interviewed on SMAP’s (a famous Japanese boy band) show SMAPxSMAP. I caught the rerun a couple of weeks ago. The interview was fairly funny. The expressions one guy makes when he is trying to come up with something to say in English is priceless. They jokingly created a collaborative effort called “Jusmapping.” Justin sings “Sexyback” by himself, but then the members of SMAP join in with him to sing “Rock Your Body.” An okay effort on Justin’s Japanese counterparts. I wonder if I sound that bad when I sing in Japanese.

If you can’t see the video, click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPDD_3NIjr0

• “Wear u updates be, dawg?”
• Shut up. I’m busy.

I would’ve updated earlier this week, but I’ve been busy with various things during the evening this past week. Meeting people for dinner, tutoring English, work, and studying take up too much time. However, other than teaching and hanging out with friends, the only other big thing I’ve done lately is go snowboarding at Hakuba Goryu in the Nagano Prefecture. It was a great weekend of snowboarding and debauchery. I’ll definitely be going there again.

The snow at Hakuba was excellent. We went up Friday night (Jan. 26th) and stayed at the Hotel Lady Diana. During the night, it snowed and we had about eight inches of fresh snow in the morning. Then, it continued snowing all day at the resort. The fresh powder was excellent. Here are some pictures from the first day of snowboarding.

A picture just outside the Hotel Lady Diana.

Too much snow.

My fellow snowboarding companion, John.

Mid-afternoon, it finally cleared up to provide a splendid view of the area.

Later, we hit up a nice outdoor onsen in the area to relax after a full day of boarding. We then had a decent dinner at the hotel before preceding to party the night away. The highlight of the night was meeting a young married Japanese couple who were apparently swingers. I promptly gave the guy instructions on how to hit on the nearest blond haired foreign girl. He put forth a good effort, but ultimately failed. Poor guy. Oh, well. No time to fret. I had another day of snowboarding ahead of me.

Just chillin’ on the second day at Hakuba

John’s a dirty Mexican.

The view from about half-way down the advanced slope.

Saturday and Sunday were both very crowded. There were also many Europeans here on vacation. I saw some Brits, French, Germans, and Russians.

A decent view up the slope.

If you want to see the rest of the pics from Hakuba, click here.

This week, I had a dinner party with a few of my teachers from the elementary school. The usual shenanigans occurred.

Today, I went snowboarding (again) at Koumi Re-Ex in the Nagano Prefecture. John and I met up with Rumi, a teacher from Akeno Elementary School, and her friend. We tore up the slopes from eight in the morning till late in the afternoon.

John, Me, Rumi, and the Ski Ninja (I couldn’t remember her name)

The big plans for this week are to go night snowboarding on Tuesday and fly to Hokkaido on Friday. The trip to Hokkaido is going to be awesome. I’m looking forward to checking out the fantastic snow sculptures at the Yuki Matsuri (Snow Festival), sights in Sapporo, and the slopes at the Niseko Ski Resort. I’ll be going with a few other friends from Yamanashi. It will be an epic adventure.

—Random Thoughts—

Every now and then, I discover something interesting. Marty Friedman, a former guitarist for Megadeth, has been living in Japan for sometime. I can’t remember the name of the show he was a guest star on. However, I found out he has his own show on TV Tokyo called Rock Fujiyama. He also has own studio in Shinjuku. Too bad I’m never up late enough or around to watch it. It would be nice to have his level of Japanese skill. Here are some links to some more information about good ole’ Marty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marty_Friedman_%28guitarist%29

http://avexnet.or.jp/marty/

http://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/fujiyama/

Now, for your Japanese moment of Zen:

This is Shoko Nakagawa. She is better known by the nickname Shokotan. Although she is a singer and actor, I think she is more famous for being a female gamer/geek. This makes her the wet dream of many otaku. However, her love for her video games (she wants to marry Dragon Quest V) and her cats kinda creeps me out.

If you can’t see the video, click youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJhi7TOXmC4

Shokotan is also a well-known cosplay model.

Meow indeed.

If you feel like looking at a bunch scribbles, you can read her blog at http://yaplog.jp/sdtrawberry2/ I can give you a brief summary: it’s here talking about her damn cats too much.

You can go to her official website at http://www.nakagawashoko.com/to hear her sing, but it’s nothing but a bunch of clicks and whistles.

Japan is crazy. I love it.