1st Ski Trip

So yesterday I had my first opportunity to ski here in Sapporo, and let's just say I am little bit sore today.

So me and Alex left our dorm at around 9:50, and headed for Sapporo Eki. From there, you can actually purchase ski packages, that include everything from transportation to your actual lift ticket. So for 5800 yen, around 65 dollars, I was able to get a round trip train and bus ticket, ski rental, and 4 hour lift pass. I'd say it was a pretty good deal considering the train ride was 20 minutes, and the bus ride was another 20 minutes.

Once we got to the place I started getting super excited because I actually haven't had a chance to ski in 2 years. I was thinking that it would be like riding a bike you know, just grab some skis and head for the nearest black diamond. Well I wasn't right, but I wasn't wrong either. I was also super worried they would not have boots big enough, but they did.

So boots on, gear equipped, we went up several floors and out onto the snow to the familiar sight of a line at the bottom of a ski lift. Their express lift was nice because it had a full cover so the wind wouldn't tear at your face when you got near the top, but I think they were lying about the express part...

When we finally got to the top, you couldn't see anything more than 15 feet in front of you and the wind was screaming. We chose a red to go down first, a dark blue in America, and we set off.

As a quick side note, I love my ski boots and my skis, they are reasonably short and are made for doing tricks and going off jumps and things. The boots that I was given...were too big and the skis were suuper long.

So about halfway down I sort of fell...like a moron. It wouldn't be the last time. The conditions were terrible, and my goggles were fogging up, so I was actually having a hard time doing anything. There were huge snow drifts, but you couldn't see them at all, and moguls on parts of the hill where one would REALLY not expect them to be. So the first run had already turned into a disaster...fudge.

On the way up the lift then, I did something that I've actually never done before. I dropped one of my poles. I've honestly never been as embarrassed as I was at that moment. I've never done that before, never even come close to doing that before, but I was trying to wife off my goggles and I slipped my glove off, along with my ski pole. Moron.

So the 2nd run down we got to try to go down in between the snow lift towers. Normally this isn't so bad, except that the ski lift was above a FOREST, not part of the ski slope.

So we went halfway down the slope to a point where we could...easily...enter the forest to try to get my ski pole back. Little did we know that the snow was at least 2 meters deep, and not packed at all. So 15 feet down, I just sunk into the snow and fell down. And literally, I felt like the kid in Christmas Story, waddling around on the ground trying to get up. But the snow was honestly so deep, that I would put me hand down through it to try and push off the ground, but I would have to submerge my head in the snow before my hand would touch the ground. I felt like saying "Damn, were in a tight spot!"

So I finally used a small bush/tree thingy to pull myself out of the hole I had managed to fall into, and started off again, only to fall down again 15 feet later. It was honestly terrible. I was starting to get super tired fighting against the snow, and I was starting to think that it was impossible to find my ski pole. The other guy I was with had made it down a bit farther than me, but by then I couldn't even see him.

I managed to sort of roll/ski down to where I had dropped my ski pole, but I couldn't find it anywhere. After 15 minutes of futile searching I finally gave up and started down towards the bottom of the ski lift. I thought I was in the clear towards the bottom, but didn't see a 10 foot drop, so I went flying out of control into a wall of snow. On one hand it was kind of fun, but at the same time I was really tired and upset. I dug myself out and went around to the entry of the ski lift area, but I didn't see the guy I was with anywhere. I waited there for 20 minutes, and he finally showed up. Apparently he had had tons of problems as well, but had found my ski pole. Then rather than going straight down, he tried to cut through 30 yards of forest back to the ski slope. He said the snow was so deep it was up to his shoulders almost, and he is probably around 6'1" tall. He said he had to use his skis to push down through the snow to make his way out. Man this was not going so well.

After that he wanted to go down a black hill, so we got off at the top, and went down a path that was red, then turned into either a green or a black. So we stopped at the top of the black, and it looked pretty bad...snow drifts, moguls, large bumps that would turn into an unwanted jump if you hit them incorrectly...not exactly what I wanted to go down at this point. So we headed down, and sure enough after a few seconds I ate snow...lots of it. And the worse part was that it was steep enough that I just slid...another 20 yards down the hill before I finally managed to stop myself. Then I had to crawl like a strange animal back UP the slope I had just fallen down. Not fun.

When I reached the bottom my friend was already waiting for me and I told him that I had to switch these skis in before they killed me. So I got some smaller boots, and shorter skis, which fit me a LOT better. From then on it exactly smooth sailing, but I also wasn't eating snow for breakfast, lunch, and dinner...

