In which the Traveler Takes a Bath in the Snow

 

First news first! I cut my hair!

I haven't gotten it cut in seven months. The vast majority of the blonde is gone now--most of my students actually asked me if I'd dyed my hair, rather than cut it, and it's a great deal shorter and differently shaped now. They all really like my real hair color, too--a dark brown color--so they told me not to dye it again. xD I took a photo in with me on my phone to show the hairdresser, and after she cut and pretty much shaped it, I was satisfied. Then she took the texturizing scissors to it, the razor scissors, you know? And she kept cutting and razoring. And then she went away to ring someone up, came back, and started razoring again. X_X I was like, .... uh...? So actually now the vast majority of my hair is gone. But it looks really, really cute, and it frames my face really, really well! Apparently I look more adult now.

I realized that I didn't post last week. Sorry! I was kinda busy. Friday I left for a business trip to Niseko. Niseko, for those who don't know, is a conglomeration of onsens, hotels, and ski resorts/shops masquerading as a town. 

It's also a snow globe. 

A bunch of us girls decided to go to an onsen on Saturday, since the weather closed a bunch of the ski places. 

It didn't stop snowing the entire time we were there.

Look at all that snow!!

It's actually colder here in Taiki, though. They just get a metric crapton more snow than we do here.

Yes, that's a snowmobile

run up a tree. No, I don't

know why, unless it's to save space. 

 Look at all this snow!!

 

It was my first time at an onsen, actually. ^-^ An onsen is a sort of "spa," but with less emphasis on massage and self-pampering and more on relaxing bathing. You sit on these stools and wash yourself at this row of sort of almost sinks, then when you're all nice and clean, you get into giant baths with everyone else. The vast majority are separated by sex, but you can still find some mixed baths. Some onsen are natural hot spring mineral water, some have other chemicals and additives, some are saltwater, some are even cold water. I've heard of some that have a minor electrical shock to them. And then there are in my opinion, the best ones--the outdoor ones. Some outdoor onsens have excellent views of the surrounding countryside. Apparently Taiki is famous for one from which you can see the ocean while you relax in the bath.

Oh, you're also naked with everyone else. You get used to it.

I've been to a sento, a bathhouse, before, but never to an onsen. Also when I went to the bathhouse last time I went with a guy friend, so I didn't know any of the other women and I could pretend I was in my own little world. This time I went with a half dozen other girls I know. I was actually really anxious about it and almost didn't go out of sheer embarrassment. But I'm glad I did--it was fun, and you get used to the naked thing after about five seconds. So no worries.

Ours was an outdoor bath. In other words, you were in nice hot water up to your shoulders, and then the snow was falling on your head and shoulders. It was so awesome! (^-^)v

It's super windy tonight. o.O It's like being at home again.

I bought my tickets to Kyoto next month, and I booked my hotel a month ago, so I'm pretty much all set! ^-^ I'm excited to get back to Kansai, and I'm going to spend a bunch of time with Jun-kun. I haven't seen him since spring two years ago, last time I was here.

Short update, not a whole hell of a lot going on. Graduations start next week, so there should be more coming in the next few weeks. <3

In which the Traveler has a Creepy Encounter with the Close Kind

Half of my middle school first years are out with the flu or a cold. (T-T) Noooo~ Have I mentioned that I adore my first years? Their class looks so empty with half of the students gone. Because so many students are absent, the school actually canceled first year classes for the next four days and sent them home after third period today. They even got lunch early! Second and third years still have class, tho.

I'm still ish. My throat's a lot better this week, but I've got a stuffy nose half the time and I'm choking up phlegm the rest of the time. I'm taking 黄色のベンザ、Yellow Benza, the go-to cold medicine here. Yellow is for stuffy and runny nose (so congestion?), blue is for fever and chills, and silver is for sore throat and headache.

Pictured: Yellow Benzablock, 

Bufferin for when I run out of ibuprofen 

(it's actually aspirin, but that was easier than trying to figure out which was ibuprofen), 

and the yogurt Ichi-san told me to eat to prevent colds. 

Total: Over $30. For serious.

Look, the box of cold medicine even says in English, "Self-medication." 

Way to make me feel like a junkie. ¬.¬

So Ichi-san told me to get this type of yogurt, right, to help me get better and keep from catching a cold. He said apparently if you eat it every day for a month it should help prevent you catching a cold, but he only ate it for two weeks and still caught a cold. So who knows. But it's pretty yummy, so ah well.

Last Thursday was Valentine's Day, right? I had so much chocolate and stuff I packed up some of it and left it for my neighbor. That's the nice thing to do, right? I'm nice, contrary to popular opinion. Also, he's the only guy in my building. I didn't mention this last week because, believe it or not, I don't write about everything I do. 

Just most of them.

