a visit from the li family

May was a fairly unremarkable month, but on one Saturday, I met up with Anqi's family (minus Anqi), who happened to be in Japan for a few days!

The day started off with a bit of confusion as we planned to meet at the entrance of Hamarikyu Gardens,  where my parents had gone crazy over sakura a month before, but they went to another nearby park instead and so it took us a bit too find each other (I probably should have just gone to their hotel). At any rate, we did manage to meet up and had a quick stroll through the park while making our way to the dock to take a sightseeing boat to Asakusa!

I think it was nice to have a suit after they had been wandering all morning, and for some reason I remember waving to people on the bridges haha. After we got off the boat, we had some ice cream before heading to see the famous temple. Everybody got some names engraved on chopsticks as souvenirs too, which I thought was nice.

We had lunch at a restaurant in the area and then went to Akihabara, because Andi wanted to see the store as big as a football field (Yodobashi Camera), as somebody from the hotel had described it. Unfortunately the store is so full of stuff that it didn't look nearly as big as I think he imagined so I think he was a bit disappointed.

Originally the plan was to see some museums in Ueno or the imperial gardens, but everybody was quite tired (especially Andi, who was carrying a gigantic backpack of camera equipment for his dad that didn't get used) so we ended up going back to their hotel for a rest and some more ice cream.

For dinner I looked up some restaurants nearby and suggested we try yakiniku, but unfortunately the most recommended restaurant was full with reservations at both branches, so we settled on somewhere nearby. I don't think it was as nice as the other (they apparently went back another day and it was amazing) and they had no a English menu which was a bit difficult, but we had Japanese beef and it was very, very tasty. :)

I couldn't see them on Sunday because of a yosakoi event, but I was glad to have been able to see them for their first full day in Tokyo! I hope they had a good time too. :)

parents visit!

Aaand finally I am posting this blog post I wrote at over a month ago! -.-' 

When I told my parents that this would be my last year on JET, their first reaction was, "well I guess we need to visit Japan again then!" And true to their words, they came!

After a quiet night for their arrival, the next morning we got up early to visit Nokogiriyama! It's one of the places I always recommend to people in Chiba, and since this time I actually knew about the prefecture (as opposed to last time when they came only three months after I'd arrived), I was determined to take them somewhere in Chiba and not Tokyo. I noticed this time that it seemed like many of the heads of the statues, which had been knocked off in an anti-Buddhist movement in the past, seemed to have been replaced. Sometimes they looked like the proper heads and sometimes... they didn't haha, so I'm very intrigued as to who/what is behind it all. After a mishap on the way home where a train delay tricked me into leading us off the train and subsequently having to wait another hour in a tiny rural station, we got back to Chiba City and had all-you-can-eat shabushabu!

The next day I had yosakoi practice, in which we held a joint practice with the other big team in the prefecture, Maikagura. It was my first time performing in this year's costume and we only just barely came up with a plan for the stage performance, but in any case it was very fortunate timing that my parents happened to be around, so they could see me dance. I think this may end up being both the first and last time they'll get to see it live, and it's a bit of a shame that it wasn't a real event/the dance hadn't been finalized yet, but my dad happily took tons of pictures and I think they both enjoyed it, so it was well worth it. :)

On Monday we began a quest to find cherry blossoms still in bloom, which as it turns out was my mother's main objective for this trip. First we tried Inokashira Park in Kichijoji, but sadly not only were there no sakura, even the little zoo in the park was closed. After a prolonged and maybe unnecessary coffee break, we attempted another park that the internet told me should still have blossoms until mid-April, to no avail. By that time it was almost dark and so we just had dinner, at a Showa-era themed izakaya. We got to sit in a more unique room than usual and I enjoyed sitting in the bartender seat and drinking beer poured out from tea kettles. Hopefully they enjoyed it too!

The next day we went to Hamarikyu Garden, where I had been before with my old supervisor, which - amazingly - still had lots of sakura! So my parents spent a happy hour or two taking lots and lots of photographs, and we also had some tea in the teahouse there (though it was unfortunately not a proper tea ceremony). After that we went to see a small museum in Shiodome that we had passed on the way to the gardens, before having a nice sushi dinner before my interpreting class. After class I found them in a bar nearby and had a drink before heading back home.

I had thought that seeing lots of cherry blossoms at Hamarikyu would be enough to satisfy my mother's desire to see them, but as it turns out it wasn't, and she insisted that we go to Fukushima to see them, thanks to liberal advertising by JR in every train station we passed. So on Wednesday morning we got up bright and early to take a shinkansen to Fukushima! Our first stop was not far from Fukushima Station, a place called Hanamiyama (flower-viewing mountain), which lived up to its name! First on our walk there we saw fields and fields of yellow flowers, followed by lots and lots of cherry trees as we walked up the mountain trail. There were also things like statues and ponds and overall it was just gorgeous views everywhere! Next we had lunch back at the station (ramen, because I knew they would agree) before taking the train to our next stop, Kasumigajou Park. This also involved climbing up a mountain amidst tons of cherry tea in full bloom, and the view at the top was stunning! Even I had to admit it was worth going all the way to Fukushima to see those two sites. :)

