Golden Week (Part 2)

Late on the 31st, Kevin and Wes finally arrived in Aomori! After dinner, we wasted no time getting back home and going to sleep, since we had to take an early morning ferry to Hakodate, Hokkaido.

Ryan and I have already been to Hakodate before, so I'll condense this post into a few highlights from this trip!

Starting with the ever-popular food highlights~

1) Golden ramen: For dinner, we went to a food street called Daimon Yokochou and ate at a teeny (it seated about 6 people around the chef, who had a tiny area to cook the ramen in) restaurant called Ryuou Ramen. Ryan, Kevin, and Wesley had the Ougon Shio (Golden Salt) Ramen, while I ordered the Wonton Ramen (basically the same thing, but with the addition of 4 wontons). Ramen on cold days already tastes amazing, so that, in addition to the rich chicken-y flavor of the broth and the fresh, chewy noodles...yuuuuummmmy~~~!

It tastes even better than it looks!

2.) Squid Fishing: One morning, we woke up early to try our hand at squid fishing! You pay ￥900 to catch a squid yourself and have the lady cut it up live right in front of you. Sounds traumatizing (well, it is, but more so for the poor squid), but it tastes absolutely delicious! It's much better as sashimi after it's freshly caught than it is served in any restaurant. It kinda makes me wonder how long the squid in restaurants have been sitting out for...but that's beside the point! The experience and quality of the squid was definitely worth the price paid.

A horribly blurry picture, but it describes the moment of capture quite well...Kevin was our assigned squid wrangler.
Kevin: "YEAH!! I GOT ONE!!!"

Freshly cut squid.

 Other events included:


1) In Hakodate (and other places, like Aomori) where there are abundant hot springs, there are lots of "ashi-yu" (foot baths) outdoors where you can sit down and take a moment to warm up your body.

The best part: They're totally free! After you get past the initial foot scalding, they feel soooo good. These things are absolute godsends in the winter and early spring, when temperatures are low and the wind is bone-chilling.

The worst parts:

a) You need to muster up enough courage to even take off your shoes in the freezing cold weather...

I missed out on this one because I was wearing long stockings... ; __ ;

b) Sometimes, there are "dud" foot baths. A good way to avoid these is to notice that there is no crowd around the bath. Always test the water before you dive into it. Ryan, Kevin, and Wesley learned this the hard way...

There's a good reason why no one is in this particular foot bath. And it's not because the water is murky...

2) Biking around Lake Onuma: About 45 minutes by train from Hakodate Station, there is a beautiful lake called Lake Onuma. You can rent bicycles (￥1000 for a whole day of bike-riding) and tour the lake and nearby islands. We rode along a 14km bike route around the lake. It was freezing (maybe we should go back when it's warmer...) and tiring, but it was fun exercise. With such a great view while biking, I couldn't complain much.

Lake Onuma

3) Last, but not least, Ryan's birthday happened during our trip!

Sometime during the trip, Kevin asked me (in secret) "So, what're we gonna do for Ryan's birthday?" and, dumbfounded, I replied "I'm not really sure! We'll figure something out..."

His birthday finally rolled around and, after a long day biking at Onuma and chowing down on delicious golden ramen, we still didn't quite have a gameplan. As we were walking back to the hotel, I suddenly noticed a cake shop. Slowing down to meet up with Kevin, we agreed that getting cake was a good idea, and I told him that I was going to try to get away from the group to get some cake.

Shortly after, right before we entered the hotel, I gathered my courage, put my best poker face on, and hoped that all those acting classes in college weren't for naught. The conversation went a bit like this:

Me: *rummaging through my pockets* *nervous face* Shoot...umm...Pumpkin...
Ryan: What...?
Me: I forgot my phone at the ramen place...
Ryan: ................. Honeybunny....how could that have happened?
Me: I don't know.... I put it down on the chair and I guess I forgot it when we left....
Ryan: *turns back around and starts to walk back towards to ramen place*
Me: *holds Pumpkin back* No, no, it's ok, I'll go run back and get it myself. I'll be right back.
Ryan: Well, if you say so...
Me: Sorry!! *runs away in a hurry*

To be honest, I'm not sure how I got that to work, since Ryan can usually see right through me...but I guess the power of love (or perhaps the desire for cake) helped me through that pickle of a situation~

I returned to the cake shop (which happened to be a famous pastry/cheesecake shop in Hokkaido called Pastry Snaffles), bought a strawberry cake/tart, and went back to Kevin and Wesley's room to store it. About 5 minutes later, they came into our room and we all started singing the birthday song, startling a very confused Ryan, who had forgotten that it was his birthday.

