Well, this year we welcomed 2009 at the foot of Taipei 101 in the heart of Taipei, Taiwan. At the stroke of midnight, fireworks shot from the 4 corners of the tallest building in the world. This has definitely been a high-profile event for Taiwan since it first started in 2005, but we later learned that this was the last year for new years fireworks at Taipei 101.

So what’s it like, seeing fireworks launched from an epic building? Amazing.

See it here:

More photos:

You can also see the spectacular video from our Tokyo Tower new years in our happy new year 2008 blog post from last year.

on a side note: Interestingly enough, we got to spend both of the new years with our good friend Michael Martin. Where to next year, gumshoe?

Yokohama is probably most famous (among Japanese people) for it’s Yokohama Chinatown. It is said to be the largest Chinatown in Asia. If you are visiting Yokohama, don’t forget to check out the Chinatown and get yourself some greasy Chinese food. There are many restaurants and many many unique shops.

We enjoyed our time in Yokohama. At night, we took a nice long stroll around the Yokohama Minato Mirai 21 area. If you take the subway to Bashamichi station or sakuragi-cho station, you can walk along the bridge and then walk onto the beautiful walkway - Kisha-michi promenade. This path was originally the railway in the city. It’s a beautiful walk at night while the water is by your side, beautiful city behind and ferris wheel in front. The Ferris Wheel is part of the Yokohama Cosmos World ((full Japanese website)) (yokohama kosumosuwaarudo-横浜コスモスワールド) It’s free to enter but each ride has a different cost. Unfortunately when we went for our night walk the Cosmos World was just closing so we didn’t get to ride the Ferris Wheel. We tried to go to the Ferris Wheel the next day only to find that the amusement park closes on most of the Thursdays…. (Definitely should’ve check the calendar beforehand… ) 残念. (Also, the Japanese sometimes refer to the Ferris Wheel as “Sky Wheel”)

We went up the Yokohama Landmark tower which is said to have the second fastest elevator in the whole world. The observation floor is on the 69th floor (the tallest in Japan) and you get a wonderful view of the Yokohama bay. When you purchase your ticket you get a discount coupon to use at the observation floor cafe; as usual it’s overpriced but completely necessary.

Another very romantic thing to do is to ride the sea bus. There’s a port right at Mirato Mirai 21 area and the sea bus will take you to Yokohama station. The sea bus terminal is at Minato Mirai Pukarin Sanbashi Pier (floating pier) The funniest thing is that the sea bus service is called the “Sea Bass“. It’s quite a pleasant ride. For the ride from Mirato Mirai 21 port to Yokohama station is only 400 Yen a person. When we rode the “sea bass” it was sunny and breezy. It gave us a fantastic view of the city. (There are other providers for sea bus tours as well but we just jumped on the first one we saw)

Yokohama is so close to Tokyo it can be a great day-trip location, but there’s also enough to do to keep you busy for a few days. We enjoyed our stay here and hope to visit again in the future.

Kanto in Japanese kanji is 関東. It means the east border. Some of the major Kanto cities are Tokyo, Yokohama, Chiba and so on. (Learn your geography on wikipedia.)

When we did our June 2008 trip to Kyoto, Osaka and Tokyo, we decided to take the Shinkansen from Osaka to Tokyo. After a quick check on hyperdia (an incredible online schedule/timetable service for all Japan’s rail systems. It’s even English-supported!!), we found the Shinkansen nozomi service from ShinOsaka (the major Osaka Shinkansen station) to Tokyo Station was ¥14050. (today’s XE rate puts that at $195.57 CDN. ouch.) The train ride takes 2hr 36mins and you get to see the all-too-famous Mount Fuji on the way. Oh, and it’s always on-time.

Flash forward to October…..
¥14050 for a train ticket? That was a little out of our budget at the time for our new trip through Chugoku, Kansai and Kanto. We finished our short visit of Nara and we were heading north, towards Yokohama the next day and needed options. (Yokohama is just a short local train ride away from Tokyo. Depends on where you are heading from and to it’s around ¥300-¥600)

We came across this bus service called the Youthful Mega Dream (青春メガドリーム - Sheishun mega doriimu). It’s an overnight bus traveling between Osaka and Tokyo. (The website is entirely in Japanese. But it has fantastic selection on various kinds of express buses traveling all over Japan. It even does online booking.) The Mega Dream was by far the cheapest option we found for getting to Tokyo. For a mere ¥3500 (48CDN as of today) we got to board from Osaka at 10:40PM and arrived in Tokyo the next morning at 8:09AM. It was like a transportation and a free night of (crappy) hotel.

It was a double-decker bus with 2 twin-seats on each side of the aisle, row after row after row. 84 seats in total. We stopped every 2 hours during our overnight ride at highway rest stops so people can run to the bathroom or run for their cigarettes. More importantly, the rest stops were crucial because it was the only time to stretch!!! As you can imagine, it’s in no way comfortable sleeping on a bus, especially when the seats recline 2 inches. Kevin is 198cm (6″ 5′). He has enough trouble even on airplanes. This bus ride was worse. The bus ride from the pretzel factory. He literally folded himself up into a ‘W’ to fit into the little Japanese seats….

Upon reaching Tokyo, we felt so broken after the overnight ride that we sat at the Starbucks for a good 3 hours, sipping coffees and nursing leg pains before we deciding to move again…….