The next day I had work in the morning that I couldn't skip, so my parents chilled at home until I came home for lunch and then we headed to Yokohama! I'd taken my mom there in March last year and decided it was worth taking them both, even though actually it took just as long to get to Yokohama as it did to Fukushima the day before. -.-' Anyway, we had a really nice time exploring the passenger pier (and taking selfies while lying on the deck, passing through the red brick warehouse,  and then eating two bowls of ramen each at the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum. :3

And that was it! The next day I saw them off to the train station and they left for China, leaving me all alone again. :( But next time they come they can come visit me in Kyoto instead, which is a very exciting thought! :)

what's next

So, recently I've gone through and updated a good portion of what I've been up to so far this year, but I haven't really touched on what has actually been most of what I've been focusing on up until recently: job hunting.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, in December this year officially became my last year on JET, which meant that I had to think about what my next step should be, and in the end I decided to look for a new job in Japan, so once New Year's was over I decided to go ahead and start the job hunt, despite having over six months before the end of my contract. I had heard it would be fine to start looking for jobs with only a few months left on my contract (and maybe easier, since companies wouldn't have to wait), but since most companies hire for jobs starting in April I felt that it was best to keep my options open even though I didn't want to break contract.

Before coming on JET I thought that in the future I might like to be a translator, maybe even for movie subtitles or something, but having actually gotten experience, I've learned that I actually prefer interpreting to translating - it's more nerve-wracking and it's easier to make mistakes, but is more exciting and involves working with people. That said, I've also come to realize that (despite paying lots of money for interpreting classes) I don't want to be a full-time professional interpreter, because honestly I think it's a little bit too demanding. On the other hand, thanks to interpreting at various receptions and other events, I became interested in a job dealing with MICE - meetings, incentives, conventions, events/exhibitions. I've always been interested in event planning and I like being behind-the-scenes, so this was just a more specific area to narrow down my job search.

I think most people probably look for jobs by checking listings to see what's available (or at least that's my impression from fellow CIRs looking for jobs), but since I had a pretty specific set of conditions I was looking for, I decided to just focus on those and only look at listings if that didn't lead to anything. So I started by doing research into places I would want to/consider working for, which included places related to MICE, translation/interpreting (keeping options open), and travel/inbound tourism (another area I am interested in). I made a whole spreadsheet of places I found and in the end narrowed it down to 9 companies that seemed the most promising (in terms of location, job description, and whether or not they were actually hiring).

So around February I had officially begun the process, which included making typical application documents in Japanese, hand-writing them (apparently not really necessary nowadays but I decided it 1) couldn't hurt and 2) might leave a good impression/prove that I can read/write Japanese), and mailing them off (after confirming whether or not they were hiring). I also spoke to a Carleton alum who I knew from Tokyo alumni events and took a tour of his company, who was also kind enough to introduce me to some acquaintances of his.

Long story short, I ended up with three job offers after interviews with 7 companies, and now I have a new job for after JET!! The first job offer was from a company that seemed to mostly focus on audio-visual equipment but also planned events, that made me do two interviews and two written tests (part language, math, and personality test) for over 6 hours and also involved going to work every other Saturday, which was not really ideal, but I was offered a job the day after the interview and it was a huge relief to have it as a backup (also they seemed to really want me and even offered to match any better salary offers from other companies). The second was from Kansai International Airport, as a result of the introduction from my Carleton alumni acquaintance - a completely unexpected opportunity (to be an interpreter/assistant to a French executive for the half-French half-Japanese company that took over the airport starting in April) that I very seriously considered taking. The whole process was very different from the rest, in that I first met with the alum's friend in a cafe in Tokyo, then with his colleague (who would have become my boss), then was taken out for a business lunch by the Japanese HR people in Kansai.

In the end though, I chose to work for a very small event planning company with a branch in Kyoto, mainly dealing with organizing academic conferences (with occasional exhibitions/receptions). There are only 29 employees overall and only 16 in Kyoto, and they told me up front that they don't pay overtime (and I will most certainly work overtime), and it's not quite as international as I was envisioning, but they told me outright that they really wanted me because they know that international things are their weakness (I will be their first non-Japanese employee), which makes me feel like I could maybe make a real difference. They're also completely fine with me having no real experience in the field, will pay me what will end up being more than I make now if I include bonuses, and (most importantly) are located in Kyoto, which was my main goal. I also felt like maybe there was some sort of connection with the company, as I emailed to ask if they were hiring just after they had posted job openings on a job hunting website (that I didn't know about), and on a couple of other occasions also emailed them just as they were about to email me. I have only met the two people who interviewed me, but they seemed very chill and friendly so I'm hoping the rest of the company has a similar vibe. They will also not only wait for my contract to end, but let me start after my final exam for interpreting class, which really means that this is an ideal situation where I can get basically everything I had hoped for: a new job in Kyoto, in a field I am interested in, that doesn't require breaking my current contract and allows me to finish the last course I need to graduate from my interpreting school (and go to our big yosakoi festival in June).

So that will be the next stage of my Japan adventure, scheduled to start in August! I am very very excited about it and honestly kind of just want to fast-forward a few months, haha. Job hunting only lasted about three months for me, but it was very stressful and so I am very glad to be done with that, with what appears to be a happy ending/new beginning. Here's looking to the future! :)

okinawa once more

At the end of March, I took my third trip to Okinawa! It was less than a year since I had been there last, but my friends were planning another trip and I couldn't resist joining them, haha. Because I was trying to save as much vacation time as possible (I've run quite low this year), I was the last one to arrive and also the first one to leave...but anyway I had a great time as usual!

I arrived late on Thursday night, when everybody was well into the night and already singing karaoke. Having missed out on most of the fun worked out well for me the next morning though, when we got up early to take the ferry to Zamami Island and everybody else was in a very...fragile state haha. The ferry ride was a couple of hours long and surprisingly choppy, and even I started to feel a bit seasick. But by and by we made it to the shore, so we trooped over to our hostel to check in and had some really tasty burgers there for lunch.

Next we ventured up a winding road to see the view from the top of the island, which was quite pretty even though it was cloudy. Then we wandered all the way back down again to see the beach! We only had one night in Zamami and we figured if we wanted to go into the water this was our only chance, so we did, even though actually it was cloudy pretty chilly outside (for Okinawa). The water was super clear and pretty though, and nice after we warmed up a bit (only to get cold again not too long after).

After the beach we went back to the hostel and showered before heading to a local izakaya, as recommended by our CIR friend who lives on the island. The food was very delicious! Afterwards we bought some drinks at the little shop nearby and went to hang out by the port and chat, until everybody got tired and sleepy and we went back.

The next morning we took a quick walk to the little park by the port, which included a giant whale sculpture, a tsubo foot therapy path, and a gazebo with a nice view of the ocean. And then it was back on the ferry, which was much more enjoyable the second time now that nobody was hungover. A few of us also went up to the top of the deck, where there was a great breeze and sometimes splashes of ocean water, plus a pretty much constant beautiful view.

After getting back to Naha we split into a going-home group and a Shuri Castle group, and even though I had been before I chose to go to the castle. This time we went along a path I hadn't been on before, and got to see some great views of the city from above. Then we went back and rejoined with everybody and went to a Turkish restaurant for dinner. It was very tasty but took a very long time because there was only one chef working to serve a whole (little) restaurant of people, and after dinner we took a walk along Kokusai Street to a bar, then walked back and went to another one nearby that had delicious french fries.

I had to get up early(ish) the next morning to catch my flight, so apparently I missed some more tasty food and good times, but I had managed to swim in the ocean, have Okinawan soba, and see everybody so I think it was a successful trip. :)

sparkles and supper

The next two blog-worthy events of 2016 were going to see takarazuka in Takarazuka City and then attending my first Burns Supper!

I had gone to see takarazuka (all-female musical theater, basically) before with my friend Jane in Tokyo, and this time she helped get us tickets in the home of takarazuka itself, Takarazuka City! I took a night bus to Osaka and met up with our other friend Charlie for a quick breakfast before taking the train to Takarazuka and meeting Jane, dropping off their stuff at their hostel, and heading to the theater! The show was the story of William Shakespeare as he became a writer and grew more famous, followed by the usual musical revue. Just like last time, I thoroughly enjoyed it despite not fully understanding everything. Then after the show we relaxed for a bit in a

cafe before heading into Osaka to meet up with other friends for dinner, drinks, and fun. :3

Then, two weeks later was the Burns supper! Apparently this is a common thing in Scotland, to celebrate the Scottish poet Robert Burns, and the St. Andrew's Society of Tokyo and Yokohama hosts one every year in Tokyo. This year, because the ball that they usually held separately didn't happen, they combined the two into a black-tie Burns supper event! I borrowed my sister's prom dress and brought it back to Japan when I came back after Christmas, because I figured I might as well take the opportunity to dress up. :D The dinner featured an open bar with lots of different types of whisky, an absolutely delicious dinner menu including haggis and lamb, the traditional Address to a Haggis, bagpipes, address to the lasses and reply to the laddies (where both sexes poke fun at each other), and my favorite part of the night - a ceilidh of Scottish country dancing! They didn't do a very thorough job of teaching us the steps, but luckily my date was Scottish and knew all the dances so all I had to do was try and follow along. :3 All in all it was a super fun night and I hope we go again next year!

atami adventures

Whoops, another huge gap in posting. But things have finally calmed down a bit so hopefully I'll be all caught up soon!

So shortly after I returned to Japan, my friend Tomás came to visit on his way back to Thailand! You may recall that he took me all around Thailand last Golden Week, so this time it was my turn to return the favor. We didn't go all over, but we did go to Atami, a place famous for hot springs that neither of us had every been to before.

We set off Saturday morning on a short shinkansen trip (per Tomas's request) and arrived at Atami Station, where one of the first things we saw was a foot bath right outside the station! We didn't use it but saw lots of people enjoying it and little vending machines with commemorative towels. Then, as it was lunchtime, we wandered around the shopping streets looking for a place to eat before deciding on a place with fresh seafood. To be honest I think I have had better but Tomás seemed to enjoy his a lot so that's what mattered, haha.

After lunch we continued wandering and went along the beach, where we found a (supposedly) famous statue that Tomás actually knew from a game he played! We saw lots of early cherry blossoms and also visited a shrine nearby (Kinomiya Shrine), which had some very old and big and impressive trees before visiting the Atami Plum Garden, which was having a festival. Unfortunately we got there just before closing and there wasn't much there in terms of festivities, but there was a cool little waterfall and cave as well as a few plum trees in bloom.

Then we walked up some windy roads to our hotel, which was kind of in the middle of nowhere but had some pretty nice baths. There I discovered that I somehow had forgotten to make sure I had enough cash to pay for the hotel, and they didn't accept credit cards. D: They were kind enough to accept payment on check-out instead though, so we averted a crisis. Then we took s bus back down into town and wandered around before finding a ramen restaurant for dinner, which was delicious, and then returned to the hotel for a soak in the bath and some drinks before going to bed early.

The next day we got a bus pass and went around the Itou Peninsula. First stop:  the Jogasaki coast and bridge, which was probably my favorite part of the trip! The weather was very nice and the trail was beautiful, with stunning views of rocky coasts and ocean everywhere.

Next we went to the Izu Cactus Park, to see capybaras soaking in hot springs! Well it was probably more just like a bath, but anyway they were happily soaking (and pooping?!) in it, along with some citrus fruits. Very cute. :3 There were a lot more animals and exhibits (and cacti), but the capybaras were definitely the highlight.

Our next stop was Mt. Omuro, an extinct volcano covered in grass that reminded me of Stone Mountain back home somehow (maybe just its very round shape). We took a chairlift up and took a walk around the rim of the crater, which had a spectacular view of Mt. Fuji. You could do archery inside the old crater, but we didn't try.

Our final stop of the day was Lake Ippekiko, which frankly wasn't really worth stopping for in the end, but we took a short walk before heading back to wait for the next bus before it got too dark. And then we had dinner at a cute little restaurant and ice cream before heading back to our hotel.

Our last morning in Atami was spent at the Museum of Art, before having a final sushi lunch and heading back to Yokohama! I took Tomás around to all my standard spots, including the passenger terminal, red brick warehouse, and Cup Noodle Museum, which I think he enjoyed. Then we went back to Chiba and had yakiniju to celebrate his birthday!

And that was the end of his trip, since he was going back to Thailand the next day for a conference. It was a short few days, but lots of fun and a great first trip of the new year! :)

wrapping up 2015, starting off 2016

Well it's been a while, again (sorry parents), but I've finally dug out some time today to try and catch up on blog posts and Facebook photo uploads. This first one will be a bit short, just to catch up on the rest of 2015 and beginning of 2016.

After Kanazawa I:
 - went bowling with the General Affairs Bureau, which was surprisingly fun (I even bowled several strikes!). Our team won a prize for having the lowest total score out of all of them, hahaha. -.-'
 - attended a block event in Narita and Chiba AJET's traditional Thanksgiving dinner, which as usual involved lots of turkey and pumpkin pie from Costco :3
 - went to the CIR mid-year conference, which was probably the most fun one yet, involving a LINE chat that was most active during boring seminars, the traditional meetup at Irish Pub Always on the first night, and lots of good times in general
 - went to Kuroshio Yosakoi, the last yosakoi event of the year
 - helped welcome 100 barangay captains from our sister city in the Philippines
 - finalized that this will be my fourth and final year on JET, which is bittersweet and exciting and scary at the same time. 

And then I went home for Christmas! Since this is my Japan blog I won't go into too many details, but my family and the two other families that were my parents' good friends in grad school (who I basically consider my extended family in the US) all gathered together for Christmas for the first time in apparently over a decade! We rented a little cabin in the mountains of north Georgia a few days before Christmas (with things like a jukebox and a hot tub!) and generally had a wonderful time, including rewatching all three Lord of the Rings movies. :3 The rest of my time was spent eating far too much of my mom's cooking and generally doing nothing at home, which was fabulous.

Then it was time to go back to Japan, which was a bit of an ordeal that turned out all right in the end. I had originally booked flights that would get me back in Japan the day before New Year's Eve, so I could spend it with friends and have some time to adjust to jetlag before work started on the 4th. I had booked with United instead of my usual Delta for cheaper tickets/slightly better travel times, which was fine on the way over.

But then on the day I was supposed to leave, snow in the midwest led to delay in my first flight, which made it impossible for me to transfer to the next flight, so I had to call and reschedule for the next day (luckily we had checked before leaving for the airport). Except that my friend had been planning to stay at my apartment that night after I arrived. :/ But anyway, I booked a new flight for very early the next morning.

And then woke up and found out that flight had been completely cancelled (presumable due to bad weather). D: We decided to go the airport anyway to talk to agents directly about rescheduling (I tried calling on the way there but couldn't connect even after waiting for like half an hour), and after a long, tense wait in line.....the United agent hooked me up with two Delta flights to take instead! Which meant that I got miles, and because I was Silver Medallion last year I even got upgraded to business class - on both flights!! So I got to enjoy free breakfast on a short domestic flight, followed by the most comfortable trans-Pacific flight I've ever had, with a seat that reclined, super cushy blankets and pillows, and lots of tasty food. So all's well that ends well. :)

I got back on the afternoon of New Year's Eve, and a couple of hours later went to go pick up my (very drunk from having spent all day drinking cheap wine in a chain restaurant) friends from the station and brought them back to my apartment! The rest of the new year's adventures (not all in one day) involved watching Japanese NYE TV, (starting and) finishing up a bottle of vodka somebody had given me forever ago, mixing hot chocolate and whisky, playing Set and Bananagrams, and going to Mcdonalds for our first meal of the year. Good times all around. :D

kanazawa take 2

Okay, so I'm slowly catching up on posting about events of the past few months! As I mentioned in an early post, October was pretty busy after my business trip, with going back home for my friend Nicky's wedding (which was so so great as a mini-reunion with my Carleton friends, who I hadn't seen since graduation, but I won't go into too much detail here) and our big yosakoi festival, Chiba Yosakoi right after (which ended without any judging because crazy wind almost destroyed the event venue the night before the second day...O_O).

And then at the beginning of November my friends and I took a trip to Kanazawa/Ishikawa! My family and I went shortly after I first came to Japan, so I was interested to see how my impressions might change after living in Japan for three years instead of just three months.

I took a night bus there and arrived bright and early on Halloween morning, where I met up with my friend from Shizuoka to take the train to our friend's station in Tsubatacho, where we met up with everybody and had Mcdonald's breakfast while waiting for our last friend to arrive. Then we hopped on the train to Nanao, a city on the Japan Sea coast with a fish market that one friend wanted to visit and castle ruins for another. The market had lots of fresh fish but also restaurants, so we had lunch there first while admiring the view from the restaurant. As expected of a place right by the sea, the seafood was delicious (and the miso soup came out in a gigantic bowl)!

Then we took a bus to the ruins of a castle on the list of Japan's 100 castles (one of my friends' projects is to visit as many of them as she can), though as it turns out we greatly underestimated the time/effort it would take to get there, as it was 2 kilometers up a mountain with muddy trails, haha. We also didn't have much time to go up as the last bus back from where we were was at like 4:30, so after panting and hurrying up a trail (none of us in appropriate footwear), we only spent about 10-15 minutes at the top. But the view was absolutely gorgeous, and totally worth it!

After managing to catch the last bus, we headed to an onsen (apparently the 11st best in Japan?) and soaked for a bit before finally heading back to my friend's place for the night, where we had some drinks and chats and also for some reason started playing Hatoful Boyfriend, which is a dating game involving pigeons...?? Also since it was Halloween I had on my Pooh bear onesie and my friend also had on his (not Pooh bear) onesie, with various Halloweeny headgear as well. Good times.

The next morning we slept in and then had a (mostly) traditional Scottish breakfast! My friend had brought haggis/black pudding/bacon from Scotland and I provided dried hash browns, so after a grocery run we all cooked together a mess of scrambled eggs (with and without haggis), haggis, black pudding, sausages, bacon, and hash browns. I was a bit skeptical as to whether or not I would like haggis and black pudding, but they were both very tasty!

Then we got on a train and went into Kanazawa proper, to see all the touristy stuff. First we went to the Kanazawa Castle Park, which I hadn't been to, then Kenrokuen, the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art (where I finally got to see the pool exhibit that was closed last time we went). After some wandering, we then decided to get curry, at a store that would give people free curry if they managed to eat like 2 pounds of it in 30 minutes. Or something ridiculous like that - needless to say none of us did, but anyway it was tasty. And then we went to a local bathhouse before it was back to my friend's and more revelry in the form of a Pokemon drinking game where somehow everybody except me managed to skip half the board...

The next day we slept in (again) and maybe went to the bathhouse again? before making a very late start to tour the "ninja" temple (that I had been to before), wander around Kanazawa, have curry (of a different kind) again, stop by an Irish pub, and then hang out at an izakaya until the wee hours. On our final morning, we went to the Shinrin Park, apparently the largest forest park in mainland Japan. We had a very nice lunch and walked around outside, saw the most depressing free zoo ever, and then headed back to go on our respective ways. It was really nice to be out in (semi) nature, especially because Ishikawa has some really beautiful clouds.

All in all, it was a really fun trip and I'm definitely glad I went! Yet another successful CIRHP meetup. :)

quezon city

Well, as expected, October went by in a flash! Right off the bat was my business trip to Quezon City, Chiba City's sister city in the Philippines. The occasion was to celebrate the 75th founding anniversary of the city, as it had been over 20 years since a mayor of Chiba City had visited, to visit some places and learn about those studying to be nursing care workers (a very relevant issue for Japan), and also to encourage them to come to Chiba City in two years for our 45th sister-city anniversary.

I went as an interpreter, the only female and the youngest in an official delegation that included the mayor, the assembly chairperson, other city assembly members, and several division chiefs, and my boss/coworker. I think my coworker was pretty glad to have me along as somebody else who was just a (lowly) staff member without any particular titles or anything, since we could help each other prepare each night and also complain to each other, haha.

The trip was four days and three nights overall, and the first day was just traveling. After an early flight we arrived in the afternoon, took a bus to our hotel, had a meeting with the staff members from Quezon City Hall,  had dinner together at the hotel, and went to bed.

The next day we got up (very very) early to attend the flag-raising ceremony at City Hall, which apparently happens at 7AM every Monday morning, with all of the employees. This morning there were also Boy Scouts, teachers, and city council members, so it was quite a crowd that greeted us as the two mayors "walked the line" of policemen before coming to the stage. I definitely think this was the biggest crowd of people I've ever interpreted in front of (thank goodness the speech was scripted and the mayor stuck to it), and it was definitely pretty cool to be there.

Then we went in for a long meeting in which I did very little (there was a professional interpreter) and we had breakfast and listened to presentations about Chiba City and its sewerage system (something they asked to learn about). Next we got on a bus and went to see a housing project supported by the city and the Quezon Memorial (dedicated to the first president of the Philippines), had lunch at the former villa of the president, and then we went to observe the City Council. Apparently the day we went was one where they usually hold proceedings in Tagalog, but because we were there they voted to change to English, which was very nice, and also for some reason they gave us fried chicken? (I appreciated this later though when I didn't get to eat any of the delicious-looking food at the reception.)



After that we went back to the hotel to freshen up before the welcome reception hosted by Quezon City. There was a bit of a wait involved as the mayor of Quezon City got stuck in traffic, but overall it was a very nice reception, with a live band in the background, videos about Quezon City, and performances of traditional dance by high-schoolers. I was interpreting for the two mayors all through dinner so I didn't get to eat, but at the end of the night when our mayor threw out his prepared speech and just talked of the cuff I totally nailed the interpreting, which felt pretty great. Afterward I helped my coworker prep for the next day and then finally went to bed.

Day three in the Philippines also started bright and early. Our first stop was a Japanese language school, where we heard about students who hope to work in Japan and also observed a class for a bit. Then we went to the Japanese Embassy, where all but a few of us waited while the mayor and other VIPs met with (presumably) the ambassador, then we all listened to a presentation about encouraging nursing care workers and the like to come to Japan. We had a bento lunch on the bus before going to a school that trains nursing care workers, where we listened to some presentations and also sat in on a class.

Finally, we went back to our hotel, which was also where we would be holding our return reception. Which ended up being an utter disaster in many ways, which for the sake of my city and myself I won't elaborate on here. Definitely not the best night.  But after it was all over I helped my coworker write notes about our meeting time for the next day and do some other prep and I think being able to commiserate helped me feel at least a little better before going to bed.

The next day was just stopping at a mall to do some souvenir shopping before going to the airport, so I bought some things and tried Jollibee, a fried chicken fast food chain I had kept seeing from the bus. The staff from Quezon City actually treated me and my coworker, which was very kind of them. Then we went to the airport and got to spend the wait time in a fancy VIP lounge, which I've never done before. And then it was back on the plane and back to Japan!

So the return reception on our last full day kind of spoiled the memory of everything that went well before it, but overall I think my first overseas business trip went off all right. I'm definitely grateful to even have had an overseas business trip, as well as the chance to visit a new country and one of our sister cities. That's one down, four more to go!

year four?!

As expected, it has been a while since my last post. Things have been a little quieter, especially now that it's September, but they will go straight back to full speed in October: my first (and last?) ever overseas business trip (!), yet another wedding (even in Pittsburgh again, no less), and then our own big yosakoi festival in Chiba.

But anyway, back to what I've been doing since my last blog post. I feel like I haven't done as much as in the past, but what I have done has been pretty interesting/cool!

- I got to accompany the youth exchange students from Montreux and North Vancouver on two separate occasions, which is cool because 1) they were here at the same time, which usually doesn't happen and 2) since the program is run by the international association, I usually don't get to do anything with them other than interpreting for their courtesy visits to the mayor. This time though, since they overlapped and altogether made for a sizeable group, I got to go with them to the science museum/planetarium, lunch, Japanese garden, and a dinosaur exhibit (not all in one day)!

 - I also met and interpreted for the Irish ambassador to Japan. She was quite nice and friendly and didn't bring her own interpreter like ambassadors usually do, which means I did interpreting for both sides. But the content was actually much simpler than what we had been covering in interpreting class so I felt pretty good about it, haha.

 - Then I spent a day judging at a speech contest/presentation day for high-schoolers. I only judged the English speeches (not the Japanese ones) and may or may not have fallen asleep during one of the presentations (I wasn't a judge or anything though). I was impressed by the overall level of English, but it was the national level of the tournament so I guess that makes sense!

- August is the peak of yosakoi season, so there was only one weekend that I didn't spend dancing. The last one was the Nippon Domannaka Matsuri in Nagoya (the one where we made it to the finals last year), and while we didn't make it to the finals, we did make it to the semi-finals! Also a whole bunch (5 over the course of two days) of my friends from the CIRHP agreed to volunteer as staff, which was pretty awesome. I think they had a good time and I think having a group of Japanese-speaking non-Japanese volunteers around was good for the team, haha. (Fulfilling the goals of the international committee, yeahh)

 - And then - this is the highlight of my summer so far - I got to meet the US Ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy! I received an official invitation from CLAIR to accompany a CLAIR official to his courtesy visit to the ambassador, as a representative of current JET Programme participants. Altogether they picked one ALT, one CIR, and two alums, so I felt pretty special. It was also very cool to go into the embassy and be on the visiting side of a courtesy call (for the second time ever). I was tickled to see the US seal on the coffee cups and napkins. But more importantly, it was an honor to be able to meet and introduce myself to Ambassador Kennedy, and she even asked me a couple questions about what I liked most about my job/my plans for the future (-.-'). Definitely yet another example of the amazing opportunities JET has given me.

 - And just this weekend I went on the monorail beer train with my old supervisor and some of my coworkers! I had been on the wine train before but they didn't seem to be doing the beer train - until this year, where I noticed just a few days before the application period ended. And in fact I didn't make the lottery the first time, but we were able to go because somebody cancelled last-minute! Apparently 6 times as many people applied as got in, which makes it even more amazing. Basically we got to spend two hours on a private monorail car, eating delicious bento lunch and drinking lots of beer (and cider and sangria). I was really amused because everybody was quite boisterous and drunk, which was definitely not what it was like on the wine train. At any rate, it was a good time, and I even won some goods in the lottery!

As I mentioned earlier, September is going to be my one quiet month for a while, because we don't have many yosakoi events and it's also the break in between interpreting classes. I actually wasn't planning to continue after finishing my last class (level 4, the last of the consecutive interpreting classes), because it takes a lot of time/money and I don't really plan on becoming a professional interpreter, so I didn't see the point in continuing to simultaneous interpreting, even if I got permission to move on. But then I got permission to move on, and after lots of thinking, I decided that this was an opportunity that I should just take while I can, since it can't hurt (anything but my wallet) and will surely help both my Japanese and hopefully my future career prospects. To be honest I wasn't even sure I could pay for it this time around but I remembered that I have a US credit card, and that the exchange rate would actually work in my favor for once! So I feel like I have managed to get a good deal despite having to dip into my American savings, especially considering how much the exchange rate cost me the last time I sent money to the US. I am excited to try simultaneous interpreting (though it will be hard), and even though I will have to skip two classes almost immediately after it starts.

For the moment though, I am enjoying my month of having relatively little to do and have actually been fairly productive in terms of things around the house or things I have just never had the time to get around to. I'm sure by the end of the month I'll be ready for some excitement again though, and luckily my business trip will be the first weekend of October! Until then, I plan to be as lazy as I can and give myself a chance to recuperate from the busyness of the first half of the year. :)

update dump (end of year three)

Oohh boy. It's been over three months since my last update and there has been so much going on, I could write for hours and only just barely catch up. (Does anybody even read this anymore?)

I don't think I'll be able to do everything justice, especially so long after everything has happened, so this will have to be a big summary info dump, and then maybe I'll get back to updating regularly, though things should be much quieter/less exciting in my life after this month (... is what I've said to myself every month since May -.-').

Anyway, since my last post I have:

- Visited my GHP friend Tomas in Thailand for Golden Week! I wanted to go to Thailand and he has been doing a research Fulbright there for the past year and was kind enough to take me all around (Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and Khon Kaen) and interpret for me for almost a week! I saw so many beautiful temples, ate so much delicious food, took a million different types of public transportation (including an overnight train!), and rode an elephant! A fantastic trip.

- Done some cool things at work like interpreting for the daughter of Peter Drucker (the "father of modern management") as her parents' at collection was on exhibit at the Chiba City Museum of Art and also helping interview candidates for the new basic interpreting course run by the city.

- Met up with three different friends/acquaintances from college and also some other alums/current students who were here on an of-campus program. It's always really nice to keep up the Carleton collection and there's always such great intellectual conversation, haha. Sometimes I miss being surrounded by nerds. :)

- Participated in the Yosakoi Soran Festival in Hokkaido for the second time, except this time as the head of a committee and therefore the leader of a fairly large group as we went from venue to venue over the course of the weekend. Actually it was super stressful and we didn't place, like we hoped we might, but it was still fun and a good experience overall. Best parts: two of my friends in Sapporo volunteering as staff for us and seeing the finals live from quite close.

- Officially ending my terms as Chiba AJET President, National AJET CIR Representative/Project Manager, Chiba-kun Ambassador, Chiba block coordinator, and API AJET block representative. I'm still the head of the international committee for my yosakoi team and taking interpreting classes, but finally having less responsibility and the pressure to be constantly doing something productive is feeling pretty nice. I'll be taking it easy this year and trying to plan more for the post-JET future.

- Gone home for the wedding of our dear family friend Faye (the first of two weddings I'll be going back for this year). It was a very short trip (just a few days for the wedding since I am actually running low on vacation days for once) but full of family and friends and love and I enjoyed every single minute of it.  <3


- Taken my friend Michael around Chiba and Tokyo as he visited Japan for the first time on his way to Australia! We've been talking about him visiting ever since I came and now he finally has, and it was super fun. He actually came back on the same flight from the US as me and we managed to get seats beside each other, yayy. We spent five days walking all over Tokyo (over 20 miles one day!) and just seeing the sights, eating all sorts of Japanese food, and generally having a good time. Next it'll be my turn to go to Australia, maybe.  :)

- Spent every weekend so far in July at a CIRHP meetup! The CIRHP is an online forum for CIRs where I spend far too much time and have made many of my good friends in Japan, and this year we've started actually hanging out in person too. So the first weekend I had (delicious deep dish) pizza with people in Kanto, last weekend I went to Ehime Prefecture for castles and mikans, and I just came back from an epic trip to Okinawa that involved renting a little house by the beach, Cards Against Humanity, and lots of good conversation and just chilling out (also cats).

So the end of my third year on JET has been pretty action-packed so far, which is all I can really all for, anyway. It's weird to think that after this I still have a whole year left before things might change, but I have high hopes for what's to come. :)

ramen and long lines for food & alcohol (a summary of my mother's trip to japan)

As the title suggests, last month my mother came to visit me in Japan! She stopped by for almost a week on her way back from a college reunion, in which we spent hours waiting in lines for food/alcohol and probably ate more ramen than I usually eat in six months, haha. <3

She came in on Thursday evening but still offered to cook us dinner (so of course I accepted, haha), and on Friday, we got up early-ish to head to the Tsukiji Fish Market! I'd never been and thought maybe she would like it, and it seems like she did! After wandering around and trying not to get in the way amongst giant crabs and tuna heads and all sorts of other marine delicacies, she insisted that we find the longest line to stand and wait in for lunch, with the logic that longest line = most delicious (even though I warned her that sometimes in Japan people just get in lines without knowing what they're for). Luckily, the logic was sound this time and the lunch we had was absolutely delicious!

Next we headed over to Yokohama, to wander by the Red Brick Warehouse and the pier, which are pretty much the only places I ever go in Yokohama but I always enjoy it anyway because it's so pretty. On the pier we saw what we thought was one lone tree blooming with sakura, but when we approached and tried to take pictures it turns out it was fake and they were shooting some sort of drama around it (no pictures allowed). I wonder who it was... Anyway, after that we went to our actual destination, the Yokohama Ramen Museum! (Not to be confused with the Cup Noodle Museum.) Because I know my mom loves ramen, and basically all there is to do there is eat ramen (it's more ramen shop than actual museum). But it was also decorated in this great Showa-style way (we came in through a part that was decorated like a bathhouse and I thought we were lost), which was a nice atmosphere. And they have smaller bowls of ramen so you can taste a few if you want (though we only had one little bowl each).

The next morning we got up bright and early to take the shinkansen to Niigata! My friend who lives there was performing in a musical, on a weekend that also had a huge sake festival, and since I wanted to go I essentially just dragged my mom along with me, haha. So we boarded my first ever two-story shinkansen (!) and wandered around a little after dropping of our luggage. Then we headed to the sake festival, but upon seeing the line (which we could see from across the bridge) we decided to go have lunch (ramen again) for sustenance first. And then we waited in line for over an hour before entering the craziness that was Niigata's Sake no Jin! Tickets were 2000 yen and with it we each got a little sake cup, with which we could then taste as many types of sake we wanted, in a giant room full of sake brewers. We decided to try drinking every sake that had 雪 in its name (since it's in my name), and then some. We also ended up meeting with the friend I came to see, a friend who's sake lover group was selling their original sake (Connect! Which my mother decided was the best she had tasted and came back to buy later), two National AJET friends, and another friend who I volunteered in Okinawa with two years ago. :D And then we had dinner with my friend and some of his friends, before going back to our hotel early and just going to bed.

Day 2 in Niigata was spent wandering around for a bit and having a seafood lunch before video chatting with my dad for a few minutes before seeing my friend's musical, The Frog Prince, by Niigata AJET. It was an original musical (apparently written by the cast of last year's musical) about a princess who wanted to be a pop star and a prince who thought he was a frog, and it was really entertaining! I was very impressed by the guy playing the prince, who had to hop around stage for like two hours. After the musical we visited a nearby temple and then took a walk/train ride to wait in line for another hour or so for the ramen place where my friend said he had the best ramen ever. Yes, ramen again, but I'd say it was worth it! Apparently on weekends they do thick noodles and on weekdays thin ones, so I'm glad we went on a weekend because thick noodles are my favorite and it was really delicious!

Our final day in the prefecture was spent visiting Yahiko Shrine, a little shrine way up top of a mountain, which we took a cable car up to. After admiring the nature and buying some sweets, we headed to Tsubame to catch the shinkansen, but not before spending an hour or so shopping at an industrial goods center (apparently what the place is famous for). My mom finally bought a Japanese knife, and we had a very tasty semi-fancy lunch made of local ingredients before finally taking the shinkansen and train back to Chiba.

On Tuesday I went back to work and my mom spent the day packing and making me lots of delicious food, for both lunch and dinner and to freeze for the future. <3 And then on Wednesday it was time for her to go back to the US! She wanted to try Japanese tea ceremony so we dragged her giant suitcase (no big lockers available at the station) all the way to the Japanese garden in Makuhari, but the teahouse was being rented out for the day so no tea for us. :( After that we just went to the airport and had ramen one final time and did some shopping before it was time for her to leave.

And then she left. Sigh. But it was a great trip and I was really happy to spend almost a week together! Hoping she and the rest of my family will make it back here at least one more time before I leave. :)

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. :)