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I haven't had much time to update this blog lately since I've been so busy lately with travelling and the new semester of school, so apologies if anyone actually reads this blog and has been missing posts. This post will have even more images than usual because I took a lot of pictures during my travels.
Since I think most people won't know where Hokkaido or Sendai are I made this map of our trip. I flew to Sapporo (capital of Hokkaido) from Tokyo because the train there costs a tonne and it takes about 11-16 hours. From Sapporo we took the overnight train to Aomori (8-ish hours), then got on the bullet train to Sendai (3 hours?). Then at the end Jimu got left from Sendai back to California and I got on the bullet train back home to Tokyo.
We started off our Hokkaido trip by going to the famous Shiroi Koibito chocolate factory.
there's snow!!
Here's the main building of the factory
I have no idea but the whole factory has a cat theme going on
and for some reason there's a whole bunch of tiny houses around the entrance to the factory. So I got a picture in my new house
This is the park behind the factory
Inside the factory
Me and Jimu in the fancy mirror
They had windows so we could look down at all the people making chocolate
They were selling a variety of scultures made out of candy and chocolate. Sadly, they are not edible.
On the top floor of the factory they have a cafe where you can get various Shiroi Koibito desserts
The view from our seat in the cafe. Hokkaido is pretty "countryside"-y. It actually reminded me a lot of Canada. Sometimes I thought I was in Calgary.
The clock tower
Looking down at the factory park
The Shiroi Koibito parfait (that cookie on it are the famous Shiroi Koibito chocolate cookies) and some chocolate vodka thing??? Which Jimu ordered since I don't drink, but I did try it and wow, it was actually really good.
I have no idea what this thing is but I've seen it a lot before so I took this photo of it eating me
I have no idea what Abraham Lincoln had to do with the history of chocolate in Japan but here he is
Then for some reason they had this tank of sea butterflies????
Outside there were a million snowmen with flavour names
The building of the chocolate factory
Also went and bought NEWS concert goods!
29 March 2015: The day my dream came true. I finally got to see my #1 band, NEWS, in concert. Easily one of the best nights of my life.
Post concert shabu shabu and sukiyaki! (Basically hot pot if you don't know what those are)
The next day we went to Sapporo Factory which is just a huge mall
On our last day in Sapporo we went out to the complete middle of nowhere to Hokkaido Historical Village. It's a mini town of preserved old buildings
I'll be honest I don't remember what a lot of this stuff was. But hey, they're pretty buildings.
I remember this was an old grocery store (or maybe a soba restaurant?)
Inside one of the houses
The creepy part was that in some of the houses these terrifying mannequins were just randomly sitting there, some with audio of them having a conversation.
An old clinic.
It didn't say what this room was but we're pretty sure it was the surgery room
A police box
An old middle school
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Inside the school
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Fogged up glasses ghost Meghan sitting in the classroom
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Dramatic drama character staring out the window wondering when senpai will notice her Meghan
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An old shrine
An icy pond
Some building associated with fishing
Inside an old fishing building
Another old shrine
Had to walk through this forest to get back to the exit
An old photography studio. The lighting in here was super pretty, all natural too coming in from those giant windows.
Foggy glasses ghost Meghan reappears
An old sweets shop
Inside an old grocery store
Walks into the barn, BAM, this guy
A Christian church
Fogged up glasses ghost Meghan appears again this time in front of an old house
It appeared again in the older newspaper making building
And again in the tractor shed. Spooky.
Fogged up glasses ghost Meghan's last appearance, spotted waiting for the bus
Then we went to Sapporo Beer Museum! I think Sapporo beer is also popular abroad? Then again, I know nothing about alcohol.
Big globe thing talking about yeast
throughout the museum there were these little sculptures describing the process of beer making
A big container thing of beer
A cute fat classy beer man
The hall of the history of Sapporo beer's adverts
Then at the end you could sample some of their beers
Jimu got this
....and I got iced green tea. I tried some of Jimu's and man, I really do hate beer. I'll be sticking with my tea
The outside of the beer factory
Then we went to hang around Sapporo station waiting for our night train leaving for Aomori. In the station we went to this ramen restaurant. Sapporo is famous for its ramen and its seafood so of course I got the seafood ramen. As expected, it was very good.
Me on the overnight train to Aomori
Me and Jimu on the train
We were only in Aomori for an hour at most before we got onto the bullet train, but while on the bullet train I got this Aomori apple ice cream (Aomori is really famous for its apples)
Another food souvenir I got, Yubari Melon giant pocky! Hokkaido is also famous for its yubari melons
Then we arrived in Sendai! This was the river by the guest house we stayed at.
What I started living on: Lawson's Karaage-kun (fried chicken)
Like Sapporo, Sendai was super countryside-ish. The station by our guesthouse was seriously tiny (or I'm just way too used to life in giant mega city Tokyo).
On our first full day in Sendai we came to this tiny place trying to find a temple that took us forever to locate
The view from here was pretty amazing.
