Sapporo Snow Festival

At the beginning of February, we had another long weekend. And what better way to spend it than to escape the massive snow and freezing cold...and go to MORE SNOW AND COLD?! Yes it doesn't seem to make sense, if it wasn't for the world famous annual Sapporo Snow Festival that was happening at the time.

Sapporo is in the northern most part of Japan, Hokkaido - an island on its own. It is the largest city above Tokyo and it was a really nice city at that. I would love to go back again, in summer when it is warmer!

The snow festival was amazing! I really enjoyed it. A large group of about 20-25 Yamagata JETs went on a big trip. The majority took an extra day off and went up a day earlier to Snowboard and Ski. Me and three others went a day later. We took a plane from Sendai (to the east of Yamagata). I drove over to the airport and we were really shocked to see the difference in weather. Over on the other side of Japan it was about 6/7 degrees Celsius with hardly any snow, whilst in Yamagata temperatures were in the minuses and we were almost drowning in the snow! We were not best pleased at that point in time with where the JET programme had placed us!

The weather up in Sapporo was really nice. A bright clear blue sky all the time. It was rather cold, but not a great deal different to Yamagata I thought. The nice thing about our stay in Sapporo was that our group of four who came a day late, had to stay in a slightly more expensive hotel (only ¥2000 per night difference) but the hotel was really nice! People waiting on us to carry bags, really nice bars in the hotel and very comfortable rooms with English CNN on the TV! (Apart from the Internet and DVDs - I haven't seen proper English speaking TV since I got here!)

Considering I'd felt like I'd had a bit of a rubbish week beforehand, this short break was just what I needed!

At the Sapporo Snow Festival, which has been going annually for 59 years, they create giant snow and ice sculptures. The Japan Army is called in to help shift tons of snow and pack it together for sculptists to start creating amazing snow models! They are really unbelievable!

For once, Sapporo is a nicely planned, nicely arranged city (quite new I guess) - so it has a massive boulevard in the middle of the city and on each section a massive sculpture is erected, with smaller sculptures on show on either sides of the streets. They also have things like food fairs to try the local dishes (tasty Ramen and crab are very well known up in Sapporo).

The Sapporo Railway Station, made completely of ice!

The Egypt display was one of the most spectacular, just look at how high the sculpture is in relation to the people at the bottom, and the relative height of the buildings too!

I enjoy some very nice warming Sapporo Ramen.

A Japanese Castle

On the first night we went to the Sapporo Beer Garden, and had a nice party with all the other JETs who had come up. Then we all went to a little club where there were loads of other JETs from all over the country - I even bumped into quite a few UK JETs I either met on the plane to Japan or as far as the London orientation!

The Sapporo Brewary, and an illuminated Snow Igloo - Just to the right of the photo there are some steps made of snow, leading up to a snow slide! Snow galore!

The next day, we went to Susukino - apparently the shadiest part of Sapporo with quite a reputation for being one of the seediest places in a city outside of Tokyo! It wasn't dangerous though and they have a very impressive ice sculpture display in that part of the city. We did a bit of karaoke and went to some cool bars and had some 'Atsukan' - or 'Hot Saké' - the best thing to have in a place as cold as Hokkaido in winter!

Mmmm! A Bailey's bottle made completely of ice in Susukino. The building (again made of ice) was seeling hot Baileys! Not that I'm a big fan of Baileys but it was quite a nice treat in the cold! There was another ice building a bit further down the road selling champagne, but it closed early.

Enjoying some warm saké!

Me and Japanese!

I've been wanted to write for a while now, about my progress with the language. Maybe I've been putting it off because to be honest - it hasn't become significantly amazing. But I will hand you a few excuse as to why this might be difficult even when you're immersed in the rural parts of a foreign country.

I definately understand Japanese better than when I came over - somedays I have good days, and some days I have bad days. Japanese is a very different language to English - which means the kids have a lot of difficulty learning it, and I have a lot of difficulty learning Japanese.

I will enlighten you about some of the differences between Japanese and English.

1.) - Japanese has no plurals or articles like 'a/an/the'. You don't know whether one thing is being spoken about or many things.

2.) - Japanese doesn't really use pronouns. The pronoun for 'I' (Watashi) is generally OK - but they don't seem to need to use it - you can just work it out from the context (easier said than done!). They never really use 'you' (anata). Only in special circumstances, for emphasis or other such situations - otherwise it is a bit rude and direct. Even though they tend not to use 'I' and 'You' - they have several different words for each. 'Watakushi' - is the very polite I, 'Watashi' - is the polite and common I, 'Boku' is not as polite and generally used by males, then their are others which are not as polite and others that are only used by women.

'You' also has many words, 'anata' being the most polite (even though its still considered rude) and the rest being more impolite and disrespectful than the last!


3). - Japanese sentence structure is very different - Typical English sentences follow Subject Verb Object, but Japanese goes Subject, Object, Verb. No matter what goes after the subject, the verb is always last, which can be a little bit tricky to work out, but you do start to get used to it! The verb position is not quite as bad as....

4). - Japanese particles. In English we have things like 'at, to, the, in, from' and so on. Japanese has a slightly similiar system, but unfortunately it is annoyingly different. In Japanese - 'Joshi' 助詞 literally means 'helping words' - and they are a system of post-positional particles. These are things like 'で, に, は, を, か, が, と' (de, ni, wa, o, ka, ga, to). They help to tell you more information about what is being said. Using the wrong particle can significantly change a sentence, subtly change a sentence, or just make a sentence sound wrong.

