In Hokkaido (and not for holidaying)

 Not long after moving in to the new apartment, my ass got hauled away for another business trip:

In case the image doesn't give it away, I ain't exactly happy about it, especially with what I had been hearing going behind the scenes. That, and I had only just moved before getting my marching orders.

As usual, I won't say where exactly I've been sent, but it is in the Hokkaido region. This is actually first time having been to Hokkaido. Just wish it wasn't for work purposes. 
For those that aren't aware, the Hokkaido region is one of the colder parts of the country. It means, it's very cold in winter, and the summers are said to be pretty comfortable compared to other parts of Japan, especially compared to places like Saitama and Kyoto that are ridiculously hot and humid.
Also, because of the cooler weather, the sakura bloom much later compared to other areas in Japan. Just last weekend, the sakura finally bloomed, and I was able to go to the nearby park and take a nice look around. As I have been getting up really early lately for work, I ended up checking out the nearby park very early. Clearly, other people had the same idea, as there were already people at the park by the time I got there just before 8:00 am. While people had already started turning up there, luckily it wasn't crowded, which would have made walking around and taking pictures of the sakura a real pain to do. 

Aside from that, I haven't done many touristy thing during my off time. The main reason is that we're saving up for the wedding (yeah, we're finally focusing our attention on that), and even a simple wedding is not cheap these days. I cut back on most things - including snacking, going to the arcade and even eating out - and was surprised by just how much I saved this month alone. But that's a story for another time. 

While I will be going back home briefly for Golden Week, nobody is able to give me an answer on just much longer this business trip is supposed to last

Recent activity (No fancy titles today)

So for last 4 weeks or so, I've been sent to work in Okayama prefecture. I won't name the specific city that I'm working at, but I will say that it is a rural port city. I have been filling in as a temporary teacher in this city, and it has been quite fun. For some background information, this city has not had the budget to have ALTs working in their schools for some years, and this year is the first time in a while that the city has the budget for ALTs. Before this, schools were apparently studying English through online teachers. As a result, I have found that the students I have been working with to be very keen and excited to interact with a foreigner, even if their English is far from perfect, but they are willing to try.

For me, it has been a good opportunity to get away from the office, as March and April were incredibly busy, and I had just been assigned to work at one of the company's Tokyo offices, which I did not (and still don't) enjoy. The quietness of this city compared to Tokyo is something I welcome. While I have no problem going to Tokyo for the occasional day trip or holiday, I cannot stand commuting to Tokyo on a daily basis. I find that compared to the rural areas, Tokyo folk are too busy to be polite. Most tourists won't notice, but if you spend enough time in a rural area, and then compare it to Tokyo, you'll pick up on the subtleties.

In terms of the work, it is also a chance for me to brush up on my ALT skills. Compared to the past where I was using Japanese quite a lot with students, I have deliberately minimized the amount of Japanese I use where possible with students. The students will in most cases speak to me in Japanese, or at least attempt to speak to me in English, but in almost every case, I will reply in English.

Since it is unreasonable for me to go back to Saitama every weekend (it costs me nearly 20,000 yen one way on the shinkansen), I have spent some time looking around the town, trying some of the local cafes and restaurants, and even finding time to go to a local gym. While they don't have the franchise gym I'm signed up with, the local community gym has been sufficient for my needs.

On a different topic, my mother came to visit me recently. While I was not able to get all the days off that I wanted from my employer, I was able to spend a full 7 days with my mother doing shopping and sightseeing, and even brought her out to where I was working. On the days that I was working, my mother would either stay at the hotel, or have a look around the surrounding area, before I came back in the afternoon, and we would go out for dinner. However, I noticed that the rural city I'm working in does not have much open in the way of dining outside of franchise/chain restaurants. I noticed that many of the local restaurants and cafes close pretty early. 

It was good to see my mum after nearly 4 years, and she made sure to make the visit count by bringing a lot of snacks and other gifts from Australia. The only regret is that my dad could not come and see Japan for himself before he died a few years back. I'm finally comfortable in saying that out loud after 2 years. Perhaps I will go in to more detail about it in a future post.

Golden Week in Saitama

Being Golden Week this week, my girlfriend and I went to Kawagoe on Tuesday. This year seems to be significant not just in Saitama, but also across the country, as for many people, it has been two years since they did any significant travel during Golden Week. Of course, this also means a significant boost to local businesses that have been struggling since the start of the CCP virus in 2020 (or 2019 depending how you look at it).

Because it's Golden Week, we decided to rent kimonos to wear for the day. Compared to buying a kimono, renting is a significantly cheaper option, considering neither of us wear kimonos on a regular basis. My girlfriend booked an appointment online in advance, and we showed up to the rental store in the morning. She was getting her kimono all prepared at the front section of the store, while I was guided to the back for the men's section. I was a little bit nervous, being my first time wearing a kimono (whereas my girlfriend has worn kimonos previously), though the process was surprisingly made easy. There was a simple guide on one of the hangar racks for sizes which were also colour-coded accordingly. I picked out a black kimono which was about 5500 yen to rent, and the staff went about putting the kimono on me. Obviously, it was a lot quicker to get me all dressed up compared to my girlfriend, though it wasn't too longer after before we headed out. 

