I am ALIVE!

Okay folks, admittedly this was a very very long time without a post. Life happens, things got busy in Japan with studying, homework, clubs and what not. However, now I am back in the US. Still busy, but back.

Classes have been going for about one month now. I am back to taking Japanese classes, trying not to forget all I learned over there. As it so happens, we are also required to keep a blog for this Japanese class in (wait for it...) Japanese. Duh.

For anyone who's interesting in reading my horrible Japanese grammar and watching me fumble with verbs, nouns, and anything related to the grammar, you are welcome to stop by and take a look at www.jimadormexjpn.blogspot.com. Any and all constructive criticism will be greatly appreciated. Also, it is currently under construction and no post have been put up yet.

So, now that I have two blogs, the challenge is to try and update both on a regular basis. Odds are that anything I have here will be the same as on the other blog, and visa versa. I think the trend of me being lazy has been firmly established, so why should I disappoint, right?

Till next time folks! (Hopefully not next month)

Old Habbits and all that.

HA! I'm getting good at this. Almost another whole month without a post from me. Technically though, that last post of mine was posted in the beginning of March, but since I started it in February it saved the February date.

But enough excuses. I promised photos from Hokkaido's Sapporo Snow festival and I aim to deliver.

Now, the first thing you see when you enter the snow festival is perhaps the most vital thing for most people... A smoking area. Although the entire event is outside, people that smoke are separated from the rest of the crowd. Throughout the whole park area, there are little huts designated as smoking areas. People go inside, close the door, and smoke. If you've ever seen the cartoons were there is a room of smokers and its just a cloud of smoke with feet at the bottom, that is pretty much what you see when you walk by one of these huts... A cloud of smoke with feet.

Now for the snow and ice sculptures. For sake of space, I will only comment on the pictures I think need commenting.

Okay, the next pictures deserve commenting mainly because I thought they were really cool. Except the last one... The eyes are better not seen.

You have to admit, he made great music.

Now for my next trick! I give you... The elusive snow pigeons!

Call me crazy, but I just didn't expect to see pigeons here... I don't know why.



Okay, when I saw this snow sculpture, I just had to take pictures. Unfortunately, the one with me in from didn't turn out too well... Being a fan of this, it made me sad.


There was also a snow sculpture contest. I kept visiting them throughout the whole week to see the progress. I never thought that this...


Would turn out like this...


Honestly, looking at the first picture, could you guess what it was?

Another thing that took me by surprise was this little stand right here.

Awesome, huh? They had a crowd too, so I waited in line to try it. Unfortunately...

This was the most vile imitation of a taco that I have ever put in my mouth.
I'm not trying to be rude or anything. Its just that...
Taco Bell was better than this. And those who know me,
know just how much I dislike Taco Bell.

Still, the best part of studying abroad, is trying the different kinds of food at least once. And everything else at the festival was delicious. Especially the Crab Ramen. Man, I wish I could have a bowl of it right now.

Onwards with more pictures!



Now these guys were determined. At night it began to snow and they still kept at it!

Well, I think that will be enough for one post today. Seeing as I have nothing to do till classes start again, I will try to get the next post up sometime before next year... Haha.

Anyways, Until next time folks! Keep on reading!

Hokkaido cont.

Hello again folks! The weather here in Osaka has been somewhat depressing lately. It has been cloudy for the past 5 days with rain every now and then. If you are like me, this kind of weather just makes you yawn and not want to do anything. This, combined with a somewhat messed up sleep schedule, has led me to miss a few posts... Yes, that's my excuse, I'm blaming the weather.

Back to the story at hand!

If I recall correctly, I left off my last post saying that I had reached my hotel. The hotel was really nice and relatively inexpensive given the time of year. However, like many things here in Japan, the room was rather small. It was functional, had a lot of amenities (even free toothbrushes!), but still really small. The only other down side to the hotel was that breakfast was not included, it was an additional $11 per day. Being the cheapskate that I am, I figured I could figure something out when the time came to it.

