Hokkaido: Sapporo Weekend

On Friday evening, we returned back to Sapporo, enjoyed a lovely meal and some games with our friends. Saturday morning we went to the Apple store to discuss our computer situation, and we decided to send it out to Tokyo to get it fixed - when we tried to pay, the computer had an error and the attendant said this time it would be FREE, but next time must pay... ??? Wow! We were very happy at the prospect of saving $450! But unfortunately, we'd later learn that it cannot be fixed. :-(

For lunch, we walked over to the Sapporo Autumn Festival where they had dozens and dozens food stalls from restaurants all over the area selling their specialties - gourmet food, giant crab legs, international foods (we particularly liked the Indian restaurant Bombay Blue's stand), ramen, etc etc etc. Yum! We could have eaten there every day! We met some new friends there, a couple from Hagi who also recently moved to Sapporo, and Asami's new friend, Mika. There were also a few mimes walking around that were quite amusing. They were advertising for a local talent-type show.



That evening, we went up the Mt. Moiwa ropeway with Carla to see Sapporo at night. It was a beautiful sight! And very cold!! At the gift shop, we saw some interesting items... this keychain being one of them.



Afterwards, we went to ramen with Asami in Susukino (the largest entertainment district north of Tokyo) - the shop was tiny and bursting with customers, the line wrapped around the building - it must be good! And it was! Although, my stomach didn't entirely agree the next day... We all ordered the butter and corn ramen.



Carla left the next morning, so we went with Asami through Nakajima park where they were having an open market, probably the last of the season. I wish we could have stayed longer! Afterwards, we went to her new church, then had lunch with she and Philip at the Catholic church's international food/culture festival. We heard more English than Japanese there. It was strange! We then made a brief stop at Toys-R-Us before going to the Shiroi kobito chocolate factory.


The factory was AWESOME! Shiroi kobito a sponsor for a Japanese soccer team, thus the field. They had several exhibits: hot cocoa cups, chocolate history, old Japanese toys, and the factory itself. The technology they had was pretty cool too. It was quite interesting! They also had a beautiful rose garden and detailed toy houses, which Jeremy was quite fond of.











And finally, we spent the next day traveling - ALL DAY LONG. Whew! What an exhausting day! Even though everything went according to plan, I think our next vacation will be much simpler... perhaps a resort where we someone else can plan everything!

We're baaack!

We had a good trip, praise God there were no disasters and everything went according to schedule as planned... and BOY did we have a lot of schedules! We were very glad to get home last night and settle back down into our quiet routine. The mosquitos and humidity were anxious to welcome us home as well. Pictures to come soon!

Oh! And our computer is currently being fixed - possibly for FREE! Another huge praise! The guy said it was a bad logic board and dc-in board, which would be expensive. We should get it back sometime in the next two weeks. Please pray that the hard drive won't be erased with all the transition. Thanks!!

*edit* We got the computer back! BUT... it apparently can't be fixed. Sigh. They said there's some liquid or something in it. The only time I can think of any liquid being near it was a few months ago when we spilled a glass of water on the table, but it didn't appear to get much of anything on the computer, just a few drops on the outside (it wasn't open at the time). UGH. So I guess we're in the market for a new computer... anyone know of any good deals??

Also, I just noticed this post was published on mom's birthday!! So a happy birthday belated blog notice to you! :-D And happy birthday to dad too today! Have a great one!

Trip

So as of 2:35 this afternoon we are officially on vacation! We still have sooo much to do, of course! This afternoon, we'll purchase our train tickets and some granola for on-the-go breakfasts, get our hair cut, do a load of laundry, pack, and find time to sleep, then we're off!

We plan to visit our friends in Sapporo, and do a train tour through Furano, Biei, Asahikawa, and Sounkyo. We'll be back the 28th, pictures will likely come later that week. Say a prayer for us if you think of it.



Hokkaido here we come!