Anyway. He came to my door while I was cleaning up and thanked me. He seemed somewhat intense about it, actually. o.O I figured I did something strange again, so I just told him it was nothing, really, that I just made too much and he always seemed really busy, and that I didn't need a gift in return or anything. Really I figured I'd just get another gift of chocolate or something on White Day next month. Which is totally not the reason I gave so many people chocolate. <.<   >.> Totally not. Never. ^-^

On Friday I got a box from the Bestie. ^-^ Happy Valentine's Day to me!! She's awesome, have I mentioned?

I love that fox to death. He and I are buds. He sits in my lap at the table all the time. 

Saturday I took my car to Obihiro to have The Car Guy look at it. I kinda backed into my apartment building and now there's a dent in the lift gate that I wanted to get looked at. The paint flaked off and it's rusting. On the way home I started feeling kinda melancholy for whatever reason and decided that I'd have a nice, quiet, melancholy night at home. Sometimes those are rather therapeutic, right? So I stopped at the liquor store and bought a bottle of wine. Then I stopped at the convenience store to look for chocolate-dipped potato chips (I know, gross, right? They're really actually good.) and wound up buying a bottle of cherry shochu, a kind of rice alcohol, too. Just in case I didn't want the wine, because I'm not really a wine person. Then Alchey Ashli went home and got down to drinking and answering student's letters.

I had one glass of wine and a glass of shochu and water, halfway through my second, when my doorbell rang. 

o.O I didn't order anything online. Sadly that's the only time my doorbell ever rings, when the delivery guy is bringing me boxes. 

So I got up and answered it, and it was my next door neighbor. He wanted to thank me again for the chocolates, and how about a meal or something? ....uh....okay? I was starting to feel the buzz, and him showing up suddenly confused me, so I was thought, I'm not hungry but hey, why not. But then he was like, 「お邪魔してもいいですか？」 "Can I come in?" 

Uh.... huh? Did I miss something? I have no food. And my apartment is, as usual, a mess. But, uh, sure? Hang on a sec, okay?

So I ran back inside and quite literally, bundled things up and threw them in my bedroom. I threw things against the walls so my floor looked somewhat respectable. Tried to clear off some of my table and couch. As much whirlwind tidying as one can do in two minutes, you know. I went back out to get him.

And then things got...awkwarder. Like, I swear, I didn't even know the guy's name. But I'm sure he's a nice guy, you know? He brought some drinks, and I got him a glass. And we kinda chatted. He asked where my dad was. Did he think I had a visitor? Odd rumors make it around town--apparently my predecessor was best friends with Lady Gaga, tho I don't know the story behind that, honestly, and some of my elementary kids were convinced I put sugar in my milk at home. I don't know where they get these ideas. So I told him no, my parents weren't coming to visit anytime soon. 

He liked the stuffed teddy bear I have on one of my shelves. Did my boyfriend give me that? Well, sort of, in a sense--it's one of the ones that Kengo gave me when we were....whatever that was. But I told him no, because that's a horrible story in English and I only sound whiny when I try to tell it in Japanese. No, and I don't have a boyfriend. I do have someone, I like though. 

「あ、そうですか？オレじゃないでしょ？」 "Oh, really? It's not me, is it?" Laugh. 

....no? o.O I don't even know you, dude.

Plus he's married. His situation is similar to that of my first host family--he works in a different town from where his family lives. In the case of my host family it was because the girls got into an elite high school (top school in Shiga, I came to find out after I left. I attended an elite school for two weeks without even realizing it. xD Typical Ashli.). In Oh No's case... I don't know. But his family lives in Sapporo while he works here in Taiki. The nights I noticed that he never came home were because he was seeing them in Sapporo. 

I swear I'm not a creeper--he gets the newspaper delivered every day, and sometimes the newspapers don't go away. One time he was gone for quite a few days and I contemplated gathering his mail for him because the mail slot was getting rather full. That's all.

So, in short, no. No, it's not you.

But he kept doing that crap. He'd comment on something, and it was always "Did you get that from your boyfriend?" or "When is your father coming?", every five minutes. >.< My parents aren't coming, and I don't have a boyfriend, and no, the person I like is not you!! After about the eighth time I snapped at him, and he was like, "O.O You don't have to get mad..."

...... GTFO. >.<#

And then he wanted to see pictures of my house. Up came Facebook. Was that my dad? When was he coming? >.<# 

And he asked me on a date. For serious. WTF, dude? No! But it's Japan, you can't laugh in a dude's face, so I told him firmly that no, I'm not dating him. For one thing, I don't like him. For another, he's married.

「じゃあ、俺が結婚していなっかたらよかったということ？」"So it would be better if I wasn't married?"

.....>.<#!! NO. GTFO. 

But you have to be polite. I told him no, that's not it at all. And somehow it wound up that we have dinner plans at the local Italian place next month.

I already talked to Sheri. I'm going to stay at her house, far away from here. 

But anyway. We were sitting at my kotatsu, right? I was sitting on my side, where I always sit, and he on the opposite. Then Oh No was like, "Come sit over here. It'll be like a bar!"