Instead of the temple we found this cemetery
Cherry blossoms!
We finally found the temple
It was less of a temple and more of a garden though.
My favourite part: THE KOIS. Look how cute they are
Had to get the artsy shots of the cherry blossoms and shrines
I always forget the purpose of these guys but they're cute
Then we went to the place where Date Masamune and his family are kept. But first we had to climb all these stairs
Date Masamune's grave. (For those who don't know, he's a famous warlord from Sendai, if you want to know more you'll have to google it because I'm awful at history and I'm awful at explaining)
More cherry blossoms
More graves of the Date clan
This was a cemetery for the children of the Date clan
Then we went to another temple, which was up another 100 stairs.
That little rice ball guy dressed like Date Masamune is the mascot of Sendai
The shrine. (If I remember correctly I think Date Masamune was the one who built it?)
The next day we went to a museum. On our way there I saw this statue and the mathematician in me had to stop and take a photo because MOBIUS STRIP.
Sendai has a tourist bus system called the "Loople" which travels in a loop around Sendai and stops at all the major tourist attractions.
This was apparently the pond where figure skating first started in Japan.
The outside of the museum.
The museum's cute washroom signs
At the cafe in the museum I got this cherry blossom cake
Then we went to Sendai Castle (or what's left of it), where you get this view of the whole city.
A statue of Date Masamune (he is literally EVERYWHERE in Sendai)
A drink I fell in love with in Sendai, peach nectar.
Afterwards went and had dinner at Sendai station and got this Omlette rice
I also bought this amazing wallet. THERE ARE FLAT FACED DOGS WITH MOUSTACHES.
The next day we just spent it at karaoke and eating all the karaoke food.
Got this honey toast
and taiyaki (fish shaped pastry with red bean inside it)
On our last day in Sendai we went to Matsushima. It's known for being one of the "3 Scenic Views in Japan", but sadly it was raining all day so I didn't get any amazing pictures, but it was still very pretty.
The view of Matsushima from the station.
The ocean
Things like this are all over Sendai in support of all the people here affected by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami
A bridge leading to one of the islands. I'm pretty sure in the tsunami the original bridge was destroyed, this one is a new one.
The view once we got onto the side island
Me climbing up the giant steps to the shrine on the island
The sign said this was the biggest tree in all of Sendai
Walking around a temple in Matsushima
Famous in Sendai: Zunda. I had no idea what zunda was prior to this, but it is a kind of bean paste. As most people know I'm a huge fan of melon bread so when I saw this place selling zunda melon bread I had to give it a try.
Zunda melon bread! It was really good. I have no idea how to describe what zunda tastes like... It has a rather distinct flavour.
We found this Date Masamune cafe and got the Date Masamune parfait (made to resemble him)
Also famous in Matsushima: oysters. So I got these fried oysters and they were SO GOOD. Definitely the best oysters I've ever had.
I also got this zunda dango. This is better look at what zunda looks like, it looks very unappealing, but it is pretty good!
For some reason in one of the souvenir shops here I found Hokkaido marimos. I have a marimo (they look like balls of moss, but they're actually living balls of algae) back in Vancouver (my baby Euler) and I knew that marimos originated in Hokkaido but I didn't see any while in Sapporo. So I instead bought the Hokkaido marimos in Sendai.
I also bought this zunda towel as a souvenir for myself.
Then the next day I got on the bullet train back to Tokyo. This is Fukushima (which you probably know only because of the issues with the nuclear power plant).
It was a really great trip! I'm very grateful for all the experiences I had on it. It's not every day you get to see your favourite group (who are a major reason of why I'm even in Japan) with your good friend who you met because of that group and then get to travel around Japan together.
Hokkaido was really pretty and was close to Canada in terms of weather and the overall look, and for the most part very rural. Because of how rural it was I found the locals very surprised to see foreigners which often made me anxious because I got a lot of dirty looks. Sendai also sometimes reminded me of Canada for some reason, and it was also very rural, though I found it a little more city-ish than Sapporo. I found the people in Sendai a lot nicer and more welcoming than in Hokkaido, especially the old ladies. It seemed like everyone I met were really grateful to see tourists and extremely willing to help, which I almost think is because of all the Tohoku region of Japan has been through the past 4 years since the earthquake and tsunami. After that tourism in the region really dropped so I think they're really happy to see foreign people (and even just Japanese people from other cities) visiting now.
I also forgot my iPad at home so all I had to take photos was my awful iPod camera.
Prior to my trip to Hokkaido and Sendai I did go to another popular cherry blossom viewing spot, Shinjuku Gyoen, where some blossoms were already out, so here are photos from that.
This was one of the only cherry blossoms in bloom at the time. There were just a herd of people standing in front of it taking photos (I was one of those people)
Shinjuku Gyoen is actually a really pretty park to take a walk in
A tea house in the park
There were also lots of old people sitting around painting the scenery
And my favourite koi friends!!!!!