Obviously being 3 days of public holidays, it was busy with people. Many of the shops had long lines waiting to get in for dining or to purchase snacks or foods. My girlfriend lined up to get skewered eel, but I decided to skip on getting eel. I have eaten eel before, but I wasn't a fan of the oiliness. After that we had a walk around, and got our photos taken by one of the shrines before we decided to pray at the there. We had a look at various other shops, but since we were catching up with a friend later in the evening, we weren't looking to have a big lunch (if at all). However, we tried some soy flour ice cream served with red beans - and unlike typical soft serve ice cream, we found this particular ice cream to be surprisingly creamy.

Also a lot of shops were selling the usual soft serve ice cream, though there was one store that was selling watermelon-soda flavored soft serve, which I just had to try. For 200 yen, it wasn't too bad at all. I ordered one for myself, but apparently the shopkeeper mistakenly heard me say two (this was all in Japanese) and by the time I realised it, it was too late to change. Oh well, I gave the second one to my girlfriend, and she fortunately enjoyed the flavor.

One particular food that Kawagoe is famous for is sweet potato (さつまいも). At the souvenir shop in Kawagoe station, they sell many snacks based on the sweet potato, whether it be biscuits/cookies or cakes. However, the most popular form of the sweet potato that was being sold at various shops on Tuesday was sweet potato chips. However, just about every shop and stall that we went to was completely sold out of the snack. It wasn't until much later in the day that we finally found a shop that was still selling the snack. 

Another shop we went to had something unique going on. They had a "workshop" where you could make your own candy in a similar fashion to glass blowing. Apparently due to a lot of people wanting to do it, we were able to make a booking, though due to the time, we decided to have a café to rest our feet, as we had been walking non stop since before lunch time. 
After some time at the café, we went back to that candy store for "candy blowing" I guess is what you could call it. The staff will guide you on the process (along with reading the instructions that are on the counter). While my gf was able to do it with no problems, I wasn't so fortunate. The first step requires you to blow hard initially, but not too for too long, which I ended up doing and bursting the candy bubble. Luckily the staff were able to mend mine up and I was able to continue the second part of the process which is gently blowing while rotating the candy to ensure that it inflates equally. Though mine didn't turn out as nice, it was still a fun experience, and was a pretty cheap activity to do too. 

Eventually, we went back to the kimono rental store to return our kimonos, but the staff wanted to take photos of us, which we didn't mind. My girlfriend also asked to take pictures using her phone, before the staff helped us get out of our kimonos (after ushering me to the back in the men's section, obviously). I found after we left the shop that the staff apparently want to use our photos for their website, and asked my girlfriend for the ok, which she said yes anyway. While I have no problem personally, I just found it weird that they only asked my gf only, and not ask me about it (and it's not because of language barrier either, communicating with the staff in Japanese was not a problem at all). But what's done is done.

Though we did have a date night a little while ago, we haven't actually done anything like this since we moved to Saitama prefecture. We have both been pretty busy with our own things - with me being out of town during the weekdays, while she has been busy with her thesis. It was an enjoyable time, and I hope we get another chance to do something like this some time soon. 

I'm Tired...

Hello there. Yes, it has been nearly two months since my last post. While things have been happening in these last two months, some deeply personal matters also popped up that really killed any drive to do anything besides working. Despite having to force myself to do things recently (such as going to the gym, work on my site, or even post here), it will (hopefully) keep me distracted from what's been happening in my personal life.

As for what's been happening lately in Japan, well it's currently Golden Week. Parts of Japan, including Tokyo and Osaka are under another state of emergency - but without any real penalties or a proper lockdown, along with a change of thinking for many companies to embrace working from home, I suspect cases will dip down temporarily before going up. However, being Golden Week, and people wanting to travel, I could be completely wrong on this. 

Another issue Japan seems to be facing is that despite having ample vaccines to issue out, the medical system doesn't have adequate means to do so. Anyone who has lived in Japan shouldn't be surprised that unnecessary bureaucratic red tape has once again dragged things out, with vaccines lying around being unused.
I have heard some countries have adopted a system where any vaccines that haven't been used at the end of the day will be issued to anyone who happens to be waiting at the doctor's around that time, or are alternatively put on a special list where they can be contacted to come in for the vaccine. If not enough elderly people are taking up the vaccine, I feel that they should start administering it to people who do want the vaccine - which would be great for people who are in jobs that require regular contact with people (especially schools - good luck trying to enforce social distancing at schools - the best that can be done usually is making sure kids are wearing their masks).

As for what I've been doing during this period, my gf and I went to visit her aunt and uncle in Chiba where we had lunch and yakiniku for dinner. They also gave me an old school MG Nu Gundam model kit - this is related to my personal matter, and they bought it for me with the hopes that it would lift my spirits. They mentioned before we visited that they wanted to give me money, but I refused it, feeling it wasn't appropriate to accept it because of this matter - but they went ahead and bought a Gundam kit for me anyway. Perhaps once I've built it, I may write up a review for it for my site. It's a kit from 2000, and since I didn't get in to gunpla until around 2013, it will be interesting to see the kind of engineering that was used for kits back in those days.