Oh I forgot to mention that after the dinner party Friday the men were eating peanut balls!

Part 7- Dori Won't You Blow?

On Sunday we woke up early to go on an bird watching boat tour in the Tokachi river. Still pretty tired after barista-ing till late Saturday night, I pulled on my regular three pairs of pants, 2 sweaters and 3 pairs of socks and headed to the car and slept on the way there. Once at the meeting place, we piled into vans with the other bird watchers and headed to the place where we would put our boats in the water. The was in particular for eagle watching, as this area attracts two species or really big eagles from Russia. I didn't understand anything that our guide said which was pretty frustrating, but we were lucky enough to see two eagles quite close, as well as several interesting ducks and cranes by the water's edge. 

As soon as our tour ended we dashed off to the Otofuke band's quarterly concert at the Tokachi ecology park and centre, also designed by the firm, including the interiors and building concepts. The place was overflowing with children and so accordingly the band played songs from popular anime songs, featuring a woman dressed in high socks, a fuzzy white poncho, marching around with an umbrella. They also played bizarre versions of Western songs including "I've been working on the Railroad" with Dinah won't you blow substituted with Dori won't you blow (a japanese gilr's name).  

Aside-the shower situation

Showering in our tub at home is a particular adventure. The shower room is not heated, so in order to get into it, you have to brave the cold of getting into the steel tub with no clothes on. The pressure is also not very strong, so hot water only reaches isolated regions of the body, leaving others wet and exposed to the freezing air. 

They are fixing the heater in the bathroom soon. But until then, we'll go to the public baths frequently.  

Part 6 - Lighting up the cold

As I was discussing with the other intern the other day, this is not an experience that an inflexible person could handle. If you are a picky eater or have to sleep at certain times or have to correspond to people everyday, or just are not good at going with the flow, THIS IS NOT THE TRIP FOR YOU. Even I who consider myself quite flexible am finding it quite frustrating at times.

Tuesday

The staff at the firm are not very comfortable with english, and as a result they don't always keep us informed about what we will be doing, or not doing. In the office we usually don't do a whole lot, so on Tuesday when I came to the office expecting to do not a whole lot and was informed half an hour after getting to there that I was going to a fancy lunch party thing that I had to dress up for, I was quite annoyed. I ran home and changed into a dress, hopped in Takano-san's car, and off we went to a hotel in downtown Obihiro for a New Years Party hosted by one of the owner of one of the largest banks in Japan, who also owns a newspaper company in Hokkaido. We parked the car and headed for the entrance when we were met with a wall of people from the press awaiting the arrival of the bank man and his son, who was taking over the newspaper. After pushing our way through the cameras we had entered what seemed like a sea of Japanese business men in black suits. Needless to say I stuck out like a sore thumb being a blonde girl in a bright turquoise dress. As we climbed the stairs to the main hall, Takano-san as usual started introducing us to all his friends, which are plentiful. At this particular event I met about 35, including the leader of the slow food movement in Japan, and the owner of the bank. We entered the main hall where there were about 2000 business men assembled . . . and me. The room was filled with beautiful food, 20 kinds of pastries, fruits, sashimi, every kind of tempura, roast beef, potatoes, chicken, fish, rice, seaweed, cheese, and Takano insisted that we try everything, as well as every drink! After filling up and feeling pretty light headed from the 5 varieties of sake he made me try, we piled in the car and headed to what I thought was going to be the office.

Little did I know that we were actually going to help out at the light festival the firm was designing in the tourist town of Tokachi Gawa (Tokachi is the region and Gawa means river). Luckily I brought a pair of pants to put over my tights which made working outside in -15 possible. The main light display was already set up and consists of large triangular and globular paper like lanterns on about 3 football fields worth of hill and field. The light festival which was designed completely by the firm includes the main display as well as a little log house to sell local products from Tokachi, a te-u (hot tub for your hands) a tobogan slide, rides on a big rubber raft pulled by a snowmobile and a clear vinyl house, basically a plastic greenhouse to house a restaurant cafe and the ashi-u (hot tub for feet). It's put on by the surrounding hotel owners and is free for everyone, and I guess attracts lots of tourists to the area mostly from southern Japan, Taiwan and china, who have never or seldom experienced the comparatively wild north. The designers and the hotel owners and chief staff were also responsible for setting a lot of it up, and in effect us the designer interns. The landscape architect not only designed the light displays outside, but the interiors, the menus, the signs and whatever else needed designing.