After inspecting the room and looking around to see what I had in the room that could fit in a suit case (everyone does this and you know it!), I realized that I still had about 40 minutes or so before the opening ceremony for the snow festival. Having just ventured in from the cold, tired and beaten from a 2 hour flight and having wondered through the streets, I decided to take a quick power nap of 30 minutes...

I woke up the next day around 6am.

Needless to say that taking a 30 minute nap was a bad idea on my part, but at least I was refreshed and ready to wonder on down to Odori Park. Now, I intended to make the first day a full excursion of Odori Park and the surrounding area, so I figured I should jump in the shower and add a few stamina points for the day. If you don't get the joke/reference, then you haven't played many RPGs.

Now, like I said before, the room was rather small. The bathroom however, was even smaller. The Japanese are masters at using space and making such a small space functional. The only down side to this though is that the space is designed for someone of Japanese height. If you are 6 feet tall or taller, and you go to a Japanese hotel, do NOT stand up straight in the shower... You will take out the ceiling fan. Or at least hit your head really hard on it like I did. Also, don't sit in the "tub" of the shower, you might not be able to squeeze out of it.

Anyways, after taking a shower and putting on enough clothing to endure an Ice Age, I proceeded to head on down to Odori Park. I have to say, the sight of a snow covered city in the morning is rather pleasing.

Along the way to Odori park, I found a very nice coffee shop. They offered relatively cheap breakfast items so I decided to sit down with a nice hot cup of coffee (+5 Stamina) and a nice piece of toast with butter and jelly (+6 Stamina). I ended up having breakfast there everyday while I was in Hokkaido.

Like I mentioned in the previous post, Odori Park is twelve blocks long. And I mean city blocks, not those small little town blocks. The first thing you see when you reach the first block of Odori Park is the Clock Tower. Unfortunately, I didn't take a good day picture of it, so you all get a night picture instead.

Okay, seeing as I plan to put a lot of pictures of snow and ice sculptures. I think I will stop here for now and continue this next time... Once I figure out the order of the pictures I want to show.

So until next time folks! Keep on reading!

Hokkaido

Hello again folks! I have managed to upload all 200+ photos that I took in Hokkaido onto my computer. However, I will not be posting all of them... duh.

Now, the Sapporo Snow Festival takes place every year from February 5th to February 11th. They start building some of the bigger snow sculptures in January however, and it is easy to see why. Everything you see there is made out of snow and ice and done very well I might add. Since this is a busy time of year, if you are planning to attend, I suggest you make your reservations well in advance. Looking for a deal that includes flight and hotel might be your best option. Be warned however, the hotel rooms in Japan are very small so don't bring a lot of luggage or unnecessary things.

Flying to Sapporo was easy as cake. It only took two hours to get there and the flight was relatively smooth. Or so I assume, I was asleep for most of it. I have to say though, I think I am getting better at flying.

My airplane arrived at the New Chitose Airport at around 3pm and contrary to first impressions it is rather large. You can find plenty of restaurants, with incredibly high prices, and many souvenir stores and markets that sell huge crab.

As I found out after wondering around the airport, and later through the city, crab is a specialty of Hokkaido. You can find Crab ramen, crockets, soups, and the such almost anywhere. I recommend that you try it at least once before you head back home. Of course, if you plan on buying crab at the airport, you might want to do it on your way back. I'm not even sure if you can bring crab on an airplane. Would you have to check it in or can it be carry on? I mean, look at it! That's my carry on bag right in front of it, its clearly carry on size.

Anyways, after arriving at the airport I found a ticket counter for the bus. You can either take the bus or the JR train into town, both stations are located conveniently at the airport. I took the bus of course and immediately wished I had decided to take the train when I went outside to wait for the bus.

It was incredibly cold. I think the flight attendant said it was 1 Celsius right before we got off the plane. I was freezing. I had to go back in and put on some more clothing! Thankfully the bus was nice and warm and the ride into the city wasn't so bad. I sat right next to some very helpful ladies that told me how to get to my hotel from my bus stop.