No, thank you. I'm fine where I am.

He asked if he should come sit next to me. No, thank you. You're fine where you are. But he got up and came over to my side of the table anyway. 

>.<##

I kept looking at the clock. I asked him what time he had work in the morning and wow, that's early, maybe you should be sleeping! He asked if I was trying to tell him to go home. This is Japan, be polite. No, of course not, nothing like that..... We played that stupid game for about two hours. >.<

Finally, finally, he went home. After about three hours. >.< Then he said he'd probably drop by the next night, too. He thinks we should be drinking buddies--whenever one of us feels sad and lonely, we should get together and drink, preferably in my apartment.

Uh, how about no? 

So yeah. Creepy neighbor is creepy. I emailed my coworker about it and she said he probably thought I was confessing to him with the chocolates and to lock my doors and not let him back in. I don't know what was going through his mind. There's a chance he could be a perfectly nice person and had no evil intentions whatsoever. Possibly. Still, he made me really uncomfortable, and as the vast majority of people who commented on my facebook so lovingly and gently and understandingly posted, that's horribly inappropriate, him being in my apartment alone, and it's my reputation on the line. 

So the way this is going to work, see, is that this is Japan. Be polite. So I'm going to put him off. Oh, I'm busy, sorry, can't come play. So sorry, today's not good either. If he doesn't get the hint, then I tell him point blank, look, you're making me really uncomfortable and this is inappropriate, and it's causing me problems. Please stop and go away. And if that doesn't work, then I'm going American on his ass and answering the door holding a kitchen knife. 

Speaking of kitchen knives (don't you love my segues?), I bought a cake for the office today. Last weekend was Supervisor-san's birthday and this weekend is Section Chief's birthday, except his birthday was actually last week. Apparently I misheard. ......x.x'' I swear I speak Japanese. I promise. Anyway. So I spent about $50 on a cake (cakes are expensive here) that was big enough for everyone in my office to have some and brought it in. ^-^ They were like, "o.O'' Okay?" 

I was talking to Ichi-san yesterday and reminded him that I was bringing a cake and he started to say that Japanese people didn't generally do things like that for birthdays at work, but I gave him The Look and he kind of trailed off halfway through and then started laughing. Thanks, Icchan, thanks. 

And Supervisor-san kinda laughed and was like, "You didn't have to bring a cake." I told him that if he didn't want any, that was fine, I'd eat his piece. He quickly said that no, that was okay, he'd eat it, thank you very much. XD 

I started drawing little pictures on my students' letters. See, aren't they good?

 

So those were the highlights of my week. <3 This weekend is the Spring (ha!) Meeting and Cookie Bake for the Tokachi International Educator's Circle, and I have plans after. Woot. <3

In which the Traveler gets Thoroughly Sick of Chocolate

I got back to Taiki at 1030 after dinner at kaiten sushi with Sheri and Sean. So sleepy... but we cannot sleep yet, we have to chop chocolate!

See, Thursday (today) was Valentine's Day. And since I'm in Japan, that means I get to make chocolate for the guys I work with and any significant men in my life.

At the moment, that's... nobody here. Well. Ish.

My plan was simple. For every male coworker at the places I would visit on Thursday (my office and my larger middle school), I would make an assortment of chocolates, two sugar cookies, two chocolate sugar cookies, and a chocolate cupcake of some sort. Easy. But that's a lot of chocolate. Like, for serious. Oh, and just giving chocolate to the men seems really unfair to the women in the office, right? So I decided to make peanut butter blossoms for them. I bought a bunch of Hershey's Kisses and two giant tubs of peanut butter last month, so yay!

So I spent a few hours last week chopping chocolate up so it would be easily melty. I made some milk chocolates last week in preparation. I had Tuesday night to make the rest of the milk chocolate, Wednesday to bake my cookies and cupcakes and finish the dark chocolates, and Thursday to deliver. Sounds like plenty of time, right?

Hello. My name is Ashli, and I have a problem. I cannot budget time to save my life.

You see. On Tuesday I needed to go shopping for a few ingredients for the chocolates and cupcakes and whatnot. So I went shopping and bought all the stuff! And cut all the chocolate! And then... it was 10:30 pm! WTF! Dear Nostalgia Critic--you suck my life away when I should be elsewise occupied. Rawr. So I made another batch of milk chocolate chocolates, chopped up all the dark chocolate, gave up on the sugar cookies because I just didn't feel like making the dough, and decided I'd make the batter for the cupcakes Wednesday. Went to bed around midnight.

Wednesday I'd reserved the kitchen in the gakushuu center from 7-9pm. I had time to run to the store because I forgot some stuff yesterday, and I'd even have time to unmold the milk chocolates and mold one set of dark chocolates to chill while I was cooking! Perfect!