we spend Tuesday forming 300 giant snowballs with the other hotel owners for later construction of giant lighting cones to go at the entrance of the vinyl house. It was very cold and wet. The sun goes down at around 4:30 and then it gets really cold. We figured we would be leaving when it was dark outside, but the kindly brought us a light so we could keep working until the meeting with the electricians was over at 6:30. We finally headed back to our house, which takes about half an hour, but stopped for an hour to pick some things up that we needed from the store, to get home at around 8:30, I'm glad I had a big lunch!

The next day we left the house at 7:30 am, to arrive for a breakfast meeting with the hotel owners at 8. I have eaten many strange things since arriving but none as strange as the beans I had for breakfast that morning. Strange and stringy and very strong tasting I couldn't help but gag very loudly while they were discussing the menu. It started a wave of laughter that rolled down the table and it was then that they decided to eliminate the beans from the menu. The hotel owners are really nice and although I can't understand them most of the time, they are still really hilarious and are obviously way to comfortable with each other. The next two nights were late and cold as well, running out the door early and munching my breakfast of rice crackers, almonds and apples in the car. The highlights of my day running in to the heater in the vinyl house every half hour or so to defrost my hands, and laughing at the hilarious hotel men. 

On Friday was the grand opening of the festival and with half an hour to go we finally finished setting everything up. One of the hotel owners announced that I should be the bartender/barista of the vinyl restaurant because the way he saw it people would be impressed by a foreigner who has come so far just for the festival. Bad idea. I had no idea how popular the event was, I was bartender with two others Friday, Saturday and Sunday with crowds of a few hundred every night at least. Getting people drinks in a busy restaurant is one thing, but when you can't understand the people you are serving it makes is a great deal more difficult. I understood the obvious things but often they would just start talking to me, or talking about me or asking me questions, at these times I smiled and said yes. If this failed I would look confused until they asked someone else. Eventually I got moved on to production of drinks as people slowly realized that maybe I wasn't cut out for the job. I did however get on local television twice while working! Both times consisted of me handing the TV person a hot chocolate and saying "tastes good!" 

I knew by now that it was good to fill up on food while I could because I didn't know when the next feeding would be. Naturally I filled up at the opening with Japanese style hamburgers and rice burgers. Only after the opening did I realize my mistake, when Naka-San let us know that we were off to the after party at a restaurant in downtown Obihiro, and one of the hotel owners told me that we were sleeping over at his hotel because we would be too full of "drink" to go home. 

We arrived at the restaurant and we had our own little room, and a large table already filled with sashimi, 2 big hot pots, and skewers of meat and veggies. we were not there two minutes before they started ordering sake and beer and almost everything on the menu. After a few drinks the hotel guys were getting even more hilarious and asking Kat and I which one of them was 'our type,' this was followed by a group palm reading session, a game to get the canadians try as much strange food as possible, and an english lessons to give them street cred in Canada. words such as comeback and dis were particularity popular. That night I managed to get down sashimi octopus, boiled lamb brain and some kind of fish gill. Much of this has been documented on film which I promise I'll put up soon!

We ended our night at the hotel at around 1am, but before we went to bed we went to the onsen at the hotel for a late night dip in the extremely hot water.

warm at last.

Part 6- Peanut balls

My commute to work is about 5 minutes walking, but this distance seems to have made me even more tarde. I was rushing to work today and brought breakfast to go in the form of these really tasty peanut balls (peanut covered in rice cracker and seaweed). I got to my desk and started working when one of my co-workers spotted my peanut balls, and started laughing. She said something in japanese to the others, releasing a chain of hysterical laughter at me and my peanut balls. I learned later that these cracker things are only eaten by old men when they are very drunk. I still think they're delicious.   

Part 5- Japanese TV and beyond

Last night, Katherine, Naka-San and I sat down to play Japanese monopoly while watching a strange show on TV. It was a two hour long special about elastic band guns, and featured about 20 people testing out different weapon designs by seeing how many paper cups they could knock down. This was followed by a program about a group of transvestites helping a young guy get into University. Most airtime is taken up with melodramatic to the point of hilarious dramas, and equally over-the-top game shows. 