Date day

I figured our fun date on Monday would qualify for some bragging and a new blog post. :-) We don't get out very often. We usually stay in our quiet home in quiet, little Hagi. However, Jeremy decided to try and out-do Brendan's recent gifts to his lovely wife, Tiffany. He went shopping for and made a picnic lunch: "anti-pasta" salad (from Josiah's restaurant), potato salad, some giant juicy grapes, and of course chips. It was a delicious surprise! We decided to go to Senjoujiki (Jesse, remember climbing the rubber rope pyramid?). The weather was cloudy, but the temperature was perfect for an afternoon picnic. Everything was perfect until we discovered the lettuce used in the salad was covered in bugs - NOT very appeitizing! Luckily, we had already eaten our fill of it... After we finished gagging, we played some board games - what's a picnic with board games?! - and played some frisbee. I started out as my usual horrible-frisbee-playing self, but ended up tossing the disc around pretty good after a few minutes giving Jeremy some intense exercise. We also took a walk - but half way down realized the path had been taken over by some bugs. There was a huge, beautiful spider web spanning the entire width of the path, with a not so beautiful spider directly in the middle. We watched him catch and eat a quick snack. On the way home we passed by a pond with dozens of cranes sitting up in the trees. It was too gorgeous not to take a picture!

Our picnic spot:


The village of Heki. It's rice harvesting time - you can see the yellow fields and the smoke from the burning waste.

It's us!

Bugs. We didn't go any further...


Jeremy playing frisbee. Look at that form!

I wasn't so sure about this play equipment! The logs, though chained, rocked back and forth as you tried to walk across them.

Some of the terraced rice fields ready for harvest:

Aren't they gorgeous?

While we were watching the cranes we noticed the ground looked a little funny... it was moving! Hundreds of caterpillars everywhere! Here are some of them:

After our picnic, we drove back into Nagato where we stopped at a local grocery store to pick up some half-price bentos (Japanese meal boxes). We had a yearning for some fried shrimp maki rolls. Unfortunately, we were an hour too early for the discount, so we hung around a music store until the appointed sticker-giving time. We arrived back at the bento area just in time (the poor clerk had a crowd of at least a dozen cheapskates hovering around him). As we were eying our shrimp rolls, we noticed an old man was eying them as well... as the clerk approached the rolls with his half-price stickers in hand, the man dove in to grab one, then two... I wasn't about to let him take all four packages - we had been waiting for them for almost an hour! Jeremy quickly grabbed one, then hesitated, and after pushing him some more he finally took the last one just as the old man was reaching out for it. Success!! Why did he want three of them anyway? So we each had fried shrimp maki rolls for dinner that night, and they were sooo good! Haha!

And on a completely random note... WE ATE BEEF!!! It had been ages since we had beef, but we noticed a bunch of packages marked half-off at our favorite local discount grocery store (you can tell how cheap we are), so we bought three packs. We had beef three days in a row! It was divine. :-)

Help

If anyone is planning to send us a package any time soon... would you mind sending some Beano along with it? It's bad, I don't know what else to do...

Thanks!!

Yamaguchi Ken info

I stumbled upon a JET (Japan English Teaching) website with lots of info on cities and facts about Yamaguchi-ken, where we live. Just thought I'd pass it on to all those who are curious! I love the inside info on the towns!

About Yamaguchi prefecture:
http://ajet.net/yamaguchi/Ykeninfo.html

Cities in Yamaguchi (Hagi included):
http://ajet.net/yamaguchi/cities.html

*Update* AND a cool map in English! http://www.jnto.go.jp/map/eng_map/

Tooth update #1

Well, apparently my mouth didn't want to wait until tomorrow's appointment... we had to make an emergency visit yesterday for a terribly painful wisdom tooth that decided to make its first appearance. If ONE tooth can cause this much pain pushing through, I can't imagine what those poor babies feel when they're getting a whole mouthful at once! The dentist did some kind of laser treatment to help cut away the flesh around the tooth to make it come up easier and did a follow up treatment today. Unfortunately, the pain relievers they gave me aren't helping a bit... but at least it's eased my mind that I'm finally getting help - even if it's not what I originally made the appointment for, lol.