Overall it was a pretty good day. The weather was super bad and they actually shut down half of the part, but there were still enough runs to keep us occupied. By the end of the day I was tired, cold, and starving. Hopefully next time I go it will be a little bit better :)

More photos on my facebook.

Eat This!

So I know I talked about how much I like the video blogs and such, but today I am going to write this one, because I feel like it provides a better means to get my point across.

So this week we started learning how to classify things into categories in my writing Japanese class. The professor started the class by giving us a list of objects and he told us to classify them into 3 groups, with each groups being able to have any number of objects. The objects were: a book, a comic book, a backpack, magnifying glass, wine, a dog, robot, cell phone, clock, laptop, and a high class handbag.

So the professor split us up into groups of 3, and I was paired with the 2 Americans next to me. We said that the robot, cell phone, clock, and laptop were in a group that used electricity, we made up a story about a boy going out with his dog, comic book, backpack, and magnifying glass for an adventure, and we said the wine, book, and handbag were things an adult would have. Pretty simple.

After about 5 minutes the professor went around to each group, and wrote their classifications on the board. The last group was a group of 5 students from China, and so the professor asks, "Ok, last group. What did you guys do?" (In Japanese btw.) So they answered that they put the things that use electricity into one group (robot cell phone clock laptop), the things that you might carry around (book comic book magnifying glass backpack handbag), and for the final group, which leaves the wine and the dog, they classified them as...things you eat.

Like 'oh my gosh'

So...I am not going to lie. I am pretty excited that I am able to make video blogs. So excited in fact, that I already made on for you guys. Enjoy:

Double Take

So thanks to my brother and my web camera, I found out I can take webcam videos!! Yay!!

So I will try a couple of things here. I will give the links to the videos on my super cool youtube channel (yeah right...) and I will also try to embed them here, so you don't have to go to youtube. Yay!!

So here's the first video. I shot it this morning, isn't it great?



And next, my first experiment at...video blogging? Maybe the next best thing since sliced bread...



That's all for now folks ;)

Russians

So I know that I am supposed to be learning about Japan and stuff, speaking Japanese and strictly hanging out with Japanese people, but there are actually Russians everywhere. The two I know best are my neighbor 2 doors down who I think I have mentioned before, he is a pretty cool guy, and the other is a Russian girl from the far eastern side of Russia, and is only about 3 inches shorter than me. There are many more, but I don't really interact with them because they aren't in any of my classes etc.

Over the course of the program so far, I have learned quite a few things about Russia. Some of their traditions, parts of their education system, and a couple of things that I found rather disturbing.

Let's start with some of their traditions. The simplest one that I have learned is that Russians love drinking tea at around 8-9:00 at night. I'm not sure what kind of tea they prefer, I have drank tea with Alex several times, and each time he has a rather large assortment of flavors and such. It's a pretty nice tradition I would say, a bit like decaf after dinner.

It was actually Alex's birthday a couple days ago (Friday) and so he had a Russian party, which was pretty fun. There, I learned a couple more traditions and such concerning drinking (obviously super duper important in Russian culture) and the new years celebration, which is actually the largest Holiday in Russia. Russia has so many religions and ethnic groups, that there really isn't a dominant holiday compared to Christmas in America. So they all celebrate new years, in the most patriotic fashion possible, listening to a speech made by their president.

Alex said that everyone gathers with their families and sits down around the table to eat and drink together on new years eve. Then, at 11:50 they all stand up and grab a glass of their preferred drink, and wait for the president to come on tv. Alex showed us a clip of this actually, and it was rather interesting. He said that at 11:55, all television shows, everything on Russian tv stops, and the president comes on to do his stuff.

They show a couple pictures of Moscow, while playing epic presidential worthy music, and then the president appears to do his stuff. This clip doesn't have the music (soorrry) but it was Putin's last address:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYtAoqtf-XU

Once the President has said his words, the camera switches to a clock that is in Moscow (sort of like the Big Ben), and everyone waits for it to 'go bong' 12 times, and on the 12th time everyone drinks to Russia!! The Russians at the party on Friday night were also celebrating new years (or so Alex said) so they all drank actually, as we watched the clip that Alex had prepared.

And so, on to Russians and drinking! Back in the states, before I came to Japan (dur) I lucky enough to meet a professor at OSU from the Slavic and eastern Europeans department. His major back in college was Russian language and culture studies etc, and he was actually all set to become a spy during the cold war. One month before his departure however, the cold war ended, the USSR fell, and he never got the chance to be a spy. Anyway, ever since then, he has worked for various Russian and American companies, working his way up the ladder until in the company he was in, he was in charge of all Russian and eastern European operations for the company. The most interesting thing he told us though, was that at every single Russian business meeting he had ever been to, there had been vodka. Lots of it.