Except it was actually from 5-7pm. I had time to.... go to the store. Except when I was in the check-out lane I realized I'd forgotten the cream for the truffles I was planning on making someone else. Dammit. Well, I didn't want to go back and get it, so I decided to run over to the grocery store across the street and get it. Except they were sold out. Dammit. So I had to go back to Fukuhara anyway. 9-9 Then run home, grab the giant black bag o-doom (it's the size of a small suitcase. In fact, I think I can put my small suitcase inside this bag) and pack it full of ingredients. I mean, this bag was full. Peanut butter, butter, and strawberries actually fell out of it while it was in the car, it was so full.

See, I'd decided I'd have time while everything was baking to make my chocolate strawberries. I even brought my kindle to keep myself occupied.

Ha. Haha. Ha HA haha.

I got to the kitchen and set up everything. Oh noes! I forgot the vanilla and cinnamon! So I ran back home real quick.

It's now 5:30. I have the kitchen until 7. 

Okay! Turn on the gas, get everything started preheating and whatnot. Something's wrong. It's too quiet.

See, I have another fault. I cannot stand the quiet. At all. I talk to myself all the time in the car and at home. My computer is constantly playing music or movies. I make really awkward smalltalk when I'm around people. I just cannot stand silence. So I turned on my iPod and my beloved Panda-tan speaker! I could rock the kitchen! It would be mildly embarrassing but completely endearing to anyone who happened to walk by and see me in the window! I could make a montage of this if someone were filming! It was great!

For about thirty seconds.

Then my iPod decided that it was gasping its last, but I could probably get another couple of hours out of it so long as I didn't touch it too much. But then Panda-tan, my trusty panda-shaped speaker

decided that it too was hungry for battery-loving. It would play, so long as I kept the volume at a level equivalent to the voice a new parent uses when she's finally gotten the colicky baby to sleep at three in the morning.

So... rock on!

I'd already turned on the ovens and whatnot, and I didn't really wanna run home again to look for new batteries. Whatevs, I can deal. It's quiet, sure, but it's noise. 

Apparently I vastly overestimated my multitasking skills. I had exactly zero non-active time for the four hours it took me to make approximately 50 chocolate chunk muffins with cinnamon sugar topping and approximately the same number of peanut butter blossoms, plus cleanup. 

(Photos taken in my apartment at approximately midnight,
post-packaging and pre-fuck-it-I'll-clean-tomorrow)

It was 9pm when I closed up the kitchen. Yay for having my own keys to the kitchen and nobody else signing up to use it! >.> <.< Totally didn't break any rules there. None at all. 

I gave the night custodian-guard-office-babysitter-person a muffin and cookie. Happy Valentine's Day, thanks for not kicking me out. ^-^ He seemed genuinely surprised and happy. Woot. 

Then I got to go home and make two batches of dark chocolate, dip my strawberries, make two types of truffles, and package everything. And maybe sleep. x.x

I wound up making one batch of dark chocolate rather than two, and one of my truffles was kinda... ish... on the cap, but it was after 11 by then and I was vaguely concerned I'd be cross when I saw the person today if I had to mess with them anymore. Then I'd have to explain why I was cross with him. So it was close enough. 

Homemade chocolates.

(Photo of leftover chocolates, 

taken in my apartment about ten minutes ago)

Then packaging everything. That was actually kind of cute. The chocolates go into a small plastic bag. The muffin into a medium bag. The two bags go into a large bag. Twist-tie closed with individual name tags that I made last month. That part was actually kind of therapeutic. At least it would've been if my hands weren't shaking from the cold. See, I didn't turn the heater on because I didn't want to melt the chocolate on accident. The kotatsu wasn't on so the table wouldn't get hot. T.T 

My kitchen after the Chocopocolypse:

 

Extra milk chocolate drips stored in plastic bins on top of the microwave.

 

 

Completed chocolates stored in bins in the freezer (left)

Truffle shells chilling in the fridge (right)

(You also notice I have next to no food in my fridge. 

I promise I am eating. I ate that eggplant tonight.)

[Funny story about that eggplant. I was cutting it up, not really

paying attention to what I was doing, 

and suddenly I thought, 

"..... I smell eggplant. I don't eat eggplant. Why do I smell eggplant?"

 So yeah.]

 

 The dark chocolate that didn't get used, still waiting in its separated containers, on top of the dishware counter. That has no space, as you can see, because I need to clean.
There's also chocolate in the red container in the corner there, and in the teddy bear mold on top.

My poor sink. It's in there somewhere. The pink bowl in the corner has dark chocolate rum ganache. 

The rice bowl in the left upper corner there has dark chocolate peanut butter ganache. The red pan is milk chocolate scraps remelted to make the caps for the peanut butter truffles. I only just now realized, the next day, that I used dark chocolate for the ganache but milk chocolate for the shells. But it was 1130 by then, I think I can be forgiven. 

 The little pink mold in the center-ish is for the truffles. It makes hollow chocolates. Unfortunately the shells get really thick if you use too much chocolate. By 11pm, I didn't care anymore. The paper cup is half full of resolidified white chocolate (I don't like white chocolate, I had no use for it after the strawberries). I used the squeeze bottle to fill the molds.

Completed chocolates in their blue bags with name tags. The bag on the right is full

of peanut butter blossoms for the junior high and a tray to serve them on.

Dark chocolate ganache strawberries with white chocolate drizzle,

white chocolate dipped strawberry with dark chocolate drizzle,

two dark chocolate rum truffles,

and a peanut butter truffle.

But everything went over really well today! My office peeps made a small fuss about how much money I had to have spent on it all, and the junior high teachers were impressed that I'd made everything. The assistant principal said that I thought too much about them, since I brought them back omiyage (souvenirs, usually sweets) from Abashiri on Tuesday, too. Everyone liked my cookies, too--my section chief ate about six in just the two hours I was there in the afternoon. 

But the best part! 

I got chocolates, too!

This is a selection of chocolates and sweets I received from my middle school students today! ^-^ Now I get to give them back something on White Day next month. I'm thinking jam tarts. Better start collecting jams now...

And I'm still finding chocolate drips, shavings, and blobs all over the place in my apartment.

In which the Traveler Floats like Ice

It's been a pretty eventful week~

First, a confession. Well, not so much a confession as an excuse. Everything I own with batteries this week decided it'd had enough of my shit and went on strike. That means my camera died, my iPod repeatedly died, my phone was in a perpetual state of near death, and Panda-tan, my trusty panda-shaped speaker, decided to chuck me the sonic finger and whisper at me for four hours. What this would mean for normal people is that photographic evidence of this week's escapades would be scarce. For me it means I have justification for my few photos.

Also it underscores the reason why I should never buy myself a real-people camera. They are expensive and would be utterly useless to me.

Anyway!

When last we left our trusty Traveler (that's me, by the way... have you been reading the entry headings? Get it? This blog is kinda like a book? Did you notice? Anyway.), she was deathly ill and fading fast. Well, not really. I had a cold and was actually feeling pretty good.

I didn't go to work on Friday. This is partially because I still had a slight fever when I woke up, but mostly because I looked out my window and saw that my car had grown an eight inch snofro overnight and I didn't wanna mess with that craziness. So I emailed my supervisor and went back to sleep. I was kinda sad at that, tho, because that meant I didn't get to see my Oda kids. I love my Oda kids. I have no real reason why, except that maybe they were the first class whose names I all remembered. Of course, there are seven students... But they're awesome! But I stayed in bed and tried to focus on getting better.

Sunday was the closing ceremony for the Oda schools. (T-T) This is slightly misleading in that we still have school for another month. But hey, free food! Seriously, whoever said that there's no such thing as a free lunch has never been a mildly cute foreign girl living in small-town rural Japan. I get free food all the time, and I'd probably get it more if I was a bit more proactive when it came to socializing. Ah well. I went to the ceremony with my other office coworkers, but really there was nothing for me to do (I asked, but every time I even stood up someone very graciously asked me to sit back down and relax, was my cold better now?, I still shouldn't overdo it, and I arrived a bit early as nothing would be happening for another hour or so). The first part of the ceremony was rather boring--speeches, more speeches, and people still talking. A long rattling off of names of teachers and administrators from the past 30 years or so or something.

One of my adorable fifth years gave a speech. He was so bloody cute.

 

Then one of my middle schoolers gave her speech. Sorry, Oko-chan, I don't have a photo of you. =(

After the speeches we went outside and watched the unveiling of the monuments outside the schools. I thought I had a photo but I guess not. I'll get some eventually. Oku-san, the lady who shares my desk at the middle school, was seated next to me during the speeches and sort of took charge of me throughout the day. "Okay, now that they're done talking--it was really long, wasn't it?--we're going to go outside and look at the monuments. Wait for me at the entrance, okay?" "Okay, now we're going to go to the middle school." "How about we go inside and have lunch now?" "We're at the same table! How about we move these name plates so we sit together?" xD She's really nice. ^-^

I keep finding chocolate shavings all over the place in my apartment. >.<

Lunch was really awesome. The schools provided a lunch spread of sushi, sashimi, some sort of pasta-salad thingy, fruit, chicken, meatballs--it was really good. I even tried some of the raw fish! It was...palatable...

Yeah. Still not on the whole fish thing, but I'll at least give it a shot.

Did I tell you I ate horse the other day? On purpose, even?

I may have been slightly intoxicated at the time.

Slightly.

Lunch cost 2000 yen for guests but was free for the teachers and people who worked the event. Of course, I didn't really do anything. At all. I was effectively a guest, one of the 300 plus. (The population of Oda is 400. Over 300 people came to the closing ceremony.) But I still was counted as a staff member, I suppose, because I didn't have to pay. Which is good now, because I'm slightly broke. Stupid Valentines Day. And planning for Kyoto. Rawr.

