Winter in Obihiro

The next night our friend from the University, Kazuki came from Sapporo for a visit. Kaz, Kat, Akamine and her sister, Naka and I all went to bartend at the light festival which lasted until about 9:30. Not having eaten on this freezing cold night, we went to the restaurant market in downtown Obihiro. The restaurant market is one very narrow pedestrian street with little booth restaurants crammed together on either side. The booth restaurants all specialize in something, for example, there is a sushi booth, a ramen booth, a soba booth etc. Each restaurant is made up of one tiny room, probably about 8 meters square in total. This includes the kitchen, the two cooks, often husband and wife teams and a bar style table that wraps around the tiny kitchen and chefs. We went to a ramen house and took up the whole booth with just the six of us. The booth set up almost forces you to talk to the cooks preparing food right in front of you, and makes for a very laid back and friendly meal.

The next day, Akamine's sister left but Kazuki was still here so we decided to go skating in what he called "the forest." It turns out that the forest is not a forest at all, and in fact has less trees than downtown Obihiro. The forest is the name for a complex of arenas in Obihiro that is apparently famous for turning out Olympic speed skaters. We got to the ice rink but it was not open for recreational skating and we ended up watching the Obihiro-Hakodate men's final hockey game.  I never thought I would find myself watching a hockey game in Northern Japan, since I've barely seen a hockey game in Canada, but there I was explaining the rules that I knew to my friends. We left after the first period, there is only so much Canadian culture shock I can handle, and made for the speed skating dome to see if we could try that. We ended up walking in through the back door of the Hokkaido speed skating championships, for those who didn't make it to the Olympics. This is the speed skating dome that is used by the speed skating high school in Obihiro, where promising speed skaters from Japan go to get through high school while maintaining vigorous training schedules. We watched the whole 1 and a half hour race, which was very exciting, and then wandered out again, not knowing if we should have paid or not.  

Kazuki brought peanut balls, my favorite kind from Sapporo, and we crunched away all the way back to the office!

Skinny Dipping on a Frozen Lake

This weekend, Akamine's sister came to visit from their home town which is just east of Tokyo. We were told that that night (Friday night) we would be going out for barbecue and then heading to the igloo village on Lake Shikaribetsu, and then to an onsen. Akamine left the office early (that means before 8pm) to pick up her sister and we rushed out of the office soon after, collected our shampoo, towel and soap for the onsen and headed to meet them at the restaurant. We had a very large dinner of various meats and vegetables to grill on our grill table, including the two local specialties Ghingis Khan (seasoned lamb) and Buttadon (spiced pork). We met Akamine's sister who was very nice, quiet and shy, and I think was especially shy around a conspicuous foreigner such as myself. Full to the brim, we all pilled into the car and headed an hour and a half north through the mountains to Lake Shikaribetsu. Winding through the narrow mountain roads offered a spectacular view of the twinkling lights of Obihiro City far below. 

We arrived at the frozen lake surrounded by forested mountains, that is used as a base for the construction of a snow village, differently themed every year. This year the theme was arctic, so all the buildings were igloo shaped, some themes of the past have been Egyptian pyramid and middle eastern mud brick houses. We wandered through the picturesque village and into all the little igloos where we found a bar, a small movie theater, a theater where they have plays and performances, and a snack restaurant. All the igloos were scattered around a main central pathway lit up every few meters with beautiful snow lanterns. There were also little igloos that you could rent for the night, and a an outdoor onsen which we decided to try out.  Undressing in an unheated igloo in the middle of a frozen lake and running into a hot tub was to tempting to turn down. We made our way to the women's side of the onsen, undressed to the bones and then made the mad dash out of the igloo into the steaming hot pool. It was well worth the run. It was one of those times, those times that everything is just right, you can't help but live right in the moment. I was completely at ease with a full tummy, good company and the steaming hot pool so serene as the centerpiece of the green mountainous backdrop.  

Cheesery

Note* I've been trying to look up the correct way of describing the place where cheese is made, but so far I've had no luck, and I'll refer to it as the cheesery. 

On Thursday afternoon, Takano, Akamine, Kat and I, pilled into the car and headed off to Takano's friend's cheesery. I didn't really know why we were going, just for a site visit they explained and a meeting, turns out we were actually there to present the proposal to the staff of the cheesery, and try to convince them that the project is worth their while. That's where we, the interns come in, we were explained later that not only would this be a good educational opportunity for us, but showing clients that the firm has international student interns will make them seem more serious. The cheesery is not only a cheesery though, it is an educational facility for disabled people who come and par-take in cheese making programs. All the cows that produce the milk for the cheese are also kept by the cheesery owners and incorporated into the day programs, so that people can produce their cheese from start to finish. We had our meeting at the beautiful restaurant, converted from a high ceilinged barn and has now become a very cozy cheese and local produce shop with intricately made corn husk dolls adorning almost everything. Corn husk dolls ploughing, with their corn husk cows, corn husk dolls playing, even a corn husk doll in a corn husk air balloon suspended from the ceiling. 

We received the regular more than generous dose of coffee during the meeting, and since I can never understand much, I manage to drink my coffee faster than anyone else, leaving my cup susceptible to more refillage.  Hence, I often spend a lot of my time enjoying the wonderful heated toilet seats and bidays of the japanese washrooms. Success! They got the bid to design the master plan for the cheesery, farm and pastures, to include more programming, such as nature walks and soap making, facilities for a summer farm camp for children, an outdoor organic community garden and kitchen, and better accessibility for their visitors. Takano and Akamine-san were very happy they got the project, and they couldn't stop smiling and speaking very quickly. It was no surprise to me that we stopped at a cake shop on the way home to celebrate, I have probably eaten my year's ration of cake already and it's only February. 

*Quick note about Japanese Sweets

Traditional Japanese sweets are sweets beans and mochii(a kind of sticky rice paste). There is still a lot of mochii and sweet beans but it seems they have enthusiastically embraced the Western taste for sweets, and cake and pastries are very popular. The cake is different though from Canadian cake, much lighter and less sweet. They substitute slightly sweetened whipped cream for icing, and almost all cakes incorporate fruit in some way. The other day we had a broccoli chiffon cake for dessert, not very sweet and no icing, but very tasty!  Most people in Japan don't have their own ovens because they take up a lot of space, so most baked goods come from the many bakeries dotted around. 

Syonara Sapporo

We finally headed out from Sapporo on Wednesday at noon with Takano.  Takano is just a very noisy man, but it is more endearing than anything. He is always humming little tunes to himself, or talking to himself, or chewing gum, or snorting.  When we left Sapporo and headed out on our 5 hour journey he spent the first half an hour singing "I will fallow you," and hitting his head in various places as if he were shaping a loaf of bread. A little while after he explained he was quite tired, which explained the head slapping. A little nervous about my drowsy driver, I suggested that we stop for coffee and stretch our legs. The rest of the trip involved more japanese american pop fusion humming, but luckily the head slapping ceased. 

Parks and Beaver Tails

Today (Monday), although many of the staff wanted up to continue work on the model, Takano insisted that we go out with our friend Kazuki from the university to Takino Ecological park, an hour south of the office. Kaz picked us up and we headed to the roughly 20 hectare park. During the winter there were cross country and downhill skiing routes, as well as snow shoeing trails. The portion that TLP designed was not open until April, but we got to see the very elaborate exterior. It was the main children's play area and was supposed to mimic animal habitat, in an effort to show children how they live. The area consisted of a human scaled ant habitat, including a series of underground tunnels, peek holes and a large ant nest to climb up; as well as bird habitats, with elaborate nests woven into groups of trees to be discovered. 

The next day we went to a park designed by Isamu Noguchi, a very famous Japanese-American sculptor. It was blizzarding outside though and quite impossible to actually go outside. Luckily there was a gallery inside a very beautiful glass pyramidal building to be explored.  Noguchi had a very difficult upbringing being half Japanese and always moving from Japan where he was rejected by his father, to America, where he was faced with a lot of racism.  In an autobiography he explains that he was interested in landscape design because it has the unique power to directly connect people to sculpture as well as the natural environment. He also believed that is was imperfections that made a thing great and beautiful, and that we should not enforce unnatural perfection standards on anything or anyone. 

That night, I promised Kazuki, to make and his cousin (who came to see the Canadians) a Canadian dessert, if he made his famous Korean food for us. With no oven, and very select ingredients from the grocery store, I found myself making 2 dozen beaver tails in the office kitchen. They were a huge success and Kazuki's very small female cousin ate about six. 

    

Horse Apples

I just found out that the big bushel of apples Takano brought to the office that I have been demolishing speedily, were in fact for his horses. They were given to him by his neighbour who has an orchard, and were apparently not good enough quality to sell to the market. 

Then Takano told me that his horses wouldn't eat them, so he brought them to the office. So I guess I'm a more experimental eater than I thought I was.