The most Japanese photo of me I have, me in my Waseda sweater in front of the cherry blossoms
I'm such a little nugget.
Before I moved to Japan I never liked spring that much, but then I realised Canada barely even has a spring anymore, it's more like winter for 6 months and summer for the other 6. I have seriously been missing out on spring. Japanese people love spring, it's often associated with happiness and starting anew (the new school year starts in April in Japan) and of course all the cherry blossoms. Everything is cherry blossom themed here right now. The weather is also amazing, it's not that cold and not too hot, and it's not humid at all. It's also not that sunny (I can't stand the sun), it's more like a kind of hazy sun? Like it's bright and not necessarily cloudy but the sun is covered so it's not overly hot (if that makes any sense at all). And not just the cherry blossoms, but all the flowers are in bloom now, the park I walk through every day to get to the station smells and looks amazing because of them. Basically Tokyo in late March-April is gorgeous and probably the absolute best time to visit.
Here are some photos from a day my host family, friends, and I went to the big park where we live for a picnic that somewhat depict spring here
You can kind of see what I mean about the weather, it's not "sunny", but it's just this kind of warm tint
The area I live in is really pretty
And everything also has a warm pink-ish hue too
The road where the station is.
An example of the spring themed food Japan has: Sakura Mochi. Pink mochi wrapped in a cherry blossom leaf.
And now just some random photos from here and there as always
The Tower Records near my place is fully decorated in NEWS so I needed a photo in front of the giant poster. One of the members of NEWS lives here (I know, I live within 15 minutes walking distance of a member of my favourite bands' house) so I'm thinking that's why this Tower Records is so extremely NEWS themed
Me sitting with two Nintendo 3DS', both upside down. People are looking at me like I'm insane, but I need to trade myself Pokemon, the insanity continues.
I've been spending a lot of time in Nakano Broadway lately which has a lot of gacha machines (I actually have no idea what the English word for them are... it's those machines you put coins into and you get a capsule with a thing in it) and one day I went a bit crazy and this happened... There was one that had dogs in food and I really wanted the flat faced dog one but I failed a bunch of times and ended up with tonnes of dog themed food keychains. Others I got were a bird, a really fat cat, a hipser cat, and fat hamsters
Obligatory cat picture. Yoshio all rolled into a ball on my bed
This is Funasshi. Japan's most popular mascot. I hate him. He's cute, but ugh, he's so annoying. But the other day I was at NTV (of course I was - yes I did indeed see Koyama doing the weather again, and he looked right at me and waved, my soul has been healed) and saw a cutout of him wearing this festival coat from my favourite show, ItteQ, so I took a picture despite of my hatred.
The view out of one of my classrooms.
There appears to be a hamster on my graphing calculator
Another result of my gacha machine adventures. A corn bird. A bird that is corn.
The other day my Australian friend Melinda and I went to Shin-Okubo, a place in Tokyo known for its large Korean presence (it's known as Koreatown). My friend Brigit recommended me this Korean barbecue place, Tonchan, so we went there for lunch, and wow, Korean barbecue is really good.
What the inside of the internet looks like
Then while we were walking down the street out of the corner of my eye I see this sheep just sitting there eating hay. Before this I had never touched a sheep before and I can now say I never knew true happiness before touching this sheep. THEY ARE SO SOFT AND SO FLUFFY. I want a sheep.
This sheep was actually for sale at a pet shop, and I've now been to a few pet stores in Japan and I can say they are extremely different than those in Canada. They both sell animals, obviously that part is no different, but the animals available to buy is the appalling part. In Canada you can buy the regular things, dogs, cats, reptiles, rodents, fish, and birds, but here in Japan pretty much everything is legal to keep as a pet. In the pet stores I've been in so far here I've seen meerkats, chipmunks, monkeys, tropical birds (that are illegal to keep in other places), ground hogs, owls, and many other strange things I never imagined could be pets. How is all this legal? I have no idea. I'm also not sure if I agree with a lot of it... but it is still interesting walking into a regular pet shop, walking through the rows of dogs and cats to then find yourself staring at a meerkat.
And that's pretty much what my past month and bit has looked like!
My second term of school has started now and by this point I'm realising that school is really just a very secondary background part of my time here, my classes are all pointless. I'm not really impressed by Waseda's Japanese program, the design of it is awful. The classes don't teach you anything. And since UBC doesn't even record your grade in any of your exchange courses I'm just not going to focus on school at all, just the very minimum to get by so I don't fail (which believe me, it's almost impossible to fail) and spend most of my time exploring more of Tokyo and take more trips around Japan while studying more Japanese on my own.
Right now I've got plans to go to Osaka this Friday (going to see NEWS in concert again! This time for Koyama's birthday!), then in June I'm going to be going to Hiroshima! Also before moving to Vancouver in August (right now the plan is to move to Vancouver on 20 August) I'm hoping to go to Osaka again to explore more of it since I'm only going for a day this time around, and to Fukuoka. So lots of things to look forward to!
I leave you all with another happy fish
