,+Manga+Museum,+Osaka+(Aquarium)+044.JPG)
July 16, 2009
So the past weekend I had a 4 day weekend. 1 semester (4 weeks) came to an end, we took our final test and I was excited to have fun and forget about school.
We went to a place called Lake Toya (or Toyako) and it took like 4 hours to drive there from Hakodate. We went with an equal number of Hakodate University Japanese students. Toya is known for the beautiful nature scene (all year round, changing according to the season, yet beautiful in every season) and has a couple of volcanoes that have been pretty consistently active for the past 100 years. We saw some videos of how the volcanoes destroyed the town a few decades ago.
I think I got off to a horrible start. We took a lunch break at some arbitrary place (near Onuma I think) and there was this huge indoor child park thing. Something of the sort with miniature tricycles, ping pong table, badminton, tunnels, and a ball pit. The ball pit was my favorite and I became a kid again, kicking and screaming and drowning in colorful balls. After lunch, we got back on the bus for the reminder 2 hours or so ride to our destination. It was only 10 minutes through, when I realized I lost my wallet in my back at the indoor child park place. I flipped and almost cried because my whole life and $150 was in that wallet. Okada sensei called the place and told them I lost it. They were searching. 30 minutes later I realized I might have lost it in the ball pit. She called again, and an hour or so later she told me they found it. Thank fuckin’ god (OMG in Japanese is Yabai)! But, I endured the whole trip without any money to my name, borrowing only the smallest bits from my friends, and using the change I found in my bag. I guess that’s a good thing.
After going to the museum where we learned a little history about this volcanic place, we walked around to the monuments of the houses and buildings that were destroyed by the volcanic activity. Uninhabited, yet still some of us dared to go in and climb the slipperiest, dirtiest staircase to the fifth floor. We probably weren’t supposed to do this, but only in Japan do they trust people not to walk into monuments, and I took advantage of this authentic opportunity and jumped in through a window.
That night we saw a fireworks show, which shows every night in the Summer. That’s overdoing it, don’t you think? Are fireworks bad for the environment? Since they do it above the water, don’t you think it goes into the sea and destroys the marine life? And it’s in the air, so when we breathe small particles of it, shouldn’t it also be bad for our health? Someone please do some research and get back to me! Anyway, I have never seen fireworks so close in my entire life, and I don’t think I’ll get such an opportunity ever again. I would never be able to pull that off in NY. 30 minutes of pure joy, it was. I felt so close that when the fireworks first started going off, I actually jumped back a few times in shock because I thought I would make contact. I took pictures of the boat that people get on (but you pay like $15) to get an amazing view of the fireworks. I got some cool videos and pics of the fireworks.
The next day we went river trekking. Most fun thing ever! I want to do it in NY! I have never done it before, but was so pumped! We wore some cool water shoes and life-jacket vest and jumped into the water that was definitely to my knees. At some points you’d be in waist high and at others times, the bottom felt like an endless pit. There were tons of rocks and some were really sharp. The water was freezing, but you got used to it. The current from the river pushes you and sometimes you have to walk against it but most of the time we walked with it, so there were so many points where I almost fell on my face, and would have if it weren’t for my hands. I bumped into so many rocks, but the cold numbed me so much that I didn’t feel anything. It was not till later when I looked at my legs that I realized it looked like I was beat with a metal baseball bat. I used small rocks to write on big rocks, and used the colorful orangish muck that was excreted to give myself one stealthy mark under each eye. I felt like a warrior! I lay in the water and allowed the current to carry me over small distances. We all climbed up to a small ledge and jumped into deep water and because of our life jackets we all popped right back up. Even Okada sensei did this. It was nice to see people who work in our program, who we see everyday in the office, participating in these fun activities. Then we drank some hot, sweet, berry tea. My hands were so cold, I couldn’t even feel the hot cup so I took a sip and nearly burned myself.
So some people told me I should take off my watch before I jump in the river. My Ironman Traithlon watch is waterproof, so I thought it’d be fine. When I got out of the water and looked at my wrist, I realized the rocks banged against my watch, and water got in: there was condensation and the screen that once read black blocky numbers were no more. I was so sad. I searched for a garbage can, but since Japan basically has none (everyone usually takes their garbage home with them), I shoved my watch in my book bag and forgot about it. Sunday night, I took my watch out to throw it away, and to my surprise, I was reading the time. My watch just took a nap! Although it was off by a day and 6 hours, I was so happy! It worked! My watch is still alive and ticking!