Although this stunt made Ryan question my trustworthiness ("You lied straight to my face!" "But...it was for cake!"), it was totally worth it to see the smile on his face while happily munching away on the yummy tart/cake.

In Japan, birthday cakes are almost always topped with a chocolate disc that has a birthday message written on it. Sweet and delicious~!

Lastly, "Honorable Mention" events:

1) Kevin eating an entire mackerel for breakfast.
2) Going to a small park and finding a bald eagle in one of the animal exhibits (Us: What is this blasphemy?!?! YOU CAN'T CAGE FREEDOM LIKE THIS!!!)
3) Kevin and Ryan giving each other a high five while being thankful for short skirts and strong winds
4) The blissful look on Kevin and Wesley's faces after their first onsen experience
5) Learning that, after meals, I've been mistakenly saying "まんぞくでした" ("I'm satisfied.") to the shopkeepers instead of "ごちぞうさまでした" ("Thanks for the meal.") the entire time that I've been in Japan. It's not completely wrong, but it's definitely NOT right. How arrogant I must have sounded... >.<;;;;
6) Getting attacked by a small, yet aggressive bird who wanted my nut-filled energy bar
7) The four of us racing against a JHS kendo team from the ferry terminal to the ferry for first-choice seating on the ferry
8) Huddling together like penguins in the first place spot for at least 10 minutes while waiting in the freezing cold wind to board said ferry

That's all for today! Next time, Golden Week (Part 3): the crew tours Aomori!

Golden Week (Part 1)

Hey everyone!

About a month ago, I traveled up to Aomori and Hokkaido during Golden Week. Golden Week, typically shortened to GW, is one of the longest vacation periods for many Japanese jobs, making it one of the most popular times to travel. If it weren't for all sorts of traveling expenses being exorbitantly high during this period, this week would definitely be "golden", indeed...

Anyways, ALTs usually take this time to travel abroad, go back home, or explore Japan. This period also happened to be the time that Kevin had decided to come to Japan and explore before heading over to Taiwan to visit his family. Since Kevin was coming (along with Wesley, in tow), we decided to tour Aomori Prefecture and the southern part of Hokkaido.

Right after my GRE, I took an overnight bus to Aomori, where I hung out with Ryan for a few days before they arrived. We went to Gappo Park, where Ryan taught me some boxing! It was unexpectedly difficult to find a flat area to practice on, due to the traffic from a nearby hanami festival. I say "hanami", but the flowers bloomed really late this year, so it just looked like people were picnicking under the bare trees.

I take no credit for taking this picture (I have no idea where this was taken), but the "hanami" kinda looked like this! Only with lots of festival stalls! And wayyyy more people.

After finally finding a suitable area, I tried my hand at boxing. It was a lot of fun learning simple techniques from Ryan. First, he taught me jabs and crosses: barefisted, then with gloves. Barefisted, by itself, wasn't very strenuous, but with the addition of gloves, it became a full-fledged arm workout. My noodley arm "muscles" were aching for quite a few days after our workout ended...

Learning and practicing was fun, but holding the boxing pads for Ryan while he was punching was terrifying at first...one wrong move and I'd get hit in the face with the back of my hand with enough force to probably give me a black eye. 0.0;;;

Needless to say, even after learning only the super basics of one martial art, I have a new-found appreciation for martial arts/artists as a whole. It'd be really cool to learn more and exercise that way :]

Another day, we took a day trip to Yunoshima Island (an island off the coast of Asamushi Onsen) and hiked a beautiful trail full of dog-toothed violets.

After our trip, we had yakiniku served by an adorable, helpful little girl, and then went to a foot bath, where a nice lady and her son decided to try chatting with us. Because Ryan looks Japanese, he loses out on the novelty of Japanese people randomly striking up conversations with him based on a gaijin appearance. I guess, since I was there, that opened up the opportunity for the lady to start talking to us and, because of this, he seemed really happy. :] I wasn't able to talk too much, but she was super nice, and even offered us apples to take home.

Not much else happened before Kevin and Wesley came, although Ryan did end up getting his Japanese driver's license! *insert fanfare here* :D Foreigners tend to fail this test multiple times, so I'm really proud that he passed in only 2 tries. :]

That's all for today~! Next post will be about our group trip to Hokkaido!