[THE PAST!] Hokkaido 2005 Part 1 of 5
Waddaweekfromhell. I stayed up till 4 everyday writing essays and studying for tests. As soon as I came home from the final test on Friday, I fell asleep for 6 hours. It's officially Reading Break now though I have more essays and tests as soon as it ends. WAZZUPWITDAT?!! Why do three 100-level College courses feel like five 400-level University courses?!! ><
*CRACKS KNUCKLES*
Alright, for those who dislike time travel, turn back now for I am about to go back ONE YEAR to February 2005. See, last February, I went to Hokkaido to meet my predecessor and check out Yuki Matsuri. This trip was the main reason I bought a new camera, and sure enough, I ended up taking nearly a thousand pictures. ^^; BUT I've doing so much work and travelling since then that I never got around to posting anything.
SO now I learn Yuki Matsuri **2006** starts NEXT MONDAY, so I better post this stuff up before it loses all relevance. XD All I got is a bunch of brochures and what's left in my memory, so I'm going to be a little less detailed and nitpicky than usual, and hopefully I'll zip through this before this year's Matsuri and my Reading Break end on the 12th.
Monday, Feb 7
The closest route to Sapporo starts at Fukushima Airport. Small, but good service and no-wait check-in.
A good sign that you're flying in the right direction.
Once I arrived in Sapporo Airport, it was off to Kushiro on a four-hour train to meet my predecessor, Joe.
Hmm . . so that's about 30 minutes to Iwaki by train + 2 hours by bus to Fukushima Airport + 2 to Sapporo + 4 to Kushiro. o_O No wonder I don't remember much by the time I arrived there besides falling asleep soon afterwards.
My hotel = Joe's apartment. ^^
Tuesday, Feb 8
On Day 2, Joe was at his job at GEOS, so I spent most of the day exploring Kushiro on my own.
For one of the northernest towns in Japan, it wasn't as cold as expected (ie. -32 Manitoba style)
So basically, I just walked down Main Street . .
. . and saw . .
Joe's workplace . .
Kushiro's "weird-thing-in-front-of-every-station" . .
This Church . . that isn't a Church and acts as a Wedding Chapel only, according to Joe . .
Some Engrish . .
Naked statues all over Kushiro bridge o_O . .
. . and MOO. And of course, where there's cows, there's . .
And inside the EGG, there's a marketplace full of . .
. . and . .
With little left of mainstreet to see, I called up Kushiro's tourism office and was told to grab a bus to the famous Lake Harutori.
Unfortunately, tourism forget to tell me that since it was winter, the whole place was pretty much closed due to snow. >< Now if I had come a few months later . . .
. . I could see these birds . .
. . I could enter this museum . .
. . I could take a boat . .
. . and row across the lake. But since it's NOT a few months later, this particular visit was very . .
Can you spot the Engrish?
Tokyo Tower in Kushiro?
By the time I got back to central Kushiro, it was getting dark and the town lit up for some great night shots of . .
Kushiro Station and . .
. . Main Street.
Two snowmen based on a scene from Winter's Sonata. Aww . . ^^
These anti-smoking signs always crack me up. There's many different ones all across Japan, I wish they just made them into trading cards so I could stop taking pictures of them. XD
MOO at Night . .
The EGG is now empty
I've seen stranger things on walls before. Actually, no I haven't.
And after Joe got off work, we had dinner at a local Izakaya and took this . .
That ended up becoming the most popular picture with 3nensei girls back in Hirono.
STUDENT: "Look, it's Joe!! Joe is very cool!!"
ME: "How about Kevin?"
STUDENT: "Eeto . . ." -_-;
But indeed, Joe is a very cool guy, and it was great to finally meet the guy I kept asking about since arriving in Hirono. It was also a blast chatting about everything-Hirono to one-of-the-five gaijin who have lived there. Our conversations made the trip out there completely worth it, and I recommend all JETs meet up with their predecessor(s) sometime. :)
It's crazy how different we are though . . for one, the teachers I get along with, he didn't, and the teachers he got along with, I wasn't. Or is it "I didn't"? Er, getting too sleepy, let's bookmark the story here before my grammar dies more . .
*CRACKS KNUCKLES*
Alright, for those who dislike time travel, turn back now for I am about to go back ONE YEAR to February 2005. See, last February, I went to Hokkaido to meet my predecessor and check out Yuki Matsuri. This trip was the main reason I bought a new camera, and sure enough, I ended up taking nearly a thousand pictures. ^^; BUT I've doing so much work and travelling since then that I never got around to posting anything.
SO now I learn Yuki Matsuri **2006** starts NEXT MONDAY, so I better post this stuff up before it loses all relevance. XD All I got is a bunch of brochures and what's left in my memory, so I'm going to be a little less detailed and nitpicky than usual, and hopefully I'll zip through this before this year's Matsuri and my Reading Break end on the 12th.
Monday, Feb 7
The closest route to Sapporo starts at Fukushima Airport. Small, but good service and no-wait check-in.
A good sign that you're flying in the right direction.
Once I arrived in Sapporo Airport, it was off to Kushiro on a four-hour train to meet my predecessor, Joe.
Hmm . . so that's about 30 minutes to Iwaki by train + 2 hours by bus to Fukushima Airport + 2 to Sapporo + 4 to Kushiro. o_O No wonder I don't remember much by the time I arrived there besides falling asleep soon afterwards.
My hotel = Joe's apartment. ^^
Tuesday, Feb 8
On Day 2, Joe was at his job at GEOS, so I spent most of the day exploring Kushiro on my own.
For one of the northernest towns in Japan, it wasn't as cold as expected (ie. -32 Manitoba style)
So basically, I just walked down Main Street . .
. . and saw . .
Joe's workplace . .
Kushiro's "weird-thing-in-front-of-every-station" . .
This Church . . that isn't a Church and acts as a Wedding Chapel only, according to Joe . .
Some Engrish . .
Naked statues all over Kushiro bridge o_O . .
. . and MOO. And of course, where there's cows, there's . .
And inside the EGG, there's a marketplace full of . .
. . and . .
With little left of mainstreet to see, I called up Kushiro's tourism office and was told to grab a bus to the famous Lake Harutori.
Unfortunately, tourism forget to tell me that since it was winter, the whole place was pretty much closed due to snow. >< Now if I had come a few months later . . .
. . I could see these birds . .
. . I could enter this museum . .
. . I could take a boat . .
. . and row across the lake. But since it's NOT a few months later, this particular visit was very . .
Can you spot the Engrish?
Tokyo Tower in Kushiro?
By the time I got back to central Kushiro, it was getting dark and the town lit up for some great night shots of . .
Kushiro Station and . .
. . Main Street.
Two snowmen based on a scene from Winter's Sonata. Aww . . ^^
These anti-smoking signs always crack me up. There's many different ones all across Japan, I wish they just made them into trading cards so I could stop taking pictures of them. XD
MOO at Night . .
The EGG is now empty
I've seen stranger things on walls before. Actually, no I haven't.
And after Joe got off work, we had dinner at a local Izakaya and took this . .
That ended up becoming the most popular picture with 3nensei girls back in Hirono.
STUDENT: "Look, it's Joe!! Joe is very cool!!"
ME: "How about Kevin?"
STUDENT: "Eeto . . ." -_-;
But indeed, Joe is a very cool guy, and it was great to finally meet the guy I kept asking about since arriving in Hirono. It was also a blast chatting about everything-Hirono to one-of-the-five gaijin who have lived there. Our conversations made the trip out there completely worth it, and I recommend all JETs meet up with their predecessor(s) sometime. :)
It's crazy how different we are though . . for one, the teachers I get along with, he didn't, and the teachers he got along with, I wasn't. Or is it "I didn't"? Er, getting too sleepy, let's bookmark the story here before my grammar dies more . .