Did we get to where we wanted to go? Yes.
Was it cheap? Yes!!
Was it sort-of fun, in a sick, twisted, masochistic kind of way? …yes.

Would we do it again? ………..

We booked a tour package through JAL tour which is operated by JAL (Japan Airlines) ((beware, the website requires mad Japanese skills)). It may have been called a tour, but essentially it just meant we were booking flights and hotels together, through JAL. We got a great deal consisting of flights from Chitose to Hiroshima and from Tokyo back to Chitose as well as hotels in Hiroshima, Kobe and Yokohama. The only thing we found out is that these tours are usually impossible to change once they’re booked. We tried to maneuver our dates around a bit after we had booked them but found ourselves unable. Our whole trip/tour was 11 days starting in Hiroshima.

Hiroshima

Hiroshima might be famous for couple things: okonomiyaki, the red tori in Itsukushima Shrine/Miyajima, oysters, and the atomic bomb.
Miyajima is a small island near Hiroshima city, and is possibly the most photographed Japanese tourist spot - the famous red tori. (You’ve seen it. the red gate in the water?) We wandered our way to Miyajima with a series of street trams, JR rail and ferry; we sat and waited for the sunset near the Itsukushima Shrine while deers tried to eat our bags. (Yes there were tons of wild deers)
We enjoyed a nice dinner in Hiroshima. Every city/town/village in Japan has a specialty food that is promoted for tourism reason. If you visited Hiroshima Japanese people would ask you if you had oysters there. We did. It was yumlicious.

The next day we visited the Hiroshima Peace memorial. It was a gray day -pouring rain, so it seemed fitting.
Hiroshima is an amazing city. The tempo of the city seemed somehow slower than the rest of Japan and the public transit system was convenient easy to navigate. Who can say no to a nice tram ride through the city?

Kobe

We have heard many good things about Kobe from our friends; it was definitely a spot that we had been meaning to visit for a while. We took a quick Shinkansen ride from Hiroshima to Shin-Kobe for aprox. $100CDN a person (that’s considered cheap for Japanese Shinkansen rides.) We got to stay in an amazing hotel in Kobe - the Hotel Monterey. The hotel looked and felt like a medieval castle/dungeon.

Kobe is one of Japans busiest port cities. As former Vancouverites, we carry with us an immense love for the ocean. It was hard to describe why we loved Kobe as instantly as we did, but it was the kind of city that possessed such charm that we couldn’t help but fall in love with it. It might also have been the beautiful harbor view, or possibly the edgy kansai fashion, or even the foreign influences in the city (we found a wine bar… with PROSCIUTTO!!). Either way, we had a pleasant day wondering the street of Kobe and enjoying the beautiful harbor view. It felt like the kind of city where one could settle down.

Nara

When you mention Nara to anyone in Japan, the first thing comes back is “Watch out for the deers!”. Inside the famous Nara park there are deer roaming freely all over the place. Like, a lot of them. You can buy senbei, a Japanese cracker to feed the deers. According to our lonely planet book, a few foreigners were spotted buying these deer crackers and eating them. These crackers are for the deers!!!!!!! Anyway, we bought some 99¥ deer senbei and soon after we were, ourselves, surrounded and being attacked by deers. The whole experience of Nara park: feeding deers, watching other tourists (with smaller arm-spans) scream from being (viciously) attacked by deers, listening to megaannoying megaphone announcements from teachers on the elementary school field trips, avoiding and dodging the 10 groups of junior high-school students who thought it was funny to chase the deers, and finally (and most importantly) watching out for deer poop. Nara park in some regards suffers from its own popularity. It is said that there are at least 5 school field trips there every day. It definitely requires a whole new level of zen to navigate your way through Nara Park.

That’s it for now!
KJ CW

More phtoos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cathycracks/sets/72157608016039336/detail/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaako/sets/72157608041936863/detail/

We spent 10 days in South Korea visiting with our good friends Song & Joe, from Vancouver. It was a short 3-hour flight from Chitose airport to Incheon, in Seoul. We met happily in the airport, and spent our first night together in Seoul. We hopped a taxi from the airport to the love-hotel district in Seoul and dragged our luggage around in the pouring rain trying to find a love-hotel that wasn’t booked on a Friday night (not easy!). Our first night in Seoul was spent in a dirty, cockroach-infested hotel with no elevator but a giant can of insecticide in every room …Rough!

The next day, we hopped a KTX train down to Mokpo, and met with Song’s uncle who drove us down to Jindo where we spent the night sleeping in the house where Song’s dad lived and her older brother, Chang, was born. This house was powered by a generator, but when it was built, it didn’t even have electricity! Song’s family built it with their own hands. It was such an interesting experience to stay in the countryside. We felt very honored to be there. We spent a few days in the very south of Korea, visiting Song’s family, paying respects to her father’s grave and eating delicious southern-style food. The southern people in Korea say that they have the spiciest food in Korea. Some even say that the food from the south is more delicious. We had some very traditional and very local cuisine. One dish that stood out was was a fish soup. The soup was thick, and textured- essentially fish blended into a pulp! It was crazy delicious and crazy spicy.