After this we went to a really nice, well-known Onsen (paid $10), although I think I have been to better ones, and my body temperature went from cold to hot. Because Toya is by volcanoes, the spring water used in the onsen we went to is taken from the volcano natural hot spring water basin. Like the volcano, the onsen smelled a little like sulfur. But, it felt so good for my skin. My skin felt like it was getting softer, and maybe that was the reason why my bruises seemed to heal so fast and not hurt as much. They had 3 different indoor onsens (different color and different functions) and an outdoor onsen. My favorite was the bubbly onsen. I almost fell asleep in that one.
That night as well as the following night we drank with the Japanese students and laughed and talked. I was tipsy, but not drunk, yet got the worst Asian glow out of everyone. Damn, I suck. We played a drinking game that doesn’t involve speaking, just hand gestures, so everyone could play. Even the two teachers (Okada, from our school, and Tanaka, from Hakodate University) played with us and drank. I felt slightly drunk and wandered off because I lost so soon.
The next day we went to Ainu village. Ainu are native people of Hokkaido. They were the first peoples to live on the land. If you look at their clothes and ways of living, I think the best way to describe the way they look is as Asian Indians. Their population is very small now. At the village we were able to see traditional Ainu dances, songs, and musical instruments. I also got to see 3 Hokkaido bears and 3 Hokkaido dogs. I felt so sorry for the bears because they were so massive, but just sat in the smallest, least stimulating environments. I wish I could have freed them. They seemed so anxious, pacing in what little room they had, when a big group of people came by to see them. In the past, they used to make the dogs and bears fight each other. How cruel?
They sold mugwort (grass) ice cream at the Ainu village, but I didn’t stick around long enough for them to take the time to make it so I am still curious about that. I have to say though, Hokkaido has some of the best ice cream I have ever had. I want to milk a cow!
Paid $120 (12000 yen) for this all inclusive trip, and it was definitely worth it.
Now second semester has started. I found out my teacher gave me an A last semester. Totally didn’t deserve it, so I am very confused, but will not question her generosity. But this semester is going to be harder. Can’t wait to finish this program and be free. At the same time, I don’t want it to end. After I have decided to farm for 2 weeks in Hokkaido and then travel to the main land and see the sights. I’m scared to be all alone for a month in a country totally foreign to me.
So the past weekend I had a 4 day weekend. 1 semester (4 weeks) came to an end, we took our final test and I was excited to have fun and forget about school.
We went to a place called Lake Toya (or Toyako) and it took like 4 hours to drive there from Hakodate. We went with an equal number of Hakodate University Japanese students. Toya is known for the beautiful nature scene (all year round, changing according to the season, yet beautiful in every season) and has a couple of volcanoes that have been pretty consistently active for the past 100 years. We saw some videos of how the volcanoes destroyed the town a few decades ago.
I think I got off to a horrible start. We took a lunch break at some arbitrary place (near Onuma I think) and there was this huge indoor child park thing. Something of the sort with miniature tricycles, ping pong table, badminton, tunnels, and a ball pit. The ball pit was my favorite and I became a kid again, kicking and screaming and drowning in colorful balls. After lunch, we got back on the bus for the reminder 2 hours or so ride to our destination. It was only 10 minutes through, when I realized I lost my wallet in my back at the indoor child park place. I flipped and almost cried because my whole life and $150 was in that wallet. Okada sensei called the place and told them I lost it. They were searching. 30 minutes later I realized I might have lost it in the ball pit. She called again, and an hour or so later she told me they found it. Thank fuckin’ god (OMG in Japanese is Yabai)! But, I endured the whole trip without any money to my name, borrowing only the smallest bits from my friends, and using the change I found in my bag. I guess that’s a good thing.
After going to the museum where we learned a little history about this volcanic place, we walked around to the monuments of the houses and buildings that were destroyed by the volcanic activity. Uninhabited, yet still some of us dared to go in and climb the slipperiest, dirtiest staircase to the fifth floor. We probably weren’t supposed to do this, but only in Japan do they trust people not to walk into monuments, and I took advantage of this authentic opportunity and jumped in through a window.
That night we saw a fireworks show, which shows every night in the Summer. That’s overdoing it, don’t you think? Are fireworks bad for the environment? Since they do it above the water, don’t you think it goes into the sea and destroys the marine life? And it’s in the air, so when we breathe small particles of it, shouldn’t it also be bad for our health? Someone please do some research and get back to me! Anyway, I have never seen fireworks so close in my entire life, and I don’t think I’ll get such an opportunity ever again. I would never be able to pull that off in NY. 30 minutes of pure joy, it was. I felt so close that when the fireworks first started going off, I actually jumped back a few times in shock because I thought I would make contact. I took pictures of the boat that people get on (but you pay like $15) to get an amazing view of the fireworks. I got some cool videos and pics of the fireworks.
The next day we went river trekking. Most fun thing ever! I want to do it in NY! I have never done it before, but was so pumped! We wore some cool water shoes and life-jacket vest and jumped into the water that was definitely to my knees. At some points you’d be in waist high and at others times, the bottom felt like an endless pit. There were tons of rocks and some were really sharp. The water was freezing, but you got used to it. The current from the river pushes you and sometimes you have to walk against it but most of the time we walked with it, so there were so many points where I almost fell on my face, and would have if it weren’t for my hands. I bumped into so many rocks, but the cold numbed me so much that I didn’t feel anything. It was not till later when I looked at my legs that I realized it looked like I was beat with a metal baseball bat. I used small rocks to write on big rocks, and used the colorful orangish muck that was excreted to give myself one stealthy mark under each eye. I felt like a warrior! I lay in the water and allowed the current to carry me over small distances. We all climbed up to a small ledge and jumped into deep water and because of our life jackets we all popped right back up. Even Okada sensei did this. It was nice to see people who work in our program, who we see everyday in the office, participating in these fun activities. Then we drank some hot, sweet, berry tea. My hands were so cold, I couldn’t even feel the hot cup so I took a sip and nearly burned myself.
So some people told me I should take off my watch before I jump in the river. My Ironman Traithlon watch is waterproof, so I thought it’d be fine. When I got out of the water and looked at my wrist, I realized the rocks banged against my watch, and water got in: there was condensation and the screen that once read black blocky numbers were no more. I was so sad. I searched for a garbage can, but since Japan basically has none (everyone usually takes their garbage home with them), I shoved my watch in my book bag and forgot about it. Sunday night, I took my watch out to throw it away, and to my surprise, I was reading the time. My watch just took a nap! Although it was off by a day and 6 hours, I was so happy! It worked! My watch is still alive and ticking!
After this we went to a really nice, well-known Onsen (paid $10), although I think I have been to better ones, and my body temperature went from cold to hot. Because Toya is by volcanoes, the spring water used in the onsen we went to is taken from the volcano natural hot spring water basin. Like the volcano, the onsen smelled a little like sulfur. But, it felt so good for my skin. My skin felt like it was getting softer, and maybe that was the reason why my bruises seemed to heal so fast and not hurt as much. They had 3 different indoor onsens (different color and different functions) and an outdoor onsen. My favorite was the bubbly onsen. I almost fell asleep in that one.
That night as well as the following night we drank with the Japanese students and laughed and talked. I was tipsy, but not drunk, yet got the worst Asian glow out of everyone. Damn, I suck. We played a drinking game that doesn’t involve speaking, just hand gestures, so everyone could play. Even the two teachers (Okada, from our school, and Tanaka, from Hakodate University) played with us and drank. I felt slightly drunk and wandered off because I lost so soon.
The next day we went to Ainu village. Ainu are native people of Hokkaido. They were the first peoples to live on the land. If you look at their clothes and ways of living, I think the best way to describe the way they look is as Asian Indians. Their population is very small now. At the village we were able to see traditional Ainu dances, songs, and musical instruments. I also got to see 3 Hokkaido bears and 3 Hokkaido dogs. I felt so sorry for the bears because they were so massive, but just sat in the smallest, least stimulating environments. I wish I could have freed them. They seemed so anxious, pacing in what little room they had, when a big group of people came by to see them. In the past, they used to make the dogs and bears fight each other. How cruel?
They sold mugwort (grass) ice cream at the Ainu village, but I didn’t stick around long enough for them to take the time to make it so I am still curious about that. I have to say though, Hokkaido has some of the best ice cream I have ever had. I want to milk a cow!
Paid $120 (12000 yen) for this all inclusive trip, and it was definitely worth it.
Now second semester has started. I found out my teacher gave me an A last semester. Totally didn’t deserve it, so I am very confused, but will not question her generosity. But this semester is going to be harder. Can’t wait to finish this program and be free. At the same time, I don’t want it to end. After I have decided to farm for 2 weeks in Hokkaido and then travel to the main land and see the sights. I’m scared to be all alone for a month in a country totally foreign to me.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWell I haven't read about any environmental studies of hakkaido (obviously) but here's what I figure-- one, you say the volcanos are active, right? So they're exuding tons of sulfur that would make any sulfur from even daily fireworks pale in comparison. The only types of chemicals that volcanoes don't have that a firework would would probably be metallic chemicals and perhaps noxious chemicals for specific fireworks,like the ones that glow blue, for instance.
ReplyDeleteSo volcano emissions undermining and overshadowing man made entertainment would be one explanation, another could be that it does have an effect, that the compounds falling into the sea adversely affects sea populations. That's more than possible. But let's say that they have had these fireworks since, well, lets say 1970 or something (around the time Japan was really coming onto its own as an economic power in the period after WWII and American Occupation), those displays would put into play evolutionary check into selecting for gene alleles within each species population for phenotypes that can resist any harmful effects the small scale pollution caused. Thirty years would be more than enough time to do that if there are beneficial alleles among the fish population, considering evolutionary biologists have done artificial selection on fish changing from large to small in just a few generations.
Depending on how big the body of water is, it may not had that big of an effect on the overall marine life (considering, I mean, cars pollute a whole fuck more on average), as for its affect on people, I mean, I dunno. I wouldn't worry about it. Yes there are carcinogenic chemicals from fireworks, but there are in actual, daily appliances and foods that unlike fireworks, you actually interact with daily. Unless you're allergic to sulfur, metallic objects or noxious chemicals inside fireworks, pr have asthma and breathed in enough to make you vomit, you will be fine.
I googled up "environmental concerns of fireworks" and apparently Disney has created a compressed air firework display that gets rid of environmental pollution caused by it. They have shared their patent with the world community as a PR boost. If you care a lot, maybe you can advocate for it on your month off. Hippy.
--
You're right about the Ainu people being similar to Indians, though its not as awful as white policy towards native americans, Ainu peoples got a bad shake at policy by the Japanese. I looked up some book in my library, and apparently they're mostly assimilated and prefer to call themselves "Utari."
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This post is too long, its early in the morning, I'm tired, kinda ...tipsy, and dont know why I typed so much. I deleted the last post because it had too many spelling errors. Sumimassen.
Wow, Khaled. You are full of interesting info, arent you? Thanks for the long post. It was fun!
ReplyDeleteSo, the compressed air fireworks... is that fireworks? Do you use it instead of other fireworks b/c it's better for the environment? Is it as pretty?
Utari? So you think Ainu have a better rep than the native americans have in America? or worse?
hahaha. tipsy? at home? where r u?
I was at a friends dorm and we uh, drank.
ReplyDeleteCompressed air fireworks are used in Disneyland, so I figure they look good considering Disney has a financial interest in making them look good.
source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5431104
So you think Ainu have a better rep than the native Americans have in America?
I dont get what you mean by that question, what reputation do Native Americans have here? If you look at modern Indians, I guess the Indian reservations are fucked because gambling is their only economic engine and their rate of alcoholism is inherently higher than whites (because like, they never had selection pressures against it because only some tribes started agriculture a thousand years ago). I mean, most were destroyed by new European diseases when Columbus and the rest arrived. I don't know. What emotion would signify the rep they get? Pity?
When you look at the Ainu people, they were kinda fucked over in the same way Natives were by Europeans and Aborigines by white settlers, I mean, diseases fucked them hard initially and then displacements happened. I mean, when you think about it, it is incredibly common to happen to native populations if they dont have the tech or biological defenses to defend themselves against new invaders. The only reason all of Inner-Africa did not become colonised until the late 1800s was because Africa had tons of diseases the white man couldn't get past (malaria for instance, which blacks have a general dispensation against--this is kinda why sickle cell rate is much higher among them). So yeah, the Japanese are just like everyone else in how they treat people.
So that's what you were trying to say. If you read back, in your drunken stupor its kind of hard to figure it out. but, i enjoyed it nonetheless. haha. keep reading, cuz ill keep posting.
ReplyDeleteSorry I haven't commented for a while. I've been feeling really overwhelmed lately, since Jae's in Korea, I'm working 6 days a week, and I'm applying to internships. But that's no excuse. Thanks for reminding me to keep in touch, that you're noticing that I haven't been commenting. I miss you biggie.
ReplyDeleteLove you
Fireworks:
OH I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN!
Since I'm from Cleveland, I've seen fireworks so close that some of the burning ash stuff started falling on us. But I know that feeling of sudden panic when the ball of lights keeps growing and you think it's gonna hit you...
and the watch:
yeah you told me it was broken. glad it works now.
and OUCHIE BRUISES. That's cool that it healed so fast. I want to go to an onsen... for my honeymoon. :P so watch out, whoever ends up marrying me. You could HATE japan, but we're going ot a hot springs :P
and the bears:
So sad!
and the mugwort ice cream...
MUGWORT FUCKING ROCKS!!! eat some sometime! :)
they have mugwort mochi at certain places, too. tho I haven't found any in New York. It's really good and its really good for you. It's sweet but not sickeningly so. Kind of tastes like green tea powder, but different.
CONGRATS on your A! you might think that you didn't deserve it, but I bet you did. You're a hard worker. (staying up so late every night to do work like I"ve seen you do)
HUGS
You'll be fine on the farms (you're already there lol) Ppl like you, so you won't be lonely for long, yes?