Hotel Rasso Kushiro

... it around the bottom and started coming North, it improved again. After my circumnavigation I treated myself to a dip in the Rishiri-fuji onsen. It was a much-needed stop after about 4 days without a shower and I enjoyed lounging in the rotemburo and soaking my sore muscles. After that I dropped off the scooter and had about twenty minutes before the ferry took off for Wakkanai. I didn't really want to leave and rationalized it, saying I would come back at the end of my ...

... located on the castle island but by the time we finished with the castle I was all sight-seed out...The castle itself is a reinforced concrete (suprise, suprise!) reconstruction as the original was incinerated by the A-bomb blast. It's a five-level affair, with each floor getting progressively smaller as you go up until you get to the viewing platform at the top. There wasn't much to see that day, as it was pretty hazy, but you could see the huge ...

This year I decided to finally make the trek to the western side of the island, and the bright lights, big city of Sapporo, for the annual Yuki Matsuri. Every year several million Japanese come from all over the country to gaze at the two to three story high snow sculptures that line Odori Koen (Odori Park) and eat some of the German-style candied nuts that are for sale on the grounds. I had originally planned to go with a ...

... shot to over 30° and it was pretty miserable to be stuck in your car in traffic...Thankfully Furano has a parking lot by the train station that is completely free. You have to understand that this is the rarest of all rare possibilities in Japan. Parking is a notoriously difficult thing to deal with in a city and I have never seen it come for free; this was the first time. Spent some time walking around the downtown but it was pretty dead. Picked up some lavender ...

... navigating the endless maze of the Tokyo subway stations. The conference itself was more just an extended pep talk to get you ready and excited for another year in Japan. Not that I really needed too much of that (as I'm still pretty genki about the whole thing) but I did pick up a few good ideas that i might be able to use in my classes. I also decided to go out of character this time and actually try and be a bit social. To my suprise it actually paid some dividends. One of those was ...

... the whole evening so a timeline is hard to establish. I would imagine we were there for almost two hours...Afterward, we walked across the street to a jazz club. It looked really cool and I was keen to check it out. We were the only people in there. The place was small and held a grand piano in the far right corner. That left just enough room for a few tables and some seats at the bar. Unfortunately, no one was playing and they didn't serve alcohol. A concept I ...

... but just chalked it up to the Japanese way of doing things. Before the festivities started though, Itoh-san gave us a toast and then Robyn had to get up and introduce herself. We had been practicing her little introduction all day, and she was doing very well, but Japanese is not an easy language for someone who has never spoken a word of it in their life. I was there for moral support though and I, and the audience, helped her with a few of the words. When she was done they all gave ...

... to just cold call me and ask if I would be able to help out with a Halloween party that she was throwing for her kindergarden kids...She works for a private English school so I wasn't really sure if I would be able to do it. Some BOE's have very strict rules about working outside of school hours and especially for someone who is not employing them. Most often they are not allowed to get paid for this. But thank god for Shibecha because none of that **** matters here in the land of ...

... don't always get a lot of practice doing. So I have been writing one-page essays every week on something in America. Not suprisingly I have been focusing on music. The first few essays have focused on jazz and blues, with country, bluegrass, and rock n' roll to eventually follow...I blank out selected words on the student's sheets and then go over the vocabulary beforehand. Since the language ability varies so much, it's very hard to find a medium and some of the lower-skilled ...

... to me. I think that mirrors my own philosopy to some extant (and you can see how far that's gotten me). The best part for me was that I could wear regular clothes. No stuffy shirts and ties and shoes. It was t-shirts and slippers. Sweet. Some of the first kids to come up to me when I got there were the girls. This one little brave one drug two of her friends up with her and started asking me what my name was and where I was from, in english no less. She seemed ...