Our taste buds totally opened up over the course of our trip. At first, everything was spicy. 10 times spicier than the spicy food we normally tolerate. Everyday -each meal -everything was spicy! Eating was so exhilarating and addictive. Did you know chili peppers are actually addictive? The intense spice tricks the brain into thinking that the body is in pain. The brain releases endorphins, making the brain happy. It’s not on a level that would cause withdrawl symptoms or be truly addictive like a cigarette, but it is definitely something you start to crave, mentally and physiologically . We started to wake up in the morning with the first thing on our minds being…. kimchi!

After traveling around the south of the country enjoying the wonderful hospitality of Song’s family, we took a bus to Busan, which is Korea’s biggest port city, and the second largest city in the country. We continued on the pattern that we’d become accustomed to: eat, drink, repeat. We checked out Hyundae beach, where the boys, Kevin and Joe went for a swim and the girls went to TGIFridays for litre-cocktails.

Our last couple days in Korea were spent back in Seoul. We took the 3 and a half hour KTX trip back up to Seoul and spent the last 3 nights meeting old friends, making new friends and continuing with our rapid intake of kimchi and soju. Seoul was everything we had hoped it would be. 12 Metro-lines of sprawling urban joy. It reminded us very much of being in Tokyo, except this time- with burning mouths and wonderful companies.

All and all, our favourite part of the entire trip, by far, was to see our good friends, Song and Joe again. We miss you guys already!

-Goodfishies

We took a camping/onsening/feasting roadtrip through eastern Hokkaido- known to have absolutely nothing to offer but breathtakingly beautiful scenery.

We took along with us our friend Michael Tripp who also is a former Hokkaidoite. Our final destination was Shiretoko but we planned on stopping in at many other places along the way.

Furano

We left bright and early on Friday morning. Our first stop was Furano. Hokkaido people live for Furano in the summer. It’s something that you hear over and over for a few weeks each summer: “Have you gone to Furano yet? The flowers are blooming.” Furano is famous for its endless lavender fields and it’s lavender related products, such as Lavender ice-cream.

Akan

we went from Furano to Akanko (阿寒湖). It’s one of the many Ainu heritage sites with lots of Ainu influence. The Ainu are the indigenous people that were in Hokkaido before the Japanese invaded. We camped at the Lake Akan lakeside campground (阿寒湖畔キャンプ場. However, it really isn’t close to the lakeside… The actual lakeside is crowded with hotels and resorts.
We had a good night of Jingisukan (ジンギスカン) and dodging attacks from giant moths and foxes.

Our daily routine for the trip consisted of: camp->eat->onsen->photograph. After waking up and packing up our campsite, we headed into the town of Akanko to see some Ainu arts & crafts. Marimo is very popular here. It’s a green algae ball that grows in the lake. Inspired by marimo is the Marimo-kori which is a green doll with a huge green marimo boner. (no joke) We enjoyed the BEST onsen all 3 of us had ever had at Tsuruga.

Lake Kussharo & Lake Mashu

We made our way to Lake Kussharo (屈斜路湖 ) and Lake Mashu (摩周湖). It was a very foggy drive. By the time we got to Lake Mashu, we saw no lake. Lake Mashu is famous for being foggy. There’s an old myth that if a couple is able to see the lake on a sunny day, they will not get married. That explains how foggy and how rare it would be to see the actual lake. We saw nothing.

We did our camping for the second night at a random auto campground. Our initial plan to camp by the water did not work out as it was a weekend and the lakeside campground was packed.

We navigated around the lake on a bumpy old logging road and took us 2 hours to get out. It was an adventure with lots of deers jumping around.

We did our onsen dip in Kawayu (川湯) the next day. This whole area smells like Sulphur. The onsen was a very sulphury one. Our silver rings turned golden under the water. We also visited the Iozan mountain (硫黄山). The direct translation of the mountain is Sulphur mountain. There were yellow patches all over it with bubbling water and steam. We bought an egg that was cooked with the sulphur steam. It tasted like sulphury goodness.

Abashiri

Our next stop was Abashiri (網走). To this day, the name Abashiri to the Japanese is the equivalent of “Alkatraz” to North Americans. There’s a big prison in Abashiri and it sure didn’t look pleasant when we visited the Abashiri Prison Museum. Being right in the blast-zone for the siberian winds coming south from Russia, the winter in Abashiri Prison most be almost unimaginable.

We camped at a free campground at Lake Abashiri. (呼人浦キャンプ場) The breeze from the lake was a bit cold that night but it kept the campfire smoke consistent.

We went to another Tsuruga onsen - Hokutennnoka (北天の丘) the next day after our tour of the Abashiri prison. We also tried Milk beer here…. ewwww.

Shiretoko

We got around 4 hours of sunshine when we were in Shiretoko. The sun shone on the ocean and it was magnificent. We visited the famous Shiretoko 5 lakes but unfortunately we were only allowed to go on the observation tower to (barely) see one of the lakes because apparantly there were brown bears in the woods that day. Shiretoko is famous for massive brown bears. We saw one when we were driving from Shiretoko to Rausu. A little cub was just hanging out in the ditch eating leaves. We contemplated getting out of the car to take some photos… but we didn’t. (phew, dodged a bullet there…) We took a little windy mountain road from Utoro to Rausu, where we had the most amazing fresh seafood in a little shack by the ocean.

The second day we woke up to a beautiful view of the ocean, onsened on the cliff overlooking the ocean and drove home.

Really, it was a fantastic trip.

It was a gourmet trip. We ate and ate and ate.