Part 4- Paaty!

Last night my house mate Naka-San took us to a hot-pot party with some of her friends. It is kind of like fondue, with a big bowl of broth and lots of vegetables instead of cheese, and you dip in thin strips of meat. It was very tasty, I didn't understand most of the conversation but I know how to say "Yum" and "thank you" in Japanese and those seem to be serving me well. There was an ex-TLP worker, an architect woman and a farmer man, all were in their early-mid twenties. I am getting good at smiling and nodding when I don't understand, ironic that one of the few japanese phrases I know how to say is "yes, I understand," I mean really, when is that going to be applicable. Kat told me later how they in fact had a whole conversation about me, and how it was so strange to see someone so tall and so blonde. They had these strange wooden pegs, painted as japanese people, that were in fact instruments to perform acupuncture massage. They ended up getting all these diagrams out for me to know where to apply pressure and what part of the body that affected. They didn't know how to say the body parts in english so it became a game of charades, guessing what body part they were talking about. After that we went to the onsen again because our shower is still broken, more naked ladies walking around, although I'm getting used to it now.

 I slept in this morning till 10, but as soon as I got up Naka-san let me know that Takano-san (head of the firm) and his wife were coming to pick kat and I up momentarily to take us to the Otofuke village new years party. The party wasn't really much of a party, mostly people in suits watching the mayor talk and then there was lots of food. Takano-san introduced us to most of his friends, and apparently he is friends with a lot of people. It was really funny to have all these Japanese people just start talking to me and asking me questions in Japanese, even though I have no clue what they are saying. I usually answer in a Hai, Daniella-San (my name), Toronto ni, or Canada-jin (Canadian). This time though Takano-san translated a lot so I was able to carry out some conversation. I also met the mayor or Otofuke and his wife! The party thing lasted only an hour and a half, and as soon as it was announced ended, people cleared out really efficiently, and the staff came and just started packaging the left over food and handing it to people. Kat and I looked very confused and of course I am foreign so they wanted to give me lots of 'traditional japanese style food,' so we ended up taking home about 4 big platters of food, a carton or orange juice, a bottle or sake, and lots of little sweets. Takano-san then took us to a famous sweets factory, and bought us cake, and his wife bought us these traditional snack things. We felt really guilty have just acquired so much food and generosity.

There is another party on Tuesday and another one for the opening of the light festival on friday. Too much birru! 

Part 3-Working at Takano Landscape Planning

There was an earthquake last night, just minor vibrations, apparently an effect of the haiti earthquake. 

My new name here is Daniella-San.

I work in an old school house in the village of Otofuke. The house still functions as a community center so there are always farmers coming in and walking around the office, sometimes with their animals, and on Thursday's the Otofuke band practices in the music room, which makes for a pretty absurd workplace. As well as a music room, the house has a big gym where people play badminton and volleyball sometimes, a kitchen with the world's biggest rice cooker, and the main office which is where the old classrooms were. 

It's very cold here. All the buildings in Hokkaido (north island of Japan) are not insulated and have no central heating, so all heat comes from kerosine space heaters. There are only three in the house, two in the office and one in the kitchen, so if people have to leave the rooms, they usually have to use any other room, or change rooms, they usually run, or at least walk at a very brisk pace. Every 20 minutes of so people have to leave their desks and head to one of the heaters to defrost for a bit. 

Landscape Architecture Rant . . . . . . 

I work with only 4 other people here, the firm has other branches, and I was told more people are needed in the cities. One of the projects that the firm is working on is designing a light festival in a nearby city, all the lanterns are to be constructed out of snow, and we are also designing the interiors, and selecting all the furniture to be used etc. The design process here seems a lot more holistic. It seems that the title of landscape architecture here does not define what projects the professionals can take on, so much as describes the professional's expertise and commitment at connecting people to the landscape and the natural environment. There is a much wider range of what the firm designs, from festivals to parks to whole communities. They also take local material use to a whole new level, trying to use unprocessed stones and other building material, instead of standardized pavers etc. They also believe that to create a space that will be enduring, cherished, and hence taken care of by the users, they must encourage as much democratic participation by the potential users as possible; in the design process as well as utilizing people in the construction of the site. 