The kids had some performances during lunch. The elementary kids did taiko and the middle school kids busted out the band.

My kids know how to do band properly.

Oku-san sat next to me through most of the lunch, but towards the end people started getting up and mingling. Some guy had randomly sat next to me during eating time--he wasn't the teacher assigned to the seat because most of the people at our table were staff and would be too busy to eat and I knew that teacher besides. But he got called away and left. So during the last fifteen minutes or so of the lunch another guy I'd seen around sat down next to me. I saw him quite a few times during the event--he was quite remarkable. He has an afro, for one thing. Well, not really, but he has very curly voluminous hair. And he sat down next to me specifically to talk to me. Which is nothing new, really--practically the only foreigner in town, I'm a decently popular conversation partner for at least five minutes.

He was really nice. ^-^ Maki-san is really interesting, and we have some things in common when it comes to music and movies. And then he asked for my phone number and would it be all right if he asked me out for a drink sometime? xD ^-^

There was a dinner party at the section chief's house. I went but couldn't stay long because I had to drive to Obihiro.

Why? This is why.

What is that, you ask?

That, dear friend, is drift ice! Frozen ocean that you can sail through!

Sunday night I drove to Memuro to stay at Sheri's house, then in the morning, she, Sean and I piled into his car and drove to Abashiri, a coastal town about four hours away, to take a cruise through the drift ice.

We're on a boat!

It was really pretty, but really cold! Sheri and I also got to ride in a raft pulled across the frozen lake by a guy in a snowmobile. Sheri told him to drive fast, so he did a bunch of donuts. ^-^v That was pretty fun. 

Photodump!

You can see the path the boat cut.

 


We spent the longest time trying to get that bloody flag to fly straight and act right.

That's the ski coat from the suit I spent $250 on but never got to wear because I never went skiing. And my $40 hat. It's lined on the inside to protect my ears.

I really like this photo. Partially because it's turned sideways like that. I'll admit it, I did that on purpose.

My camera interpreted the sun as a black hole.

I don't know why. I just thought it was kinda nifty.

Closeup of the ice.

 

Closeup of me. My hood was up to keep my hat from flying off.

We were going kinda fast at the time. 

  After the cruise we went to the drift ice museum. There was a room that actually housed some ice (and some creepy taxidermy animals), and they gave you a damp towel when you went in, right? If you spun it around for a moment, it froze stiff. 




 

Sean, rocking his frozen towel. 








Other trip highlights include ice fishing....

 

And ducks! That you can't really see because my camera doesn't zoom that well.

My narration to this photo (and I have this on video): 

"Shouldn't you be somewhere warm?.... Hey, wouldn't it be sad

if this was their warm place?" 

Poor ducks.

Chapter Seven: In which the Traveler Falls Ill-ish

So, I have a cold.

I've been feeling sick for a few days. My ears have been hurting for a while, and I've been occasionally getting nosebleeds. Figuring it was a lack of humidity in my apartment, I got a humidifier for my room and started keeping a pot of water on my heater. The heater lets the water slowly evaporate out, you see. Perfect. Also I did laundry a couple of times. The heater evaporates the moisture from my damp clothes and works as a really good humidifier.

However.

I still got nosebleeds. My ears still hurt. I got headaches and my throat was kinda scratchy. Wasn't remotely hungry about three out of seven nights.

My supervisor thought I may have a middle-ear infection, because my ears hurt and I've been getting nosebleeds. Apparently people with middle-ear infections get nosebleeds easily. So he found me a clinic and last weekend I got up early and went to an EENT in Obihiro. Yep, I drove an hour to go to a doctor on a weekend because my hospital here in town is closed except for emergencies on the weekends. I could've gone during the week but I don't want to miss class, you see. I adore my students and I'd feel bad skipping out. Except for a week in Okinawa*--see ya!

Anyway, Obihiro actually turned out to be a really good day!! ^-^ On the way I got an invite for lunch from a friend who lives in Obihiro. He's an older gentleman who's really, really nice. His nickname in the group is Satan because they all say he looks like Satan. However, Satan in katana sounds an awful lot like Saturn (or satin), so I think of him more as Saturn-san.

A dinner group party at Sensei's house in October or November.

In the back from the left is Yko-san, Oda-san, and Sensei.
In the front from the left is Saturn-san, me, and Satou-san. 

All the little old ladies are conspiring to hook me and Satou-san up. 

They want him to teach me tennis. Inside I laugh.

Anyway.

So I go to the hospital, which is actually an EENT clinic. Coolies. The receptionist lady is rather impressed with my Japanese, however she goes through the sign in information sheet with me, which is probably a good thing. Even though I brought my electronic dictionary for the kanji, it would've taken me quite a few minutes to work through it, and it was much easier just answering verbal questions. Eventually I see the doctor.

