katsuura hina matsuri

So recently I made my way back to Katsuura, where part of our third Chiba-kun Ambassadors tour took place, for their hina matsuri, or doll festival! Hina matsuri is actually something that is celebrated all over Japan and is also called Girl's Day (it's on March 3). Apparently the dolls represent the emperor, empress, court musicians, and attendants in Heian-era clothing, and I think it's traditional to buy a set of dolls for girls to display in their houses.

Anyway, I'm not sure how famous the hina matsuri in Katsuura is, but I think it definitely deserves attention, because there are so many dolls everywhere! When we started walking to the main areas, suddenly we noticed little displays of dolls in bamboo pipes all around the streets. I tried to see what they were made of and it looked like some were made of plastic while others were wood and maybe a few of porcelain? I thought it was cool that they weren't all girls/women (which is what I was expecting) - there were a lot of little old men, too.


Our first stop was actually to eat tantan-men (a type of spicy noodle which I think is from China), because Katsuura's tantan-men is actually famous as a "B-grade gourmet" food - food that isn't expensive but is very tasty. And it was! I was very happy with my bowl, which I ordered with menma (bamboo shoots) as a topping.

The rest of the day was spent just wandering around and looking at ask the dolls, which were in almost every store and along the streets, but also in giant displays with probably hundreds of dolls in each one. The biggest one was at a temple w

here dolls filled a whole staircase, which was pretty impressive to look at. Somebody told us that all the dolls have souls and so they take care to put them all away if it rains, which must be a big undertaking.

All in all it was a pretty neat thing to see, so I'm glad that I went! I still didn't make it to the places I missed on the Chiba-kun Ambassadors tour though - maybe next time!

last official chiba-kun ambassadors event: second opinion exchange

Earlier this week was our last official event of the year for the Chiba-kun Ambassadors, and my last event ever. That's right, after two years and much deliberation, I've decided not to apply for the program again next year. The main reason is so that I can have more time to focus on myself and the future (I'll also be quitting my National AJET, API AJET, and block coordinator roles), but I'm very glad to have been chosen as an ambassador for these part two years, because it's been a lot of fun and I've learned a lot about Chiba Prefecture, which was my original motivation for applying.

Anyway, so on a Monday we had our second opinion exchange, which was a chance for us to present to various tourism related organizations about our recommendations for attracting tourists from our home countries, for them to ask us questions, and also an awards ceremony.

Unlike last year, this time we had a morning rehearsal and opinion exchanges with people from Narita Airport, which I was late to and almost missed because I thought it just started in the afternoon. Fail. Anyway, after going into work and asking to leave an hour later, I made it just after the opinion exchange began and all was well.

For lunch, we had bentos at a place called Plaza Nanohana, right by the prefectural office. Apparently it's just (re?)opened as a hotel, which also offers meals. The bento was entirely made of local products, as part of a "local production for local consumption" initiative, which I thought was pretty cool, and it was of course very tasty!

And then in the afternoon it was time for us to present. The America group chose to recommend Nokogiriyama, as a place we thought Americans would like for being close to Tokyo, with cultural aspects such as the largest stone Buddha in Japan and also hiking and great views. We also cautioned then about the accuracy of the English in their advertising, since we figured we might as well take the opportunity to say how we felt about it honestly. And apparently they liked it, because as a result of voting from both the attendees and ambassadors, our group won an award for Best Presentation! It was unexpected and great to win, but the best part was that for a prize, we each got giant Chiba-kun plushies! So now I have a big one and a little one, just like I have a big and a little ぴーにゃっつ plushie. :)

After the opinion exchange was over, we had a dinner together to celebrate, at a place called Bellini that I've been to before. It was very yummy and fun, though maybe a little bittersweet since I am still s little sad not to be doing another year. But it's time to move on to other things, so I'm glad to have ended our last event with good memories of the day. :)

snow and ice and more snow: sapporo snow festival

A couple of weeks ago I finally managed to do something I've been wanting to do since I came to Japan: go to the Sapporo Yuki Matsuri (Snow Festival) in Hokkaido! I first learned about it during my first year and every year I said I'd go, but you have to book hotels so far in advance that I never managed to do it in time. But this year, since I thought it might be my last year, I decided I absolutely had to go and it was awesome! :D

I left on Friday and after my flight and a bus ride that was much longer than I expected, I finally arrived in Sapporo! I checked into my hotel, which happened to be my first ever capsule hotel, which also had a really nice spa, and while I admit I was a little bit disappointed to not have a capsule that was on top of another, it was a very cozy space with its own little TV inside so I was pretty happy with it. :)

My next excursion was to find a ramen place, while also checking out the ice sculptures at the Susukino venue of the snow festival, which was just one street down from my hotel. After much wandering I finally found ramen-doori (ramen street), which was a very little alley crammed with ramen shops, and had a delicious bowl of miso ramen, which I think Sapporo is famous for.

And then I went to look at the ice sculptures, which were very pretty and delicate and filled me with the sudden urge to smash them (I didn't). I was a little surprised at how many were commercial (i.e. giant sculptures of Suntory whiskey bottles, a boat race sculpture, Kirin/Sapporo beer mugs), but there were also cool things like sculptures that had real fish frozen in them and a little bar (like for drinks) built entirely with blocks of ice.