For example 'Watashi wa (subject particle) ringo o (object marker) tabemasu.'

Means 'I eat apple'.

'Watashi no (possession particle) ringo o (object marker) tabemasu.'

'I eat my apple'

'Watashi ni (time/direction particles) ringo o (object marker) tabemasu.'

Is just stupid and makes no sense whatsoever.

You can't really consider English too much when you're trying to work out what is being said in Japanese! Like using the 'ni' particle

'Doyoubi ni Tokyo ni ikimasu' - On Saturday I go to Tokyo. 'ni' works twice to highlight to the listener that time is involved in the statement, and the fact that the speaker is moving to somewhere. To consider 'on' or 'to' when thinking about the Japanese is irrelevant and unneccessary - it only makes sound grammatical English when you have to translate it.

It's a very brief and basic explanation of particles, but they are very VERY difficult - to listen to and translate, and also to use when you speak. When Japanese children are learning to speak, they often use the wrong particles themselves!

5.) Cultural differences - Alot of the time I'm never sure what to say in Japanese, because they have such a precise system of etttiquette and conduct. Whilst I say 'sayonara' to everyone when I leave work, nobody else really uses it! Apparently its more commonly used for more permanent/formal goodbyes - instead people just seem to mumble some undecipherable 'ursshhh' or 'dommsshhh' when they leave! I get a little bit conscious about using it, but nobody will correct me or tell me any better....which is another thing....

6) The Japanese are too shy or too polite! - They will either tolerate my improper use of particles or maybe unnatural sentence structure or wording. (The better situation), or they will hardly acknowledge I exist and avoid speaking to me at all costs! (The worst situation). In daily-life I can use my Japanese to full effect - a lot of the local restaurants know me now and have begun to talk to me, or have let me start talking to them, which I really enjoy!

But at work some teachers are perhaps too embarrased about my Japanese skills and just assume I won't understand them!

7) Japanese is often spoken very fast and because of the limited sounds in their vocabulary, a lot of words have more than one meaning - you have to work out what word is what from the context!

8) Reading is very difficult - it is a lot harder to learn new words and understand the grammer easily because of all the Chinese characters that I can't read! Road signs typically have English translations underneath them, which is great, because I've been able to learn a few Kanji from those signs. Unfortunately newspapers, letters, bulletins - I have difficulty understanding because I am pretty much illiterate in this country!

So it is difficult - but I am trying to study regularly and I can get by in daily-life and have basic conversations with people. Somedays, when I visit Elementary schools - nobody can speak English and I am forced to speak Japanese - often for a whole day!

However, my reading has improved a lot - probably because I studied more reading back at Uni with my French. So, just to show off and impress you a bit - I'll show you an example of the emails I often receive now!

Hi! クリス
お元気ですか？
金曜日にソロプチミスト（女性団体）の人が来て
クリスにイギリスの女性の生き方について話して
もらいたいとのことでした。
２月２８日12:00〜13:00まで。
　宮内のお店で食事しながら
イギリスのことについて何でもいいから話してください。
イギリスから日本に来て感じたことでもいいです。
沖郷中のスケジュールはＯＫです。
細川

A hearty pat on the back for anybody who can understand this email. In response to it - it's a little strange why they asked me!?..........

The first visit to my last school!

Ahhhh! The time finally arrived for my last 'first visit' to my Nanyo schools! The last visit was in January - to Urushyiama Junior High School 漆山中学校. My first term last year was quite a busy one, first visiting Yoshino JHS (the smallest Junior High in Nanyo) then on to Akayu (the biggest in Nanyo), then Miyauchi, Ringo, Okigo, Nakagawa, and then Ringo again. I don't know why I didn't go to Urushyiama first, instead of visit Ringo for a second time. It would have been a lot easier to drive to at the end of December.

Unfortunately Urushiyama Junior and Elementary School are on a hill, which doesn't make it easy to drive up, or down when the heavy snows have fallen! (Urushiyama quite aptly means 'Polished Mountain' in Japanese!) But with a bit of careful driving it wasn't too difficult. As with every school, it takes a while for the kids to warm to me - the problem is two weeks isn't often enough time to get a good relationship going, nevertheless I'm sure I will be making a bit of an impression on them! I hope!

It's a bit difficult to make out, but this is the winding hill that you have to drive up and down to and from Urushiyama Junior and Elementary High School!

Over the winter period, I've been really impressed with some of the icicles you see around the place! This one was at Urushiyama, and I'm sure it has to be the biggest icicle I've ever seen...so far!

At this school I got to do some traditional Japanese calligraphy for the first time with the second grade students! It was really cool, something I've been wanting to do for a while. We did the Kanji for 'Shooting Star' - it's quite difficult but looks so nice in the end! The receptionist at the school practices calligraphy herself, and offered to give me lessons which I hope to take up at some point!

In a desperate attempt to entertain, engage and humour the students - I often accompany my self-introduction with various silly doodles. I must have done my self-introduction 50 or so times altogether. This was one of the last times (for now) I would have to do it, so I thought I would document the significant moment!

So I've visited all seven schools now, and will be starting to make re-visits to them from this point onwards!