The Sapporo Lilac Festival:
Where: Odori Park
Why: Because they are beautiful and are Sapporo’s flower/tree
Despite being a very urban and city filled country, Japan finds a place for nature. These are pictures from a huge park we wandered through.
We went further into Sapporo to explore and walk down by the river. Needless to say we got super distracted by a Shrine and then a park. Here’s the shrine. When you enter the shrine you are suppose to go to the well (which Cheridan is at) wash your hands, and then take a sip of water from your hands to purify yourself. Before leaving you are also suppose to throw 5yen into… ummm, I’m not sure what to call it, clap your hands twice and say a prayer.
We went to this place called Kiwami, which is famous in Sapporo for ramen. It was super delicious but mine was super spicy. You don’t normally think of Japanese food as being spicy, but mine made me want to cry. So delicious though. You can see that there was traditional seating and a bar.
Most places don’t use the traditional seating any more but it shows up occasionally.
Basketball! :D
I joined the basketball team here, imagine that, and I am so happy I did. This is how teams are suppose to function. While I can’t technically play in official games, because I’m not on the roster, it’s nice to just be a part of the team. Sportsmanship is what makes up this team. It’s not petty fighting and blame placing, everything they do is as a team. The sportsmanship and commitment they display is amazing. They get to practice 45 minutes early, hang out in the locker room for a bit, go get warmed up, take a bunch of shots, stretch as a team, and work together as a team. Everything is very player run. They are each others motivation, it’s for the team they work. At the beginning and end of every practice, the coach talks for a few minutes, then leaves it up to a player to talk about what needs to be done that day or what happened that practice. It’s similar with games, during time outs, the coach says their part then players politely discuss what is going on with the team as a whole. Everything is done to improve as a whole.
We had a game to day, and before the game, the whole team, not just the captains, approaches the opposing coach and says something (honestly have no idea what they say) and words are exchanged. During the games, there is no audible cussing or complaining to the refs. No tempers are lost either. This is how sports should be played.
There is also a clear hierarchy on the team that is RESPECTED. While on American teams, some of the younger players step out of line occasionally or disrespect the older players, that is unheard of on this team.
It is just amazing to be apart of the team. They help me in so many ways. Not only do I get to practice with some of the nicest girls in the world, they also have taught me how a team should run, patience, and, of course, a bit of Japanese.
As I said before, for my friend’s birthday, we went to a Cat Cafe. Apparently these aren’t super common, but everyone knows what they are and every city has one. They also have dog and bunny cafes as well, I believe. In a cat cafe, you get to pet the cats and then get a drink, usually a tea or coffee type drink, but they serve soda as well. In one of the pictures you can see a glass wall, behind which you drink, so you don’t get cat hair in your drink, and watch the cats.
Unfortunately, most of the cats were sleeping when we went. Until one of the Japanese women there paid to feed them.
In the bottom of an arcade we went to, they have rows and rows of jumbo picture booths. Most which distort the body in some way or another. In this picture, all our eyes were made larger. It’s sad… American’s think that Japanese, and Asians in general, are so skinny, but they really put a lot of pressure on themselves to be skinnier. Some of the booths made them skinnier, legs longer, smoothed out their skin (I think they all did that) and I’m not even sure what the rest did. I think one was suppose to make you look “sexy”- I don’t know what they distort for that.
While it was fun to take this, I feel bad that they have so much anxiety of their appearance. I guess that fact also shows with how dressed up they get daily…
My bus pass… Just thought you want to see how adorable it was. On a side note, the public transportation here is great. This pass let’s me ride the subway and the bus and time, anywhere- until I run out of money. Only down side to their system, is the buses stop really early, so does the subway I think…..
This past weekend a bunch of my friends and I went out to celebrate one of their’s birthday. We went down to Susukino and went to a Cat Cafe and and a delicious all you can eat, dessert buffet. Delicious. So freakin’ delicious. When I heard we were going to a buffet, and how much that buffet cost (like 15$) I was kind of upset… Great, I get to eat a lot of bad food for a lot of money. Woo. But that wasn’t how it was at all. Japanese buffets are done the right way. This was a dessert buffet so most of the food there was dessert (obviously), but they also had regular, in my case, lunch food. The plates were smaller and you only got one at a time. This forced you to eat slower and eat less, which is a refreshing change from American buffets. The food was fresh and they kept bringing out more, so you were never eating food that had been sitting out for a while.
The dessert was absolutely delicious. It came in tiny bite size pieces (as you can see from the pictures) so that you could try a variety instead of eating way too much of only a few things. On top of that, you could only get 5 pieces at a time, so that you didn’t pig out. It was nice being able to eat a variety without feeling stuffed. They also had fresh crepes that they made for you on the spot and ice cream.
American buffets need to be like this.