During our 3 day stay in Hakodate we managed to visit all the places we wanted to. We also had a little romantic afternoon boat rowing around the Goryokakukoen moat.

We fully enjoyed Hakodate. Being Vancouverites, and living land-locked for the past 8 months, it was really great to be back at the ocean.

In case you hadn’t picked up on the dwindling frequency of our blog updates, we completely forgot to mention our recent trip down to Kyoto, Osaka & Tokyo AS WELL AS our recent Vietnam trip!!

Kevin’s parents, Barb & Harry came to visit us in Takikawa for a few days. We showed them around some of the major attractions of the area, and introduced them to our students, our guarantors and our friends. After Takikawa, we all headed down to Kyoto & Osaka for a few days, exploring the mid-section of Japan- the old culture and tradition of Kyoto and the lights and sounds of Osaka. We took the shinkansen to Tokyo and spent a day there before we all jumped on a plane to Ho Chih Minh City, Vietnam.

We spent a week in Vietnam, exploring Ho Chih Minh, Hue and Hoi an and battling the heat and the sun.
In total, we were travelling for 2 weeks: a week in Japan and a week in Vietnam. A much needed end-of-April break.

Photo time!

We bought a tent from Costco a while back for 6000 Yen (that is 56CDN as of Jun 23 2008). This trip was the first time for us to use the tent. We found a campground which allows open fire. (Our campground - 仲洞爺キャンプ場. Here’s a great website for looking for campgrounds in Hokkaido: camp navi hokkaido). In Japan, it’s not very common for people to camp and have open fire. It is usually not allowed in camp grounds. Moreover, it is also not common for people to camp just at the middle of no where. People usually camp in camp grounds. We had our doubts about it before this trip, but due to high security around the Toyako we decided that it is best to stay out of trouble by staying in a campground.

Our campground is really not what you think it is. It is still the middle of no where, but with running water and toilets. (In our case, it also had a onsen nearby - 来夢人の家) We set camp RIGHT by the lake. We had an open fire going right by the water and we fell asleep listening to the sound of the lake (and rain for the first night.) We were blessed with beautiful fireworks on the lake as part of Toyako’s attraction during summer. It was really quite romantic to be snuggling under big umbrellas, drinking beer, eating bbq steak and watching the fireworks by the lake.

The tent held up to the rain the first night. We had minor leakage but it was very fixable problem with a little help from garbage bags. Kevin went outside with a giant sun umbrella at the middle of the night with gold miner head flashlight to attach garbage bags to the corners of the tent. After that, we stayed dry and comfortable inside. Thankfully for the tent being a 3-person tent, we had plenty of space. Kevin, as a giant, had to sleep diagonally in the tent.

We woke up at 6′o clock in the morning and find ourselves facing a beautiful calm lake with white mists and swans swimming by. (there were so many swans, they even tried to come on shore to attack us and steal our food, in our imaginary scenario that’s what they’d do of course.)

We had delicious Jingisukan (ジンギスカン) and yakiniku (焼き肉) and cheesy japanese pinky sized cocktail weinies and of course, marshmallows. We toured the town of Toya during the day and visited the Sun Palace Hotel onsen and the brand new super-eco toyako visitor center that’s dedicated to greeness. There were fields of solar panels and wind generators around the beautiful new log house. G8 is definitely bringing Toya new life.

Our trip goes on to Hakodate after Toyako. More to come.

Kevin getting ready for the marathon.

This Sunday was the annual Healthy Marathon (ヘルシ　マラソン) in the nearby town of Biei. Biei is about 120km away from Takikawa, and is known for its annual marathon as well as its beautiful flower gardens spread over vast rolling hillsides. The Biei marathon attracts thousands of competitors and spectators every year during the June 8th weekend.

Kevin registered online for the 10k quarter-marathon back in early May along with our good friend, Matthew Caesar. Kevin spent a solid month doing a rigorous training routine of 3 day-a-week 6:00am runs down the Sorachi River to prepare for the event. (No, Cathy didn’t go running with.)

On the wednesday before the marathon, we both fell sick with sore throats, and major chest congestion. We ended the week by cancelling a few classes, in hopes that we could rest up and feel better for the weekend, but come marathon day, we were both still very under the weather.

We left Takikawa at 7:00am on Sunday, June 8th with 2 runners - Kevin & Matt and 3 cheerleaders - Cathy, Kaori & David. We headed towards Biei to make the 9:00am registration time. Kevin popped a decongestant, an advil, a tylenol and a general cold pill and started stretching for the race.

Cathy, Kaori and David relaxed in the grass and enjoyed yummy yaki-tori and beer (yes, at 10:00 in the morning) and cheered on Kevin and Matt as the firing gun sounded and the race started.

An hour and twenty minutes later (1hr18min for Matt) Kevin came bouncing down the finish line and had successfully completed his first marathon EVER!

Celebration was in order, so we all headed up the road to Fukiage Onsen to enjoy a traditional Japanese public bath, naked. Gender separated.

It was a huge success.

Here’s a video of Kevin finishing the marathon. A glorious (although painful) moment.

We spent the last Saturday in town being very big Barbies, but more in the sense of a Japanese dress-up doll instead of the blond and pink. We were invited to go for dinner with the Takikawa Soroptimist group, for a formal Kimono dress-up session, make-up, hair, and dinner. It was a fantastic invite that we jumped on immediately.