Dude. EENTs here are so. Cool. They did the usual let-me-look-at-your-ear thing, and he knew immediately that I had tubes in my ears when I was little. All the doctors know this immediately, and I was always vaguely puzzled. I mean, I knew I had scarring on my eardrums, but is it really that obvious? I finally have my answer, and the answer is yes.

I got to look at the inside of my own ears.

How many people can say that? The scope thingy that he had had a teeeny tiny camera on it, and there were monitors on the walls so I could actually see what he was looking at. It was really nifty! And guess what? My eardrums are white. Apparently they're supposed to be pinkish or pink? But mine are like snow white. They are quite scarred. I've always had problems with my ears, but dayum. 

The bummer is I didn't get to look up my nose. Boo. Ah well.

So the verdict was I don't actually have an ear infection. Probably I have an allergy to something else, possibly house dust or something, which caused the initial irritation and nosebleeds, and poking at my ears with q-tips to make sure I get all the moisture out of my ears just made my eardrums mad so they were pouting. Okay, that might be paraphrasing a bit. He gave me some allergy drops for my ears and away I went. Including medicine, the whole thing was less than 2000 yen, around maybe 20 dollars. Insurance kicks ass here.

Dude, there's a really cool system set up in the pharmacies here! You get a little book thing, kinda like a passport, that you show to the pharmacist when you give him your prescription, and they keep it updated with what medicine you were given when. We need something like that at home! It's so annoying when patients come up and you ask if they're currently taking anything, and they're all like, "Oh yeah, I'm on a little green one for blood sugar." Turns out it's something for blood pressure or something completely different, and it's orange. 9-9 So this little book thing is really, really cool.

After my visit I met up with Saturn-san for lunch. He works on Saturdays, but gets Sundays and Mondays off. We went to a pasta restaurant that was really yummy, actually. ^-^ He asked about my ears and my health, and during lunch we talked about a whole bunch of things. All in Japanese, of course. I'm at least getting much more comfortable in Japanese, if not necessarily better. Yay? We made a deal--if I'm still here in a few years, we'll travel the Silk Road, or travel to Southeast Asia sometime. xD

I walked him back to work and decided to do a bit of shopping while I was in town. I wanted a new hat and undershirts for the Ski Classes this week,* and I wanted to look at stationery supplies because I love stationery supplies. I went and bought my hat and went to the large shopping square that has Homac (kinda like Home Depot but less warehousey), Nitori (home goods, like dishes, blankets and futons, tables, etc), Daiso (100 yen shop, kinda like a dollar store, but generally better quality stuff, and -huge-), shoe store, Uniqlo (cheap clothing), and an electronics shop. I wanted to look for new windshield wipers at Homac before I did my clothes shopping at Uniqlo. My windshield wipers decided to die last week and left huge dirt smears right in front of my face. I found another set of wipers in the depths of my car (I'm still finding new things every now and again, and I've had it for five months) so I decided to change them out. I've never changed my own windshield wipers before, but hey, how hard can it be? 

I forgot two very important things. 1. I'm a girl. 2. I'm clueless when it comes to cars. I couldn't figure out how to get the old ones off!! I was getting annoyed, so I decided I'd ask Mori-san or Ichi-san to look at it for me on Monday.

I heard someone say my name behind me. I turned around and lo, there's Ichi-san, pulling up in his car!

Now, you see, a few months ago I was driving home from Obihiro and decided to pull over on the side of the road to take pictures of the snow. It was all very pretty and all that jazz, and it had only recently begun to snow so it was still vaguely novel. I'd been standing there maybe three minutes by my car taking pictures when another car pulled into the divot in the road along with mine. I ignored them, figuring I'd be done soon enough and it was probably just someone on their cell phone. Driving and talking on the phone is illegal here, you see, so everyone pulls off to the side of the road to talk on the phone. But again I heard someone say my name so I looked up, and there was Ichi-san, walking towards me! He'd been driving home from Obihiro as well and saw me on the side of the road, recognized the car, and recognized me with enough time to pull over into the divot in the road in front of my car. xD 

And now he'd done it again. I walked over to his car and asked him if he was following me. He said very clearly in English, "I am not a stalker!" 

xD Oh, Ichi-san, I adore you sometimes. 

And he changed my wipers for me! ^-^ We did a little window shopping together and then on a whim he took me on a drive to a frozen lake a couple of hours outside of Obihiro. It was really pretty, but really chilly, too. We made it just after sunset.

Isn't it pretty?











This is the cover photo on my facebook now. I love the pink and red behind the mountains. Oh yeah, we were a ways into the mountains. We saw a deer running along the road on the way to the lake.

There's a dam and you can go across it. We're going to go in the spring when the snow's gone. 

Ichi-san decided that he needed to look cold in the photo. He hunched up specifically to take it. However, it was actually pretty cold. 

We had to go through a pile of snow that came up to my knees to get to where it'd been cleared away. Things were fine going away from the car, but on the way back my foot sank in the snow and he had to help me out of it. xD My leg was white from the knee down. 