I still managed to get lost on the way to the hotel but they were very helpful ladies non the less.

Now, having gotten a little disoriented in town, I quickly found myself walking through snow covered streets and sidewalks. It was snowing too which made the experience oddly entertaining. I don't know why it was entertaining but I can only assume that it was the immense cold and the sound of crunching snow under my feet.

Speaking of feet, before going to such a place, you might want to invest on some snow shoes or shoes that will help you not slip. In what it took me to find my way to my hotel, I slipped and fell four times. Thankfully, I was wearing so much clothing that my bum was well cushioned.

As I continued to wonder through the city trying to find my hotel, I managed to find Odori Park. That is where the Snow Festival is held. It is twelve blocks of nothing but snow sculptures, souvenir shops, food stands, and people having fun and taking pictures. However, since I was still carrying my luggage and was in all honesty tired, I decided to first find my hotel. Best thing about finding Odori Park was that I knew my hotel was only two blocks north from there.

I still had to ask though, mainly because as I said, Odori Park is twelve blocks long. I needed to figure out which block I was on. As luck would have it though, I was on the first block so my hotel was literally two blocks north and then a quick turn to the left.

That will be all for today folks, I will post more tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.

Until then folks, keep on reading!

Yup, a lot of whining...

Hello everyone! I have made it back with all my toes and fingers. Hokkaido was a lot of fun and I got to see a lot of things. However, true to my word there was a lot of whining about how cold it was.

Once I upload the pictures to my computer I will make a new post. That way everyone has something to look at and not just read my ramblings.

Until then folks, keep on reading!

Hmm... Oops

Holy cow! Has it been one whole month?

Okay, so obviously this is harder than I thought. Keeping a blog is nothing easy. You have to find the time and above all be in the mood to right something.

Oddly enough, I find myself in that mood right now... One month since the last mood. Heh.

Anyways, welcome back folks! We'll just say that this is the end of a long hiatus. Or so I would think. Now that I don't have classes, I should have time to do some more post worthy things. It's not that I haven't done anything worth while, its just that I have been busy.

Okay, enough excuses.

This upcoming week I will be taking a trip up to Sapporo in Hokkaido. I am going to go see the Snow Festival, or Yukimatsuri. Here's a link http://www.snowfes.com/english/place/index.html in case you have never heard of it. It should prove to be rather interesting.

Now, something that has come to mind about this trip... This is perhaps the coldest place I will ever visit in my life. I have always lived in warm regions, regions where winter temperatures do not go below 50 degrees. However, this place looks like it could be well within the range of 0 to 30 degrees. This leads me to believe that one of two things might happen... One, I might actually freeze to death, or whine a lot... More likely I will whine a lot. And two, I will whine a lot but at the same time enjoy myself so much that I will make another trip to the area. Either way, there is bound to be a lot of whining about the weather.

When I come back from this trip, I will probably post a lot of pictures. Or at least I would hope so. I do plan on taking a lot of pictures though.

Now, with all this said and done, I think this is a good way of ending the first post after such a long "hiatus." So, I will leave you now with another "What the... Huh?" picture!

This picture is not so much of a "Huh" moment, but of a "haha" moment... If that makes sense. Anyways, can you spot the error? I wouldn't call so much of an error but more of a difference in pronunciation.

Until next time folks, keep on reading!

Merry delayed Christmas and Happy holidays!

Hello folks!

It has been a while huh? As always, things around here seem to get busy when you least expect them to. And, from the looks of it, it seems that's going to be a recurring thing. Not making excuses, just a heads up.

Anyway, I still have some things to take care of and I'm trying to come up with a good post about Christmas here in Japan. So until I can get my ideas organized, I figured I'd entertain you with another... "WHAT THE..HUH?" image.

Today's "What the... Huh?" image was found right next to the platform at one of the train stations during one of my trips. All I can say is that, yes, they got it... Cats on the rock.

Until next time folks! Keep on reading.