In case you are thinking “What is a Soroptimist? Is that like a Pianist?”

Soroptimist (”best for women”) is an international volunteer organization for business and professional women who work to improve the lives of women and girls, in local communities and throughout the world.

- Quote from Wikipedia

The event was hosted at the Hotel Suehiro. We went with our 2 gaijin friends who were also invited. (Matthew and Kaori) We got there at around 4 to prep for the dinner. 2 hours of Hair and make-up and then dinner + Japanese traditional tea ceremony at 6. Cathy had a beautiful and more traditional Japanese hairstyle that almost looked like a wedding hairdo. The hairstylist was going to give Kevin an old-school Japanese top knot but unfortunately (fortunately?) his hair was too short for that. After hair and make-up, the kimono dressing began.

Kimonos are really beautiful and elegant. There is a big reason why they are so elegant and why women act so proper in them. Many layers of clothes and hard shells are placed in different places of the body. Wait, not placed, strapped on tightly. The Japanese kimono is much like the western version of a corset, but there are towels and cotton pads all over the place for padding and strapping. After the dressing, it was impossible for Cathy to slouch or simply take a deep breath. It’s not easy being Japanese!

Kevin’s kimono was a Hakama. The one that was put on Kevin was surprisingly long enough. The skirt/pants are also strapped tightly with solid plates to hold it in place. It was tied lower on the hip to create the illusion of a bulging tummy. Cotton pads were also used for extra cushion on the tum.

We had a traditional tea ceremony on the stage where the lady served each of us Japanese Matcha. We were asked to sit in Seiza style. (Where the legs are tucked under the hip in a perfect folding position) It is very difficult for western muscles to sit in such a way. Briefly after sitting down, Kevin and Matthew both gave up and sat cross-legged instead.

We each had to give a little speech about where we are from. Luckily, 3 out of 4 are Canadians. Matt printed out a big map of Canada for us to point and talk. We introduced Vancouver and the culture of Canada. After, we gave out Canadian flag pins to all the women at dinner. It was a delicious dinner and a wonderful experience.

After the dinner, we couldn’t wait to get out of our beautiful outfits. We said our thank-yous and headed back to our apartment for a make-up removal session. Cathy also found pubes in her hair…. well, it was synthetic black puff balls to add volume to the big hair.

It was a really fun night. We were very lucky to have such an opportunity to be dressed in Kimonos and to learn Japanese culture in such formal but intimate setting. Normally people pay lots of money to get dressed up and have their pictures taken. We felt like guests of honor and truly welcomed to the community. Thanks for having us, Takikawa Soroptimist Association! (And thanks for taking us, Matthew)

Of all the things that you have heard about Hokkaido, they are probably all true, but really, Hokkaido is all about its winter. There might be delicious diary products and ice creams here, but nothing beats the powdery fluffy snow. To keep warm in this kind of weather, we have grown accustomed to long johns and toque hair. We have also learned to enjoy a nice warm Shōchū (焼酎) from time to time.

Things we do to try to keep warm and keep ourselves lively

- We drink and hang out. Did you know that Japanese bars sometime serve beers in Big, Medium, and small size?
The dark yebisu Japanese beer is almost a meal… (almost. I said.)

- We went on the local radio station FM G’Sky to be the foreigner guests. We later on went to Taichi’s house for a new year party. Did you know, Japanese people celebrate new year with families, so the new year party is usually sometime in January with friends. This is the “party” where people drink and eat and chitchat till the wee hour. If you prefer drunken chitchats, it’s also an option.

- Cathy enjoys kicking snow/ice behind the tires and around the bumpers on the car. A lot of ice builds up on the cars around here. Cathy kicks our car, sometimes also other people’s car.

- We run around in the snow with kids and play: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60KE9V-jzu8. We love these kids.

- The Costco at Sapporo finally opened on Jan 25, 2008. It was the first costco in Hokkaido. We paid a visit on Jan 26. There was a line-up for the cars to go into the parking lot all the way around the block. (which we avoided by parking in another grocery store’s parking lot) We bought blue cheese, costco muffins, san pellegrino, jelly beans, and chai tea. Between the 4 of us, Kevin - Cathy - Matthew - Kaori, we each spent around 7000Yen - equivalent to 70 dollars CDN. None of us planned to buy anything before we went in. Costco just sucked us in. Membership here is slightly cheaper than I remembered. It was 4500 Yen, with the great exchange rate on Canadian dollar right now, that’s 42 CDN dollars. it’s a ripoff if you are paying $49 in Canada!

- Sometimes we visit random small town businesses, such as, bowling alley on a Sunday night. The place was literally empty. We felt cool and lively while the Japanese teenagers gather around behind us, playing video games and taking sticker photos.

- Cathy got to go to the “How often do you get to meet a cardio surgeon who would take you to the hospital for a private tour?” She said. I am not sure about you, but we don’t all live in grey’s anatomy land.

There are much more things we would like to do around here during the winter, but it seems that time is flying and we will never have enough time to do them all. There hasn’t been any snowman-building yet this winter.

This weekend, we will escape the cold and fly to Taiwan for Chinese new year. Delicious food awaits. We will, however, unfortunately miss the tug-a-war competition in town and the Sapporo snow festival. But we are almost certain that the snow will be here waiting for us till we are back.

