A subway ride and a snowstorm

I was surprised to find these photos on the camera when I uploaded them.  I forgot that I took them the other day.

The first set of photos are from Bre and my subway ride to get our official certificate of alien registration from our ward office.  We went from Bre's office to the Chuo ward office near Odori Park.

 Bre is pointing to the English option on the ticket machine (in the subway) to change the language from Japanese to Engish.

 This is the subway station where we started from.  It is Kina Juni, or North 12 on the Namboku Line.  There are three lines in Sapporo and they are conveniently color coded.  Namboku is the green line.

 Here is a view inside the subway car.  Japanese people are very respectful of your privacy, so I felt like I had to come up with an excuse to take a photo of them in the subway, and there I had Bre to photograph!  The kid on the left side of the photo seems to have figured out my game.

 Here we are in the Odori station changing to the Tōzai Line.  You will have to imagine the feeling of hundreds of people all around you rushing by.

 This sign explains about the women and children only subway car that runs in the morning until 9am. 

 Here we are climbing up out of the subway.  On the right side there is a very detailed sign of all the bad things that can happen to you riding an escalator.  At some point in the future I will get a better photo so you can see the sign.

 We just happened to walk by the streetcar on our way there.  I don't know where the streetcar runs.

 These photos are from today.  It started snowing last night and snowed for most of the day.  Back to a cold snowy world.  You may notice that the cyclist has a headlight, and no helmet.  I don't know why but the only places I have seen bike helmets here in Japan are in the bike store and on the head of a Gaijin (foreigner.)  I have never seen a Japanese person wear a helmet.

 If you look to the left side of this photo you can see the the blizzard stake marking the edge of the sidewalk.

 Bre's umbrella had an unfortunate turn for the worse.  I guess you only get so much when you buy a 210 Yen umbrella.

 We found the Jupiter store in the basement of the JR train station.  Jody and Maiko told us about it.  Jupiter is an import food store.  I took photos of a few of the more interesting things they had for sale.  I ended up buying (and not photographing) Skippy peanut butter and Arnots TimTam original chocolate biscuit.  I discovered TimTam in New Zealand.  They are lots of fun to have with tea.  You can bite the ends off and use it as a straw to suck up hot tea.  This turns the TimTam into a hot molten chocolate mess and is very fun.

 We found Durian Chips in the store.  I am not sure what the sign is saying, but I suspect that it is something to the effect of please don't eat these in public.  If you want to learn more about
Durian fruit just click on the link.

 They have coffee from all over the world.

 Here are the photos Dave requested as his prize for winning the caption contest.  Here are two Japanese keyboards courtesy of Adit, Bre's co-worker.

 The last photo is a Japanese keyboard on a Macbook Pro.

I have a correction to make about my last posting.  I had a photo of a pole that looked German, and I was wondering what it is for.  Turns out Sapporo has a sister city, Munich Germany.  The pole is a gift from the city of Munich and the location of the annual Odori Beer Garden.  I also learned that Sapporo is sister cities with Portland Oregon.  So there you have it.  Thanks for reading and commenting.

That's all for now,

Kyle (and Bre)

Weekend

First of all I want to congratulate Dave for winning the caption contest.  You won!  As of the last time I checked Dave was the only one to put a comment in the caption contest.  Perhaps you intimidated the competition.  The prize is that you can choose what I will talk about in the next blog posting.  Just let me know by comment or email what you would like to know and I will talk about it in the next blog post.

On Saturday we went on a biking adventure down to Odori Park.  These photos are all from that ride.  The first photo is of what I think is a temple.  The chimney in the center of the photo had real woodsmoke coming out of it.

Here is Bre, my wife the model. 

This pole is from Munich Germany.  Turns out Sapporo has a sister city, Munich Germany.  The pole is a gift from the city of Munich and the location of the annual Odori Beer Garden.  I also learned that Sapporo is sister cities with Portland Oregon.

 In the distance here you can see the TV tower with the giant clock on it.  I included this photo even though I don't like the lamp-post in the foreground because Bre and I went up the TV tower and I forgot to bring my camera.  It has an observation deck at 90 meters (above the clock).  We rode up in a glass elevator to the observation deck with our friends Anton and Mami.  We went up around sunset and waited until they turned on the Christmas lights in Odori Park.  It was very pretty, and the view of the city was great.   I plan to come back when we have guests to give them a view of the city.

Afterward Anton and Mami took us to a miso ramen noodle shop in the Susukino district.  The miso was very rich and warm, perfect on a cold day.  I had the miso ramen with pork which was huge.  Bre had the regular miso ramen which was large.  Miso ramen is one of the foods that Sapporo is well known for.  I recommend it to all of you.

 Here is Bre sporting her fancy clear umbrella.  If you have never tried a clear umbrella you probably didn't know that it is possible to have an umbrella that you can see through.  This is convenient if say the rain is blowing at your face and you want to see where you are going.

 In an earlier post I explained how the city is named based on where you are relative to the TV tower at the center of the city.  In this photo you can see it says North 11 and West 15.

 This is the Japanese equivalent of the men at work sign in the US.  You may not be able to tell from the photo by there are three flower petal like circles on the sign.  Each one has a spiral patter of lights that spins constantly to warn you of the construction.

In an earlier posting I had a photo of our shower room and asked about the small mirror near the ground in the shower room.  I had an explanation given to me by one of my Japanese friends about the mirror in the shower room.  She explained that Japanese use a small stool to sit on when they bathe and they would set up the stool in front of the mirror so that you can make sure that you are thorough in washing yourself.  I re-posted the photo below to clarify what I am talking about.  You can see a reflection of my feet in the mirror.

 

That's all for now.

-Kyle (and Bre)

Bre's Shopping Mistakes- Part 1

Here's the first installment of Bre's attempt to document the small details of life in Japan...  Imposing American expectations on Japanese realities can result in confusion, hilarity, and/or bewilderment.

So I got really excited at the store the other day when I saw this:

 

 I thought: "Oh boy!  Peanut Butter!"

But of course, it was not.

Kyle opened it first over lunch yesterday while I was at work.  He called me with the results; he said it was not peanut butter, rather is was "peanut-flavored jam".  This was not easy for me to picture, so I checked it out first thing when I got home last night.

 "Peanut-flavored jam" is slightly tasty but mostly disgusting.  It looks like caramel.  It spreads on your bread like caramel.  It tastes like peanut-flavored candy.

 

I think we will not buy this again.

That's all for now.  I'm sure the future will be filled with potential blog topics.

-Bre (and Kyle)

Construction animals, ski jumps, and the German Christmas Market

I took a day off blogging, so I have extra photos for this blog.  On Thursday (Thanksgiving Day) I went biking up to the Ski Jumps from the 1972 Winter Olympics.  It is up by Moerenuma Park where there is a zoo and many other things.  It was 3 kilometers from our apartment.  On the way there I found the fish market that Tanioka-san showed us when we moved into our apartment.  It is a block long area where they sell seafood, mostly crab and fish.

 I found another construction barrier animal.  I don't know what this animal is.  Bre says, "perhaps it is a fox.'  I think it might be a Tanuki.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanuki  In my search to find what this animal could be I found this fascinating collection of construction barrier animals of Japan: http://idleidol.net/construction-barrier-animals/

 I found this sign at the park.  It has lovely rust marks on it.  In my home state of Idaho this would be caused by bullets from people using the sign for target practice.  In Japan I can't imagine that is the case.  I think the sign is telling you what you are not supposed to do.  No fires, no selling rice balls, no dog poop, ect.

 I found this monument at the park.

 Here is one of the wild streams of Hokkaido.  I have not yet found a river or stream that looks like it is doing it's own thing.  They are all like this, planned, straightened, and more.

 Here is one of the ski jumps.  It was the only one I photographed.  The green area at the bottom of the jump is the landing area.  The white part is the jump itself. 

 I found this stream near our apartment.  Bre asked if I was standing in the stream when I took the photo.  It is just a optical illusion, I was too cold to stand in the stream.  It was 1 or 2 degrees C when I was taking the photo.  Not a time to go wading.

 I like the train crossing gate.  It is easy to see.  In the first photo the white SUV looks like it is very close to the train, so I included a second photo so that you can tell there was not a collision.

 These photos are from Odori park as we went to the German Christmas market.  They have set up many Christmas lights in the park.

 This is the Sapporo TV tower.  It is in the center of Odori Park.  It has a giant clock so that it is easy to see the time.  The tower is 147 meters tall and you can pay to take a ride up to the 90 meter observation deck.  It is literally the center of Sapporo.  Most of the addresses in the city are based off their location relative to this tower.  For example we live at 16 North (Kita), 15 West (Nishi).  The numbers are counting the blocks from our apartment to the TV tower.  So it is quite easy to find your way around if you have the address of the place you are going.

 Here is a photo of some of the food for sale at the German Christmas market.  I tried the butter filled pretzel, hot mulled wine, and a sausage/hot dog on sauerkraut.  Having been to an actual German Christmas market in Berlin I would have to say it was slightly different in Japan.  There was a Japanese take on the food.  The portions were smaller, The butter filled pretzel left me feeling very buttery, but the hot wine on a cold night was just the same, tasty!  On a side note for all of you who have never tried hot wine, don't drink it like tea.  If you breathe in while sipping you will want to cough.  I resisted the urge to cough, avoiding a potential hot wine accident.

On the way back from the Chirstmas market we were shown the underground walkway from Odori Park back to JR station.  Walking underground where it is warm when it is cold outside is very nice.  Good thinking Sapporo!

That's all for now,

Kyle (and Bre)