 

Part 2-Plane to Sapporo

After waiting in the airport long enough to be good and jet lagged, I boarded my next flight to Sapporo and sat next to a korean man, who looked about 19-20, but who I later discovered was in fact 30. He was very nice and could speak english quite well, and was studying Japanese at the University of Sapporo with his girlfriend. He later invited me to his apartment in Sapporo for the snow and ice festival at the beginning of February. Apparently he has many international friends that speak english and 'very much like karaoke.' We continued chatting and he revealed that he has a strong interest in Canada because his favorite movie, The Notebook, stars Canadian actors. He explained how even after the 10th time watching it, it still made him cry. He would also frequently pray that the plane wouldn't crash. 

I arrived in Japan and my new friend helped me find the right train to get on and I was off on my way to Obihiro, where I would be picked up and taken to Otofuke, where the firm and my house is. There were no seats left on the train and hardly any place to put baggage, all the cars are really miniature, so I ended up standing at the entrance of the car for two hours. There was still a window though, and I was able to get a taste of the very mountainous and snowy landscape. At last I arrived in snowy obihiro, but as I was leaving the train station I was stopped by a train man at a wicket who though I was trying to get onto another train. He of course didn't speak a word of english, so it made it very difficult to explain to him that all I wanted to do was leave. It was not long before the smiling but very confused man summoned a big possy of teen-aged girls to help him understand. But even with 5 girls, nobody seemed to understand the word out or exit, and those were two words I failed to memorize before I left. After about 15 minutes, I remembered I had a dictionary in my bag and finally found the word exit! 

The next challenge was calling the firm to pick me up. Luckily I did know the word for phone and by looking confused and repeating "denwa" a few times I got the attention of the group of girls who showed me how to use it. The other intern, Katherine, who can speak english, and one of the staff, Naka-san, a 24 year old woman who can speak a bit of english, came to pick me up. After picking up some groceries and getting stared at quite a bit at the 'supa' (supermarket), we headed to the house where I will be staying for the next 3 months. It's pretty basic, but comes complete with tatami floors, lots of slippers by the door, and sliding panel walls. 

At this point I figured we were just staying put, but before I knew it we were rushing off to a traditional japanese barbecue restaurant, after picking up another employee. This was a traditional restaurant, so we all kneeled around our table that had a grill in the middle. The server started bringing out plates and plates of diverse raw meat for grilling. Not wanting to make a bad impression, I ate everything that they suggested, including lamb stomach, cow liver and raw pork. I guess I'm giving up vegetarianism for now.  

After we finished, about 10pm, they informed me that we were off to the onsen, Japanese hot springs, that can be outdoor or indoor. we entered the female wing of the building and went into the change room. I took my coat off and put it on a chair and as I turned around to talk to my co-workers when it struck me that they were all casually completely naked. Realizing the task at hand I rushed to strip down too, and entered into a room full of naked women from age about 18 to 75, bathing in the various pools. we finally got home, and I set out my futon matress and went to bed almost immediately. 

Part 1-(Not a very interesting start skip to part 2)

It's 4:30 at the Seoul airport and I find myself wandering around with this pleasantly plump father (not the religious kind) from Montreal, who insisted we stay together because we're both Canadian. He got to be a little annoying, always asking questions and wanting to investigate things in a forceful way. The Seoul airport looks really similar to Pearson, glass, steel, concrete etc. but it has really beautiful orchids everywhere not to mention a lot more koreans.I don't really understand why all airports have so many windows, when all there is to look is asphalt with only a few painted traffic lines for contrast. I still don't feel that out of place, I guess most of these people are used to seeing foreigners. The flight was great, very roomy, and korean air is wonderful. All the crew were wearing matching sea foam blue and white satin uniforms, with scarfs around their necks that stuck up about a foot in the air. Well soon I'll board my flight to Sapporo Japan; for now I'm stuck sitting next to this very tanned very blonde Australian man and his son who keep talking to me about snowboarding. I accidentally agreed with him when he asked me if I was going skiing because I can't understand half of what he's saying. 

Jet lagged and a little homesick.