On a side note, it really isn’t that cold… - 5 is considerably warm and refreshing. The coldest day of this season to date was -24. It was not pleasant.

If you are reading this post from somewhere above 0 degree, that probably means, you are one of those people we miss dearly.

p.s. All pictures are from Cathy because Kevin has been slow on uploading

After waking up in a strange McDonalds in Ueno and finding it much busier than when we had decided to nap quietly in the corner, we headed to Asakusa to drop our bags off at the hotel. Cathy had found us a series of great hotels over the next 5 nights in all the best spots in the City. It was a decision, in part, due to the fact that most hotels were almost fully booked, and we could only find one availability here and there, but it also meant we got to see many different parts of the city and stay in a handful of funky 2-foot by 3-foot hotel rooms. Waking up and dropping off our bags at the next hotel before check-in was a common occurance across our stay in Tokyo.

Over the course of our 5 days in Tokyo, we stayed for one night in Asakusa, two nights in Nishi-Azabu, one night in Shinjuku and one night in Nihonbashi. We pushed & shoved through Harajuku and Shibuya, rode Japan’s biggest ferris wheel in Odaiba, ate and drank in Roppongi and strolled through Ueno & Yoyogi parks. All without a flake of snow!

By great coincidence ( & by relentless encouragement) many of our friends from around Takikawa ended up in Tokyo over new years as well. We each had our various places to go and friends to see, but on a few occaisions we all got together at an Izakaya for food, drinks and and some “Hey, we’re in Tokyo!”

On new years eve, after a big dinner gathering in Shinjuku, we found ourselves at Zojoji temple, at the foot of the Tokyo Tower. We were accompanied by our new photographer-friend Michael, who we had met for the first time earlier that day. We were introduced to Michael, a former Takikawa resident turned tokyoite, over flickr and the three of us had a great time in Tokyo walking around and taking pictures (even though he’s a Nikon guy…)

We were joined by thousands of people in the temple’s immense courtyard- and at the stroke of midnight, 3,000 “eco-friendly” balloons were launched into the air & the temple’s joya-no kane (new years bell) rang out as the Tokyo Tower lit up with its spectacular new blue colour for 2008. Attached to each balloon was a special new years wish, or prayer. It was a spectacular sight to behold, and in one single event justified our epic 48 hour, 16 transfer train ride down to Tokyo. Following that, we took the subway back to Shinjuku and drank in the new year until the wee hours of the morning.

The first of January, accompanied again by Michael, we visited Kanda Myojin, a modest shrine near Akihabara. Far from the tourists and foreigners, we got a very fascinating, real glimpse into the very old Shinto tradition of visiting the shrine on the first day of the new year, called Saitansai. We ate new years aman, and drank sweet sake, before heading into the heart of Akihabara, the electronics center of Tokyo to play with camera equipment like little kids on Christmas.

That night, we had a farewell Tokyo dinner with our foreigner-friends and woke up the next morning to catch our 9:00am Shinkansen back home. We laughed at our 2 day trip down to Tokyo, as we sped at 284km/h back towards Hokkaido. Within 11 hours, we were back at home to confirm that yes- our fish were still alive and yes… it’s still snowing in Takikawa, just as we remembered.

Tokyo was our first big trip within Japan, and a huge success by any account. It was nice to escape the snow for a week, though Tokyo wasn’t exactly t-shirt weather. We made good friends, took over 3,000 pictures beetween the two of us and ate some delicious monja. Our next trip will be to Taiwan, for Chinese New Year, and then to Kyoto for cherry blossoms in March.

In the mean time, we’ll enjoy the Hokkaido winter from our humble home in Takikawa.

More pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaako/sets/72157603624801739/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cathycracks/sets/72157603618267855/

-Goodfishies

Cathy and I had been tossing around the idea of where to go for Christmas / New Years for a few weeks. We had considered going down to the tropical southern part of Japan, Okinawa, or maybe driving around Hokkaido, soaking in the wintery goodness. We ended up deciding on something very much in the middle (both on the map and the thermometer), Tokyo! Seeing how we live in Japan, it’s almost necessary to visit Tokyo.

Looking into our travel options, we found a hidden jewel of the Japanese rail company: the Seishun Juhachi Kippu, or youth 18 ticket. (in Japanese, 青春18) The Seishun Juhachi Kippu allows for 5 days of unlimited rail travel in Japan with a slight (maybe major) catch - only local trains. Each day runs from 00:00 to 23:59, and costs ¥2,300 - or just under $20 CAN. As an added bonus, we can both share the same ticket by stamping twice per day.

We spent a few days simultaneously laptop’ing. Cathy was booking hotels in all the best spots in Tokyo (not an easy task as they were nearly all fully booked, and most Japanese online booking systems don’t offer an immediate response on whether or not you’ve managed to book the room.) Kevin was furiously plugging-in individual train schedules into an online trip calculator to find out how on earth we would snake our way down Japan using only local trains. (After all, Hokkaido is a separate island up north.) After a few days of grunting and complaining, we succeded on both fronts and decided on a change of pace for Christmas eve, put our computers away and went outside.

We stayed home for Christmas and had a nice relaxing morning eating breakfast, drinking coffee, listening to christmas carols and opening presents. We had video chats with both our families thanks to iChat / Skype and then we ventured outside to start preparing for our trip to Tokyo. We were to leave the following morning on the first train out of Takikawa, the 6:35 local train to Sapporo.

The next morning, we enjoyed a sobering -15°C walk to the train station at 5:50 in the morning, got our first 2 ticket stamps and boarded the 6:35 local train to Sapporo through Iwamizawa, all before the sun came up.Our (ridiculous) schedule looked like this:

------ Dec 26th
06:35- Takikawa -> Sappro
08:28- Sapporo -> Tomakomai
10:07- Tomakomai -> Higashi-muroran
13:45- Higashimuroran -> Oshamambe
16:16- Oshamambe -> Goryokaku
19:37- Goryokaku -> Kikonai
21:10- Kikonai -> Kanita
------ Dec 27th
05:16- Kanita -> Aomori
06:12- Aomori -> Hirosaki
07:00- Hirosaki -> Odate
08:09- Odate -> Akita
12:12- Akita -> Sakata
14:30- Sakata -> Shibata
18:06- Shibata -> Niigata
23:35- Niigata -> Omiya
------ Dec 28th
05:50- Omiya -> Ueno (Tokyo!)

47 hours, 16 trains and 2 very sore bums.

In reality we had a few hiccups (actually, one big one) on our connection from Goryokaku to Kikonai and blew our schedule. We made it to Kikonai that night and decided to find a hotel. (Our original plan was to hack it in the train station in Kanita, but our missed connection made us strung out and cold.) We somehow communicated to the station manager that we needed a hotel that night. He took it upon himself to call around and he found us a cheap hotel above a small soba shop and convinced the owner to drive to the station in his pyjamas and come pick us up!

The next day, we finally made it off of Hokkaido and with a bit of trickery managed to get ourselves back on schedule. The following night we slept on a train called the Moonlight Echigo that runs overnight from 11:35 to 04:28 that provided us a crappy, uncomfortable sleep.

We pulled in to tokyo on Friday morning on the 5:50 to Ueno station and found ourselves crammed inside a stuffy train in the middle of the busiest rush hour we’d ever seen.We looked at each other and said: “Hey- We’re in Tokyo… cool.”, found a McDonalds, curled up in the corner booth and napped.

to be continued…

We took a trip to Sapporo last weekend with our gaijin friend Matt (We’ve only known Matt for a few weeks, but he’s been around to help us with many things, as he is the only foreigner who A) works at city hall B) is fluent with both English and Japanese). The purpose of the trip was to go to the Apple store in Sapporo to make Steve Jobs happy by purchasing an Airport express (Which has apparently now been renamed the Airmac express, odd.) It’s interesting that every single wireless router we found here is significantly more expensive than we expected/could have found in Canada. Japanese-made items/electronics are definitely of high quality but I suppose that comes with a high price as well.

Sapporo is just a 50-minute express-train ride away from Takikawa. The train we take is called the “Super Kamui”, and is also the same train we took when we first came in from the Sapporo Chitose Airport (CTS). The train tickets came to around 3000+ Yen each for the weekend rate (around $28 CDN). We also bought RailMate cards. With the RailMate cards we will get discounted rates for our future train rides.

Strangely, Sapporo had no snow at all. In fact, it started raining shortly after we arrived! (Takikawa has been covered with a blanket of snow for over three weeks.) We walked around near Hokkaido University and bought some nice winter stuff. Winter is hitting us harsh and fast. Walking in knee-deep snow is awesome fun these days…

We went to the Odori area in Sapporo, which is the busiest part of Sapporo. It’s pretty much the central street, with a big radio tower and a giant park. The Sapporo White Illumination Festival was happening just as we were there over the weekend. Trees were covered with Christmas lights and people were drinking hot wine while listening to bad karaoke and staring at white santa. (as oppose to asian Santa, not that there’s anything wrong with an asian Santa…)

We fed our hunger for Apple products, took the Super Kamui back home to find our car buried under a foot and a half of snow.

Back at home, we cooked up a delicious shabu shabu dinner with the Sukiyaki grill we bought 2 weekends ago at the local second-hand shop called the Oki-Doki.

Sapporo is very fun, and just far enough away from Takikawa to be a “going to the big city” adventure. Soon will be the Sapporo Snow Festival, so we will be back before too long. For now, we will enjoy wireless internet, shovel the car daily, and eat good food in our humble apartment in Takikawa.

Cheers!

-Goodfishies

Sam & Raf left for Vancouver on November 25th:

Hey peeps!

How are things? Is everything OK, are you guys still confident about everything now that Sam and I are gone?

Just taking the initiative here and writing to let you know that our flight went OK, and that even though it was long we had a good time because the service was so good! Customs was a breeze, they simply asked us a few questions and let us through without checking our bags… I was glad of that because I’d bought so many things in Japan I was worried I’d have to pay tax.

I checked your Blog but unlike Kevin promised I did NOT see our good-bye video yet! Hope you don’t get lazy like me and stop updating it…

Well… wish you guys luck on your first week! Remember: breathing is good! It calms you down ;-)

Kev: if you forgot anything or need an extra hand planning a lesson email me and I’ll get back to you asap.

Thanks again so much for helping us at the station guys! I can’t believe how fast kevin chucked those bags inside the train -.-; oh, btw, we managed to check-in our bags in Chitose and NOT check them out in Narita! yeay!

Ok, thats enough!

bb!

Raf

We teach at the kindergarden (It’s called “youchien” in Japanese) every Friday. Here’s a video clip from our first day, the whole school gathered together in the gym for a special ceremony for Sam & Raf’s departure and our arrival.

Yes I know, they are adorable!!!

(There’s also a part one of the video where Izumi-san — the priest of the temple and the owner of the youchien — introduced the ceremony)

Later on, all the students formed a tunnel with their little hands together and we crawled through the crazy kid tunnel to complete the ceremony. (We have photos of this from the youchien and we’ll try to scan them at 7-11)

p.s. by the way, apparently kindergarden is supposed to be spelled kindergarten?! What?!

Takikawa is expecting a colder winter this year

Well- we made it!
After more than 6 months of planning, freaking, packing and stressing, we finally made it to Japan! (On top of that, we flew business class from Taiwan to Japan… in case you are wondering)

If we’ve kept you horribly out of the loop, we are living in a quaint little town of 45,000 people called Takikawa, on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. It’s 45 minutes away from Sapporo by driving. We are here to teach English to a group of students of all ages. It’s a private business / freelance job and it has been going on for 17 years. Every year, a new couple comes over and takes over the apartment, car, fish, and everything else.

Hokkaido is famous for many things including its dairy and Sapporo beer, but perhaps most notably its vicious winters. We had been here for only 5 days when the famous Hokkaido winter started in full force. It has snowed every day since Thursday and it’s now currently -7 deg C outside with no signs of breaking above 0 in the coming week. Sweet. Apparently in the winter it can snow taller than Cathy in one night. (though she is really quite small)

(A little white air-born bug called the snow bug showed up right before it started snowing, apparently it’s a very Hokkaido thing as well)

Our first week here has been a little nuts. Our predecessors, Samantha & Rafael have been super helpful in getting us settled in and making us feel at home, but with only 2 weeks of overlap between us, there’s a lot to get done and learn. We’ve transferred ownership of the car and purchased our car insurance, transferred bills & account names, applied for our “Alien Cards” (mandatory I.D. for long-term foreigners), purchased our Hanko (stamps of our name) - important documents are usually “signed” with a seal in east Asia - and we have started our lessons and met all our students.

Between the two of us, we have over 50 students, not including our City Hall classrooms or our Youchien kindergarten classes! We have been learning our student’s names, their abilities, their workbooks and much much more. We are getting to know the town we live in. It’s quite a small town. The people here are very nice and generous. When we were at the photo place having our Alien card photos taken, the old Japanese photographer gave us a giant bag of mandarins. (which were amazingly delicious by the way)

It has been snowing hard and it’s looking like that the snow is here to stay….

Attached video of us on our way into Takikawa after landing in Sapporo Chitose Airport.

Kenting is small, sunny surfing town on the southern-most point of the island. White sandy beaches, beautiful rolling waves, high wind and SUN. Its the end of October and its hotter than it’s ever been in Vancouver in July. We stayed in a small, funky, down-to-earth hostel called a-wu的民宿 above a little restaurant on the south bay (南灣) strip, overlooking the ocean and the beach. We stayed in Kenting for two nights, giving us just enough time to relax and wind down. (Both of us have been kind of under the weather with a sore throat and runny nose) Kenting is a town that is just so easy to fall in love with. Everything and everyone just seems a bit more chilled than everywhere else in Taiwan, or any other major city.

We visited the national aquarium & marine center in Kenting where we saw penguins, walked through the national park on the eeny-weeny southern-most tip of Taiwan - Eluanbi - 鵝鑾鼻 - it means the duck egg nose.

Monday - Kaoshiong - 高雄

We left Kenting Monday morning, and started our trek up the west coast. The west coast of Taiwan is significantly more populated than the mountainous, tropical eastern coast. Our travels were fast, thanks to a busy freeway that runs all the way back up to Taipei. We met with Cathy’s uncle in a small town outside of Kaoshiong called GangShan (岡山). He still lives in the same Japanese-style house in the retired-army village (眷村) where his mother grew up in. He treated us to dinner in a community center/entertainment hall (新生社) that was once used by the army for soldiers & their families while they were off duty. It was the same exact spot where Cathy’s parents got married years ago. Also the exact spot where both of Cathy’s grandparents, danced at night, during the war time years ago. It’s such a small town that everyone who still lives there knows Cathy’s whole family on both sides, all the way back to the grandparents. (Both of Cathy’s grandfathers were war heroes, pilots, to be specific.)

Today

We are at the Kaoshiong airport (with free wireless!), where we’ll be flying to the small island cluster of Peng-hu (澎湖) off the western coast of Taiwan (no, not pingu. It’s pronounced Pong-huu.) Peng-hu is made up of several small islands arranged in a semi-circle, and will mark the Western-most point of our around-island trip. (Technically, there is another tiny island further west call JingMen (金門), but since it’s closer to China than to Taiwan, it’s pretty much just a military base)

Peng-hu gets blasted by the Northern monsoon winds from October-March, and combined with the calm waters thanks to it’s semi-circular shape, Peng-hu has recently become one of the most world-renown windsurfing destinations.

While we won’t be windsurfing, we will be renting scooters and driving around the islands- eating and drinking along the way. We plan on coming back the next day and visiting with Cathy’s uncle again before heading back up the Taiwan west coast on our way back to Taipei. We have been feeling a little under the weather lately, and may very well be getting sick so we’re resting up, and trying to stay healthy.