Hokkaido

I'm sitting on the plane waiting for takeoff. Crossing an entire country in two hours. Can you imagine that? Two hours and I can be virtually anywhere in Japan. In America, two hours of flying may take me to the next state.

We're taking off now and I'm talking to my friend, Zsofia. She's a nice person, though a little more pessimistic than I'm used to. We land and head to Sapporo. Do you know Sapporo Beer? Yeah, that Sapporo. It's a beautiful place where a grand snow festival is held every year for people to build castles out of snow and exquisite ice dancers to spring to life. Hokkaido. Sapporo. We enter our hotel and I am once again made aware of how lucky I am to be doing this exchange with Rotary. If there is anyone out there considering exchange, do it and do it with Rotary. We're at a huge huge, beautiful hotel.

We deposit our stuff and head out to see the source of the famous Hokkaido chocolate. A whismical and fun chocolate factory beckons my friend and I. Like children, we dance in (well actually, I dance in and Zsofia puts a respectable distance between us - can't imagine why...) and gape at the chocolate streaming from one contraption to another until it takes the shape of snowmen and strawberries. A women is making tiny, detailed dolls out of a sugary mixture. The result is women with dresses that I swear are real until I touch them and they melt beneath my fingers. Woops, that's 500 yen. For a brief second, I wish my siblings could be there with me. They understand magic when they see it. The tour ends (inevitably) with rich chocolate cake and hot chocolate that warms all the way through my body. It's a perfect winter day. I've forgotten such days in Kyoto.

It's late now and we are walking back to the hotel. Tsuyamasan, the man that's taking us, apologizes that we can't do more today, but I'm shocked that in a single day, we flew all the way across the country, rested at a hotel, toured a chocolate factory, and had dinner (more like dessert).

It's tomorrow and we have a full day ahead of us. Hotel breakfast, which of course is a clash of miso soup, rice, fish, toast, and cereal. And to the bus station we head. Our chaperone has business to attend to (he's the owner of a company that produces equipment for health clubs or something like that - how random is that??), so he sends us off apologetically on a bus tour through Hokkaido. Only he makes a mistake and we end up on the Japanese only tour. I am secretly thankful. Life is more fun in Japanese. More surprises that way. The lady stops us as we are boarding the bus and lets us know we are on the wrong bus and the English tour has already left. I smile and say in my boldest (and thus most vulgar) Japanese, "No problem! We'll work hard! Let's go and understand Japanese!" and board the bus. The bus driver laughs. Zsofia shrugs apologetically and follows me to our seats. Everyone on the bus loves us. Zsofia is intimidated by the attention, but I love it. It's so much fun! Everyone wants to know where we're going and why we're here and can we really understand the tour guide? Zsofia falls silent and I guiltily (and happily) take the conversation. What fun! People in Hokkaido are more open than Kyotarians. Hehe, I said Rotarians, but with Kyoto instead of Rotary. Haha, I'm funny. (gosh I'm losing it.) We pass by famous parks with statues of dead people, clocks centuries old, mountains covered in more snow than I've ever seen in my life, and line of shops filled with fresh crabs and other assorted seafood. Zsofia thinks it's horrible how everyone is gaping and wanting to eat the fish. I would also think it's horrible if they didn't look so darn delicious. Man have I changed. The people at the stores also love us. I want to see all the fish and I ask about whatever I can. They love me and I love them. One woman stops me and pulls out a fish for me to hold and take a picture with. I'd post it, but the picture was taken with Zsofia's camera. She says it's disgusting and refuses to hold it. Now, instead of them stopping me to strike conversations, I stop them to strike the conversations.

For lunch, we have yakiniku, maybe. It's my first time doing it without a Japanese person there to cook the meat. So I wing it. It's not so hard and I've certainly eaten enough of it to know how to do it. Grease is flying everywhere and Zsofia and I are both wary of the pan of meat glaring victoriously at us. Nevertheless, we approach and toss more meat onto the cooker-thingy. The food tastes of success.

We ride a sleigh back to the bus, which is at the bottom of the mountain. The tour continues and we see wierd places that don't seem so interesting at first glance. Between Zsofia and my own Nihongo, we decipher enough to find the trip exciting. But despite ourselves, we both doze a little in the second half.

We finish the tour absoutely exhausted. Our chaperone (Tsuyamasan) told us earlier we can spend the rest of the day however we want, so we go shopping at a big and rather famous department store (Daimaru), but Zsofia doesn't seem interested. We abandon attempts and head up the stairs to a movie theater. After purchasing really crazy expensive tickets (about $14 each just for the movie), we call Tsuyamasan and he tells us that we should meet for dinner for a few minutes, so I dash back up to the seventh floor and plead my case for a refund, which is finally granted to me. I don't know how to say "Can you refund my ticket?" so I said "I'll give you this ticket and you give me money. Is that okay?" She laughed. I gleefully head back down and we meet Tsuyamasan and his coworkers for a dinner of crab, freshly caught from the glorious oceans lining Hokkaido. Excellent. I think crab is my favorite food.

Tomorrow comes and we head out for the famous Asashiyama Zoo. We watch penguins and polar bears brave the snow. Maybe it'd be more accurate to say they watch US brave the snow. It's pretty cold. Zsofia is mortified with their terribly small living quarters and se we leave with her in tears. I have to admit that for being a world famous zoo that attracts more tourists than Tokyo Disney Land, it was pretty depressing. I forgot before I came that this is still Japan and everything is still on a smaller scale. Some of the animals just looked sick to me.

We eat lunch and head to the movie we didn't get around to seeing yesterday. We watch a manga called どろろ or "Dororo". It is maybe the most imaginative movie I've ever seen and completely what you would expect from a Japanese manga movie.

The next morning, we head to the airport and start our 2 hour commute across the country.