When we made it back to Obihiro we went to dinner at Tacos Locos. I love that restaurant so much, which is vaguely odd because I very seldom eat Mexican food at home. I wish they'd use more sour cream, tho. =( But it's very delicious. ^-^

So I was taking my ear medicine properly, but if anything my ears just hurt worse. And Monday I woke up -exhausted-. Tuesday wasn't much better, and I got a raging headache all day. Yesterday I was so very tired even though I went to bed early and slept fine. 

The Ski Class started yesterday! I wanted to go to it, so I bought a ski suit (over $200), a hat (over $50, especially when one factors in that I accidentally bought a kid's hat at first and had to buy another), gloves, the whole kit and kaboodle. I decided not to buy goggles because they're between $80-200 depending on which ones you get, and I didn't even know if I -liked- skiing yet. So I was really excited about this ski class thing, but at the same time I was quite scared. I'm a klutz, and new things scare me besides. But I was going to do it, dammit! 

You'll notice there are no pictures. That's because not only did I not go, I was told specifically not to. xD

Yesterday morning, I was still super exhausted, right? Someone asked me how my cold was. Mori-san, my section head, immediately turned to me and said, "Cold? What cold?" See, once he found out it wasn't an ear infection, my supervisor decided I had a cold. So I told him that I wasn't feeling too hot but that I was fine, really. He asked what my symptoms were so I told him. Headache, tiredness, occasional nosebleeds--they've been getting better, I promise--Reika-san, the lady who sits next to me, pipes up and says 「血！水じゃなくて、血！」 "Note she says bleeds, not runs!" Nose is bleeding, not running.--sore throat, I was sneezing a lot last week.... Their eyes kept getting bigger and bigger. Finally Supervisor-san says, 「スキーやめてください。」"Please don't come to skiing." Basically, stay home and rest. The ski classes are at night, and it's really cold on the mountain besides, so stay home and rest. 

They also asked if I'd been eating. Apparently saying I'm on a diet means I stop eating, period. Not true, I eat lunch every day at school, and I usually have something for dinner. True, a couple of times last week I didn't eat dinner.... I didn't tell them that. 

They told me I should probably wear a mask when I go to school, because if I didn't have a cold already I'd probably catch one pretty easily. So I loaded up the car and drove out to Oda, wearing one of those bloody masks. I hate those things. I hate breathing in moist air. I twist mine in front of my ears so it gapes out a bit at the sides. I get more cool air, but in exchange I look like a duck. 9-9 Anyway, apparently I really didn't look well because the teacher asked me five times if I was sure I was up to going to class. I told her really I was fine, just tired. 

When I got back to the office they sent me home. -.- So I went home after lunch yesterday and cleaned my living room on the off chance someone came by to check on me, then passed out on the sofa. I slept all afternoon, woke up around 7 to make dinner, and went back to bed around 930. 

I felt a lot better today, but about an hour after waking up I started getting tired again, and my throat got kinda itchy. My head started to hurt, so I took some ibuprofen. When I got to school the teachers looked at me and told me to go home. Seriously, I wasn't even there twenty minutes. So I went back to the office. 

On the way into the office I slipped in the parking lot and fell down. T-T 

Everyone looked up when I came in and when I told them I got sent home, they told me to go to the doctor. They were appropriately sympathetic when I told them I fell down in the parking lot, too. 

So I went to the doctor. Again. They did a flu test, which involves taking a long plastic qtip thingy and sticking it up your nose. Good god that thing is awful. x.x But they get results in 10-15 minutes. No flu, just a cold. So the doctor gave me cold medicine. I have two pills and a powder I'm to take three times a day with meals, so I have to eat at least three times a day. Yay?

The two green bottles are the ear drops the EENT gave me. One is already empty, the other about halfway, which is odd because the bottles have the same amount of liquid in them and I was to use them exactly the same--four drops in both ears, twice a day... How did one run out twice as quickly as the other?  o.O Then there's the powder and the two tablets. Powder medicine is... weird. You're apparently supposed to tip all the powder into your mouth and drink it down with water? Was the general consensus of the internet. I don't know. 

After the hospital I went to the store and bought new boots so I'll stop freaking falling down, and a bunch of food. So I have food now. Atsu-sensei from the middle school offered to bring me medicine and food if I wanted her to. x.x I'm fine, really! Well, more or less. I'm super tired, and I started to get cold despite the heater. So I'm going to go to bed now. Hopefully they won't send me home tomorrow, too. 

Oh, the Okinawa trip! It's off. Well, offish. My dad's not coming anymore (I really don't like his new company sometimes), so instead I'm going to go for a few days on my spring break and then to Kyoto for a few days. I'll still take about a week off, but it'll be two weeks later and I'll go to Kyoto to visit Jun-kun as well. 

Provided I haven't died by spring break. 

<3 Take care, everyone!