So Alex was teaching us about drinking vodka. He said that all Russians grab their drink in one hand, and some food in the other. He stated that "if you do not eat after you drink, you will get drunk!" So whenever we did a toast or anything, we had to eat something right after. Makes sense.

There was plenty of food around, as most of the Russians in attendance had actually prepared some dish to be served at the party, so I got to sample some authentic Russian foods. Potato salad. Yum. They had lots of it, it was green though, and a bit more chunky that I would have preferred, but still pretty good. They had something that I would call the grandfather of Potiza (probably just butchered that word...) which was small bundles of bread with tasty stuff on the inside. There were other kinds of bread and such, and then some small chocolate that were tasty, but they have nothing on Malley's.

Alex's major is education technologies, and he plans to become a politician in Russia to improve their education system. This is actually the reason he came to Japan, to try and research their education system (which I hate btw) and see what he might be able to implement back in Russia. Alex himself got his education at Moscow State University (Russia's Top university) where he got a full ride based on his entrance exam results. He is a pretty smart dude. Actually whenever he refers to any of his relatives, they all seem to have rather high positions. Both of his parents are doctors, he mentioned that his uncle was a surgeon, his grandfather was in charge of a region of production during the USSR, and his great grandfather was in charge of all production in Azerbaijan in the 30's.

Tangent: Some kid keeps yelling at the top of his lungs every once in awhile here, and I have no idea why. It's really annoying.

So Alex has big plans both for himself, and for Russia's education system. However, one policy I would like him to change is that of Moscow's weather controlling aircraft fleet. Here's the article that Popular Science ran on the system that they use:

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2009-10/moscow-mayor-pays-russian-air-force-wage-war-winter

Alex said that it is more cost effective to stop the snow outside of Moscow than to clean it up in Moscow after it falls. Logically that makes sense, cleaning up snow in large cities is a complete pain, however I am not sure making the snow (or rain in the summer) fall prematurely is the best answer. Not only is it creating problems for the people that are now getting extra snowed on (snow days are awesome btw) but I think that whenever humans interfere with natural cycles within the weather or other aspects of nature, the outcome will most certainly be...bad.

At the bottom of that popsci article, it has a link to another article describing how Bill Gates want's to stop hurricanes by messing with the ocean...Also a bad idea.

Sorry for now entry over the last 13 days, these last 2 weeks have been my midterm weeks, and I have been extra busy. I hope I can make it up to you by providing this funny commercial, do enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZMZdQzoQgo

You have to watch it all the way to the end...

Japanese Immigration

So last friday, we had a guest speaker in our class, his name was aruduo debito. Originally American, he has since then given up his American citizenship and has become a Japanese citizen. Japan does not allow you to hold dual citizenships (not sure how this works tbh) so I guess that's why he had to give up his American one. Anyway, I am slightly happy he's not an American any more.

Now Japanese people hate foreigners. It's not really a secret, and it's not really the young people, just the old ones, with power, that sit around thinking of ways to scare the rest of the population into disliking foreigners. I asked my friend Kenji what he thinks about this and he said that most likely it's because A. They hate communicating with foreigners because of the language barrier etc, and B. That they might not understand the culture and such yadda yadda yadda. So really they don't have any kind of sound reason.

But it's totally true. The students at Hokudai are all pretty cool and stuff, and I've never had a problem with any of them. However whenever I go into the grocery store, or any other people where old people congregate, I always seem to get loads of dirty looks. I mean come on, I'm not that horrible looking am I? One of my American friends said that I am rather scary because I am so tall, but I prefer to think of myself as more of a gentle giant.

Sorry, tangent, back to his wierdo guy. So he came to Japan 20 some odd years ago and has since then pretty much raised hell over the fact that the Japanese government and some laws that may or may not exist have made living in Japan a real pain in the ass. So lets stop right here, he's been here for 20 years, all the while complaining about the fact that Japanese people hate foreigners etc, he even naturalized himself, this doesn't really add up does it? Well he never really said why he stayed in Japan or why he has really done any of this, so who knows. Maybe Japanese people think he is scary too?

A quick current events update: So recently Japanese international law has created this super cool system to document all the foreign people that come into Japan. Right when you get off the plain, they take your fingerprints, and a mug shot. At the time when I did this I really didn't think all that much about it, but looking back I guess that was rather extreme when compared with other nation's policies when entering the country. But can you really blame them? I don't really have any problems with it, considering it's their country and they can do whatever they want...well...sort of.