And then I decided that while I was at it (since it was still pretty early in the evening), I might as well just go see the main venue with all the snow sculptures. It was at the same place where we performed for the Yosakoi Soran Festival in June (and actually so was the area around my hotel) so it was weird to see everything again covered with snow and almost recognize it (after this trip I feel like I have a decent grasp of those areas of Sapporo, which I'm sure will come in handy when we come again this year).

Anyway, the snow sculptures were really cool! I started out right by the main piece, a giant Star Wars sculpture to celebrate the new movie. I'm not a Star Wars fan so I admit I probably didn't appreciate it as much as others, but right when I got there it was lit up with colored lights and they were playing music from the soundtrack, which was pretty cool. And then when I went to the next sculpture, which had something to do with an Alice in Wonderland movie (?), there was a mini musical performance around/on top of it, with crazy costumes and an orchestra and a projection of live sand art!

In addition to the main giant sculptures (I remember looking at one from behind and being amazed at
just how much snow it was made of), there was also a sculpture contest involving different countries (most were still working on them when I went) and lots of smaller sculptures by the citizens of Sapporo. Including one built by Hokkaido AJET, featuring National AJET's major character, Tsuru-chan! :D

And then I just went home and enjoyed the outdoor bath and strawberry bath and jacuzzi baths and the other fun stuff at my soda capsule hotel and called it a night. :)

The next day I went to Otaru, a nearby town that was having a light festival at the same time. I spent the day wandering around the touristy areas filled with little shops, watched some more glass-making (Otaru is famous for its glassware), ate a delicious seafood donburi, and found a temple looking over the city that was completely free of people. It was beautiful and serene and reminded me that moments like that are some of the best things as about traveling alone.

In the afternoon I took a free tour of the Otaru beer brewery (you'll see that this was kind of a theme during my trip) and tried some smoked beer while waiting for it to get dark. When it finally did, I went to see the main attraction of the festival: lights along the canal! There were lighted floats in the water and little candles set along sculptures by the road, and although it still wasn't that dark, it was really beautiful. There was another main venue a few streets down, which included a miniature maze of sorts, which I enjoyed a lot.

And then I rushed back to Sapporo for a dinner with AJET blocks 1 and 6 at one of the famous beer halls! It was all-you-can-eat genghis khan (a dish that is pretty much yakiniku with lamb meat) and all-you-can-drink, and there were over 100 people there! I was a little worried because I thought I would only know a couple of people there, but as it turns out a quarter of the AJET National Council and some other people I knew were there too, plus I met some new people, so it was actually pretty fun! The rest of the night involved more shenanigans with council people and some dancing. :)

Despite a slight hangover, the next day I got up early to meet some friends from Chiba to take a tour of the Sapporo beer factory! Unfortunately since it was Sunday none of the machines were running, but the tour was free and included a beer tasting and some tasty cheese and snacks! After lunch with everyone I left to meet up with some CIR friends from the forums - actually some of them I had never met in person before but felt like I knew already from all our interactions online, haha. We had a long and fun 女子会 of talking and pancakes, and then I met up with some friends again to try and find a soup curry restaurant, on my friend's recommendation.

I was curious as to whether soup curry would be any different than just watered down normal curry, but it was different and delicious! Exactly what we needed after wandering around in the cold rain (it was warm enough to rain, which had an unfortunate effect on many of the snow and ice sculptures, especially the ones with real fish in them). And then in our quest for dessert, we happened across a place where you could pick different kind of liqueurs to put on top of vanilla ice cream. Since there were five of us and we could pick two each, we got to try 11 flavors (they gave us one extra for free) and it was amazingg. :D

The next day was my last in Sapporo, so I decided to first go to the last venue I hadn't been to before, the Tsudomu venue. When I got there it was full of elementary school students with their teachers, because this place had snow slides and play areas, which I decided not to line up for, but also a little zipline, which I did try! It was short but fun and also ask of the volunteers were cute young men so I was glad I tried it, haha. After that I went to the Sapporo Beer Museum (which we had danced in front of during the yosakoi festival), which was not the same as the factory and focused more on the history than production. Also there was not a free tasting, though I decided to try another type they didn't have at the factory anyway. I then had lunch at another beer garden nearby, only instead of the typical genghis khan instead I had a crab doria, completing my list of typical Hokkaido/Sapporo foods to eat.

I still had a couple of hours until my flight, so I decided to visit the Ainu Center, because one of my fellow linguistics majors had been very interested in the Ainu language and it's also interesting to learn about different peoples in Japan, which seems like such a homogenous country. The center was very small and mostly empty, but there were some exhibits of traditional clothing and artwork, which were cool.

I still had some extra time, so then I stopped by the red brick prefectural office (which was yet another place we had performed in June), to look through even more exhibits.

And then it was time to say goodbye to Sapporo! My flight on the way back was delayed for an hour so I didn't get back home until almost midnight, but I felt very satisfied with my trip and glad to be home again. :)