Anyhoo he is actually rather famous now for being all up in arms about immigration policy and such into Japan, which on one hand is good, but on the other is really annoying. So let's talk a little bit about the good first:

Japan actually does do some pretty ridiculous things when it comes to immigration. The tokyo governor in 2000 during a speech announced a plan that if a natural disaster were to occur, the SDF (Self Defense Force) would 'round up' all of the foreigners in Tokyo, just to make sure they are all right. Certain districts of Tokyo and other parts of the country have made posters that the police sent to every house and posted around the town, warning people of what foreigners 'may do' such as bag snatching, and summoning godzilla. I couldn't find any of them online after 3 google image searches, but some of them depicted 6-8 cops all tackling 1 poor guy. Slightly disturbing, sort of funny.

Human Trafficking. Now this is actually a lot worse, and actual government policy encourages this. In 2007, the department of state actually moved Japan up to a tier 2 human trafficking country. After 5 minutes of searching I can't find the exact scale, or what this means, but basically the government has a program right now called the "foreign trainee" program. It's pretty terrible. The "3k" jobs in Japan are considered "dirty, dangerous, and something else that starts with K in Japanese" and basically Japanese people A. don't want to do them, and B. there aren't any more Japanese people TO do them. What's the solution? Instead of outsourcing, the Japanese government has made sure that the factories can stay in Japan, and then they just bring the labor here. Yay. Pretty nice right?

Maybe not so much. Under this program, participants are entered into a 3 year contract to work for whatever company they are brought in for. Since they are "trainee's" they are not part of the regular work force, but aren't really foreigners just hanging out either, they are...trainees. The Japanese law goes on to further state that BECAUSE of this, they do not fall under ANY of the current labor laws within Japan, including minimum wage, basic rights, and anything else that normal human beings are entitled to. In 2006, 2, yes two, people were convicted for human trafficking in the entire country of Japan for the entire year. In 2007, 15 people were convicted of human trafficking...What an improvement! But not so much.

After the trainees finish their 3 years of hell, if they have proved themselves worthy the company's then have to either hire them back as full interns (then they receive human rights) or just send them back to their country. You can imagine which of those options is chosen more frequently.

So in that respect, some of the work this guy is doing really is good. The Japanese government obviously thinks this is a GOOD policy considering they enacted it, and they have some other policies that are pretty shady, but my fingers are starting to get tired. If you really want to sink your teeth into it, this guy has a site:

http://www.debito.org/

On the other hand, he...probably brings some of this down upon himself. His presentation was the most unprofessional presentation I have ever seen in my entire life. To the point where I was feeling embarrassed at the things he was doing and saying. He's currently an associate professor at Hokkaido Information University, trying to get his doctorate, but at this rate I'm not sure how long that will take...But if you are going for your doctorate degree, and you are coughing and saying bullshit at the same time during a presentation? Come on. Get a life. He also has 2 books out which he NEVER failed to mention once during the class, and whenever he did he would say "wink wink nudge nudge buy them" which is maybe funny, the first time, for 15 year olds...but not in a college presentation.

Other part's about his presentation style and manner and way of speaking were pretty terrible, and considering all of these things are super important in everyday Japanese life, I have no idea how he is still in this country to be honest. He is actually most known for a case in which he and his family (married a Japanese women and had 2 kids in Japan) were not allowed into a hot spring because they were foreigners. Some people may think that that is super extreme and terrible and the entire country deserves to burn because of that, but I really don't mind. There are actually tons of places in Japan that foreigners can't go to alone, or really couldn't get in to without a Japanese person such as bars and clubs and things like that, but I guess hot springs are really in a different category.

He never told us the results of the case, or anything about the case at all to be honest, he just kept saying the was the plaintiff and that there are no laws against racial discrimination in Japan, so it happens all the time. Well buddy, I hate to say I told you so, but you have to remember this is a different country. Coming from the land of the free and the home of the brave and expecting to be able to waltz in wherever you like in a foreign country is a pretty childish in my opinion. People are different, countries are different, deal with it. The owners of the store, based on the laws which govern their country, can do whatever they want. Now obviously in some cases that maybe be pretty annoying, or even a pain in the neck, but it still just boils down to the fact that it's a different country, and the people are different.

If you want to find out more, I've heard his book are pretty good, but don't take my word for it...wink wink, nudge nudge

oh yeah, and a picture, because I think it pretty much sums this guy up, and HE made it lol: