Bicycle business

So, it's really late, but I'm feeling quite generous tonight and as such will give the common people a quick update, basically about my bicycle lol. And of incoming changes!

Last week, I opened Google maps, and traced the route I take everyday from my dorms to the university, and learned that it's approximately 4km each way. Doing very simple maths (nijma3!), this amounts to a minimum of 8km a day, around 16ish on days I go to the gym (which hasn't been happening much though).

8km à pied, ça use, ça use.

8km à pied,ça use les souliers!

Only I'm not walking, but the concept remains unchanged, and so I use that fact to make myself feel less bad about the 3rd bicycle I've so far kinda broken or ruined...

First one was the old crappy one my very nice friend gave me (I'm really not being sarcastic here), didn't take me much effort to ruin the chain so that it came off every other block. Returned it and she actually was nice enough to give me another one.

Condition was better, but not much... it wasn't ME riding it when the chain actually broke, but I paved the way for it.

The last one, which I bought second hand from the Co-op, seemed more promising, in much better condition. It seems however, that it is a bit small for me. I should have realized this when my feet would brush the ground when I would be banking right or left lol, but I just assumed the road was uneven.

Last week, the main suspension (under the rear seat) actually broke... Seems it wasn't meant to carry me + my books + my laptop for a total of 80something kgs. Go figure.

Asked the nearest repair shop, turns out it costs nearly as much to change it as it would to buy another second hand bike... So I fixed it myself. It's not a very good job, but it seems to be holding out for the time being. I just need to make sure everything's still in place every couple of days, and avoid carrying my laptop with me lol. And maybe stand up when there's a bump in the road. And maybe not jump off the sidewalk when there are many people there. That might help a little haha (no seriously wasn't doing that, maybe only once or twice. Now I just avoid streets with many people).

Good thing is however, that this long ride is amazing exercise. Especially since I'm always late in the morning! When I first started making the trip maybe 2 months ago, I'd get there tired, now I can very easily go full speed the whole way back and forth one go. So I started to find other ways to make it a challenge, like standing as much as I can (while avoiding straightening the knees of course), or not using my thighs and stuff like that.

There are days however, when all this is unnecessary. Days when the wind is more than enough challenge! Days like today.

Once the wind was so strong, it actually stopped me in my tracks, from nearly top speed! Had to walk my bike... but this only happens at the riverside for some reason. Maybe coz of lack of buildings that shield you.

Well anyway enough of silly and uninteresting stuff. Winter is coming (Song of Ice and Fire reference... if you don't know what that is, shame on you! But worry not, you do not need to read them, HBO is making a series based on the books! Books will be better of course, but I digress again). Therefore, bicycle riding will be somewhat hard. Add that to the million reasons living in these dorms (or any other dorms) sucks, and you get enough incentive to move to an apartment! I say apartment, but it's basically a bigger room lol...

Et voila! My new apartment. A couple minutes away from my lab (on foot!) and on the 8th floor (8 being my favorite number). I'll be missing out on the daily workout but I can think of many many more positive sides to the move. Like: hotel Tah is now open for visitors! Well not yet, but as of August 21st (or a week after that). Come one come all! I won't pay for your ticket :P but you'll have a place to stay, and a guide for the bestest foodz hehe.

Enough rambling for now, so much to write about, so little "jalad" to do so :)

Uploaded many pix on FB though so check them out.

Moo.

Big ass bruise!

Since I'm on a roll and uploaded all the photos I've been too lazy to upload for the past month, I'll accompany them with a quick explanation here. Won't be uploading same pix though.

Yesterday's post was a short one and I'll not consider it as the "return", so since THIS is the new beginning, I decided to make it special, and kick off with a rather humorless and pretty rude pun. Thus the title.

Now we all know the best way to get someone to do something is to tell them NOT to do it.

"Don't look down!"

And you went and did. Obviously. So I'm sure my next few words will have the opposite effect but I'm just gonna say it: at the end of this post I am posting a photo of a big ass bruise I got a couple weeks ago... on my ass! Get it? Haha. Ehm ya SO you were warned! If you've known me for more than a month, chances are you've already seen my ass ;) but in case you aren't yet of the few [un] lucky people here's your chance. Basically I slipped and landed on a step and had to share the pretty pic hehe.

On to other news. Those that read my last post about my new earphones, will be delighted to know that I just found the ones I "lost" today... and now I feel a little less good about buying the 40$ ones, but am not gonna return them coz they're just too frikkin awesome.

Soooo actually I find myself too lazy to write anything about Hokkudai sai (food festival at our uni), Yokasoi (dance festival in Sapporo), Maruyama zoo and mountain (with the breathtaking view of Sapporo), and Zenibako (beach), since the photos are more than enough info me thinks, and I'm quite lazy.

With that out of the way let us begin with the miscellaneous things:

Saw these guys while going to class lol. Stuck around till they finished thinking they'd climb up when done, which was pretty silly of me in retrospect, since they basically just went down a meter or so and were on the ground lol... ah well...

This is a gorgeous house right outside uni, with an old woman always gardening. Might have posted a photo of it before but it's definitely worth seeing again :)

Another gadget I wouldn't have thought I'd ever see: a USB fan... yes lol. Very cool :D

This is pure genius! Ever eaten ice cream or anything wrapped in paper and had to gradually tear the paper while you ate? Well this little baby is already ready to very easily tear in a spiral, conveniently uncovering the important stuff: the FOODZ!

Now on to less random stuff. A Shinto shrine: quite old.

Very gorgeous.

So you go to the altar throw some money and pray for something, then ring the bell so the gods can hear you. Then you can pay the equivalent of a dollar and get your fortune. If you don't like it, there's a place where you can tie it and it won't come true. So take someone who can read it with you. Don't know if you take it and have someone translate it, then don't like it and come back to tie it, if it will still come true since you took it out in the first place :P Not that I really think it will come true anyway.

Outside the shrine. You can see summer in its full effect. I'm pretty sure I have the same photo in the winter somewhere but I can't be bothered to find it and compare :)

Finally, was riding my bike back home, and had my earphones on full blast listening to something loud, however, I still heard something. Took off my earphones, and the sound was pretty low, surprising with the volume of the music (probably the silence between songs), so I went in the general direction of the music and found this:

Asked, and seems (correct me if I'm wrong) this is an Omikoshi (Mikoshi but the O is added for respect in Japanese), which is basically a vessel used to transport the deity from the nearby Shinto shrine around the neighborhood, so the deity can check it out. I felt very lucky to have wandered there by mistake. A very pleasant experience.

Of course can't keep the tone very serious! So this is me in flashing mini mouse ribbon yay!

And this is me posing for my new haircut yay!

And this the sheep dog again! I just love it!

Saw it down by the river and sprinted to take another photo of it. And it just walked up to me and started sniffing and licking me! So cute! And huge!

Finally, would like to talk about the school visit last week. Each year, in this intensive Japanese course we're taking, the teachers organize a trip to a nearby Japanese middle school. The aim is to see how the Japanese educational system works, and have a nice Japanese experience. The school benefits from an international exchange, since we all prepare presentations about our countries.

We can't post photos online because of Japanese regulations regarding the schools, regulations I'm surprisingly very comfortable following (!!!) I'm sure they have their reasons, but if anyone wants some, just let me know on FB or drop a comment (with a name or email address if your nickname is something vague!) and I'll email you some. Sharing photos with family is OK but not posting them publicly. And believe me it's worth it! I chose the youngest class, 6-7 year-olds and they were TOO. FRIKKIN. CUTE.

The whole class (both sections) sang "We Are The World".

That's us practicing the night before at one of the dormitories.

So we got there and were each greeted by a student and led by the hand to the gym, where all the students and parents (?) awaited our arrival. We entered to a Michael Jackson song lol (forgot which though) and after lots of talking (in Japanese of course), they started with the interviews. I naturally forgot to read up on the questions they would ask us, and messed up mine by answering something totally different but humorous (I think meh).

After that we sang, then they sang, then we all danced... the MACARENA lol!

Then it was off to the classes and the presentations we prepared (all in Japanese of course...) Mine was about famous places in Lebanon. Took me a while to prepare it, since I had to download a trial version of Office 2010 to get PowerPoint, and learn how to use it since the last version I've used was 2000. Add to that the fact that it was all in Japanese, and you have a recipe for hours and hours of work for 10 minutes of presentation lol. It was fun as hell though, and except for the last couple slides (where I became lazy), I mostly had the full attention of 7 year-old children. A feat in itself!

We then began playing games, none of which I fully understood, all of which I was running and screaming and being all-out-silly in though :D

We had lunch with the students. They have lunch in their classes. Carriages are left in front of the class, with food and milk cartons, and of course utensils. The students then wear the funniest looking hats and clothes and assorting table cloths on their desks, then make lines to have the ones on duty serve them food. Too cool. Very cute pix here :(

After lunch, more games, dancing, singing and lots and lots of fun! The extra attention is a bit annoying, especially for my class, where it's the first time for many of them to see a foreigner. And so they were all over me, touching me and trying to get my attention, and of course I couldn't understand 90% of what they were saying. It was even tougher for our African friends haha, since their skin is even stranger to the kids than mine! And were even asked many times why they were black.

Finally we drew big notes of thanks to the kids and were on our way after a long and exhausting, but very very fun day.

Oh and nearly forgot the promised photo! Haha.

Overview

So been kinda busy for a while.

And lazy! Let's not forget lazy...

Much easier to just upload photos on FB than to write here too :)

And the more I procrastinate updating the blog, the more depressing it is to think what to write next...

So since I have a midterm tomorrow that I have not started to study for, I'll just use that as an excuse to get away with only writing an overview of what will be discussed soon:

1. Summer! Yesterday was first day you can stand in the shade and still feel kinda warm.
2. Food festivals at Hokudai (my uni) last week: many many countries had tents in which they were selling their traditional foods. This was for 4 days (Thursday-Sunday) which meant we had a long weekend, and I had tentloads of food, and paid too much for it :D
3. Yokasoi which means "follow the night"? Forgot. Basically this weekend was also a 4 day festival for... DANCING! Ya 4 days of people dressed in costumes and dancing as teams all over Sapporo. Very cool.
4. Basketball. Football (not world cup of course).
5. Midterms!
6. Big ass bruise! Explicit material incoming...

As for the midterms, I had kanji exam today, finished it in half the time! Did great in it too. Studied for a hour or two yesterday for it yay.

I find myself very strangely really really enjoying kanji. What I thought was stupid (sorry I mean illogical and not quite efficient) and complicated, I now regard as very interesting and complicated hehe.

Still have the grammar exam tomorrow so I guess I'll go study for that now :'(

I even shaved so as to postpone studying... and those who know me can tell that means a lot!

Ah well off to study...

Rafting

Aha!

And we're back! Dina がんばって！OK had to begin with that.

So since it's been a while and I have no idea where to start, so I'll start with rafting last Sunday!

It all started at 9:30 AM in the huge train/subway/convenience store building I've spoken about more than once, where I met Aiman (Libya), Barbora (Slovakia), Dasha (Russia), Julien (France), Ted (Mars), Vala (Russia) and we took a minivan towards... geh need to get the brochure forgot the name... NISEKO! Muahaha my memory never fails! Or rather since I KNOW that it will, I've come up with many methods to get around that fact, like for example:

Taking a photo of the subway entrance in front of which I parked my bike... just in case ;)

As always I sat in front to chat with the driver, but I hadn't thought about the fact that I can't really speak Japanese lol. Turns out he speaks little English though, and he works as a fisherman half the year, when the rivers aren't freezing, and different things the other half. Thanked him for contributing to my healthy diet of sashimi/sushi since I got here :D

Last Sunday was the last day of ski, still plenty of snow as you can see.

Coolest part of the drive:

That was a bridge, that went into this half-tunnel thing (to protect from avalanches I guess). Striking resemblance to that Need for Speed 2 track! Which reminds me of Niz rest his soul, he always used to kick my ass on that track :(

Finally arrived at our destination and were greeted by the evil puppy with plans to take over the world with his hypnotic powers.

20 seconds later, we had to hold this strange woman back. She was trying to scratch out the eyes of a poor unfortunate smaller man while he pleaded: "I'm sorry the dogu tolde me to grabu youro assu!" OK maybe that didn't happen. Donno why I just had the urge to write that, felt like a voice in my head compelled me to do it...

Moving on, we put on the wet suits, emptied extra air (if you have lots of air inside and fall into the water, the air might all go to your legs thus making you float legs up lol), and went outside to take the bus.

The guy with long hair was our guide. The other team of 7 Japanese girls had Spider-man for their guide... But ours was cooler! We called him Spider-man coz he was showing off (we assumed?) and hanging down from the bars on the bus' roof. Strange man with red hair...

Once in the water, the craziness began (again I blame the evil puppy!). Our guide miscalculated and started to hype us up by yelling: "HIGH FIVE" to which we would high five with our oars and scream while screaming it with him. I think he started regretting doing so the 38th time we did it haha. We did some rafting between jumping in the water, pushing each other in the water, and splashing the other boat full of Japanese girls every chance we got! Fun stuff.

(photos are on my FB so can't be bothered to upload them again here)

After finishing, the bus was waiting for us with hot tea. Then we were back at the puppy's base of operations, where we changed back into our clothes and went to the hot springs! Not sure what type of hot spring it was, but it wasn't Sulphuric which smells bad so that's cool. Hot spring with a cold 750ml beer? Yes please... No photos inside for obvious reasons ;) sorry ladies.

Video of a small drop we did yay! Unfortunately we had to take the silly side, the cool side (with much bigger drop was too dangerous for us... pansies...)

Golden week? Hey here's a homework :)

So golden week's basically over, good week it has been though!

The good:

Went out a lot. Photos I took are really bad coz of the dark, except for this one... of the stairs to the Cuban style bar where there was Salsa night:

Ate a lot (naturally).

Proof that choosing where to eat based on the hotness of a waitress is not always a bad idea!

Octopus pancake (unfortunately can't read the menu well to order it without mayo...):

Potato to go with that:

Fillet, spaghetti and omelet on rice... that been said, that meal was tough. Took all my willpower and strength not to look like a barbarian since I was so hungry :(

Last but not least, the other night, was hungry and it was really late, my fridge naturally only has liquids in it :P so decided to finally try the burger chain they have here, Mos Burger, since everything else was closed anyway, and well I gotta say it wasn't bad at all. But more importantly, the waiter suggested the new restaurant next door.

Tried it today, and this happened:

By far the most fatty meat I have ever eaten. Doesn't really show in the photo, but there's a whole layer of fat in-between layers of meat. And it's kinda hard to remove it with chopsticks :'( So I gritted my teeth and took it like a man! And it was much better than expected. Took a photo of the menu so that I drill the kanjis into my brain, in order to avoid trying it again, but all in all, wasn't that bad. If anyone can translate this, it'd be nice of you :) I'm too lazy to use the kanji dictionary, and I'm not really sure I really wanna know anyway hehe.

After that, this is a must. (Eh moz I actually bought fruit...)

Also, was walking around and came across this shop:

I've noticed the huge crab (gotta be blind not to) more than once but never walked near the shop. Yes Sherlock, they have crabs (err that came out wrong):

There's even fresh crab! No idea if you can just pick one and take it though :S

Finally, studied a lot... wait. No that's not right. Wrong section, and well, that didn't really happen anyway...

The bad:

This actually started before. What happened was that the zipper on my favorite black pants broke in the suitcase on my way here. Being the optimist that I am (and seeing how much experience I've had with gluing my fingers together with super glue), this was a simple job for me! Or so I thought... *enter dramatic music* TAM TAM TAAAAAAAAM!

So although I actually put the zipper back together, something is still missing, the zipper no longer locks when you close it and lower the handle, and so eventually it just opens by itself...

Now I am not a shy person, and wouldn't really give a rat's ass if my zipper were open, but I think I'm already scaring the native Japanese people enough without this.

So I went and asked a tailor how much this would cost to fix, 30$... I think I'll leave it like this for now lol.

More bad!

Japanese teachers it seems are more similar to French system teachers, who also believe that vacations should mean more studying, instead of less hehe. That been said, we don't have THAT much extra homework, just for me, ANY homework is a pain. But ya I'm guessing anyone reading this already knows that. So I guess I should finish this quickly and finish my last homework...

The ugly:

I haven't had the chance to talk about Japanese TV:

IT IS F**KING WEIRD!

That been said, if you can get over the occasional disturbing image, even someone like me (who can barely understand a couple words) can laugh his/her ass off at how absurdly funny some shows can be.

Take this for example, the Japanese take on "Biggest Loser". Donno if it was directly influenced by it, but the idea is basically the same. These guys come in and do some exercising to lose weight. But...

Yes they're wearing red tights.

Yes they're training to dance on "Thriller".

YES this guy is TEH AWESOME!

Yes their teacher (who was really hot by the way) was crying by the end.

The dude in the jacket was the one who lost the least weight in the last weigh-in and had to ride around the city on bicycle while they danced. Or so I could make out...

The fluffy:

Couldn't really tell where to put this photo, so I made a new category for them. Was walking around, and saw this guy with these 2 fur balls, couldn't help myself. Asked him if I could take a photo and he agreed. Lol.

Wednesday: Bicycle III - I still know that you still know what I did last Saturday

Remember the nice Myanmar man that gave me a free bike, the same bike whose tire exploded last Saturday?

Well today he offered to fix it! Seriously, too nice.

So we (mostly he) took the wheel apart, and after finding out that the tire is way beyond repair (the air chamber had a 4-5 cm rip in it), we decided to just replace the wheel.

As you might already know, disposing of trash here is no easy matter, especially bulky trash, like a broken bicycle for example? So people just leave these bicycles near the garbage collection spots, and people who need spare parts (me) can scavenge them there lol.

Didn't take me long to find myself a spanking new wheel. And we were done with that issue along with the chain. I was good to go.

One problem. It's raining, and I'm in Sooen (or whatever the stupid dorms are called... can never remember that name), which is a half hour ride from where I live. And it snowed a little teeny tiny bit in the morning (while I was sprinting to uni with friend living in same building and as late as I was haha), so it's kinda cold lol.

Sapporo TV station on the way home:

25 minutes or so later, finally made it home. Must tell you, with no hat or gloves, not a very pleasant experience haha. Bright side is that, after you start thawing, and feeling returns to the fingers and face, it feels warm and fuzzy! Oh and it's great exercise! My thighs hardly fit in my toyght jeans for like 2 minutes after getting off lol.

As a side note to my friends in za mozerland, I'm uploading for 120kB/s here, that's like 10 times faster than my download back home lol (hi Joujou sup?). Not that I'm uploading or downloading any torrents or anything of the kind of course...

Oooh! Bird!

Guess what time it is! Time to pee!

OK NOW guess what time it is! Blog update time mmmhmm.

So never got to writing about last Sunday.

As many of youz know, and some do not, I am a firm believer that the biggest problem facing religions around the world, is the clergy. *TAM TAM TAAAAAAAM*!

However, every once in a while, someone comes along and proves me wrong (partly wrong at least). Someone like Father Manfred. Father Manfred came from Germany to Japan 43 years ago, that would be 16 years before I was born lol, and is still going at it with a lot of passion, compassion and love.

You see Father Manfred believes the world is just a bigger version of this bus:

We're all in this journey together. Might as well make it a pleasant one :D Reminds me a lot of my grandfather, but that would be a nice subject for another post (or 30 hehe).

Off to Bibai (north of Sapporo)!

First stop: Tsukigata Kabato Museum.

This museum was originally a prison for political prisoners during the Meiji Restoration period. This was around the time when the shogunate decided to extend the Japanese reach to the island now known as Hokkaido for several reasons. This is where the aforementioned prisoners come into the play. They were exiled up north because of the severe weather (yes...) and to build the infrastructure needed to cultivate the lands.

The prison cemetery, where people offer thanks to the prisoners who built what eventually became the roads we use today. Yes, learned a couple things today, very important stuff too, like the fact that I like ginger ale!

Couldn't take photos inside, and I didn't secretly take a couple photos, and their quality didn't turn out really crappy coz of the lighting, the reflection on the wooden floors (so pretty are the wooden floors and walls...).

This wasn't taken inside.

Nor was this (cedar tree found buried).

Second stop, beautiful lake with some pretty swans. Oh and FOODz!

Coolest stairs ever! Donno why. They just are! Mmkay?

Za lake.

Ate our sammiches in a nice and big shack thingie with no walls, so had to put up plastic curtains to stop the wind that really slices you to pieces... Prisoners could probably only escape 2-3 months a year and still have above 20% chance of survival... Sandwiches and hot rice (and curry and stuffs) were welcome, but no tea for me, apparently I have what Japanese call "cat's tongue", which means I f**kin hate hot drinks!

BIRDY NUM NUM!

Not the smartest of creatures, but perrrty! And they look amazing when they land (and fly it would seem), too bad didn't have camera out when it happened.

Strange pink building, this one's for you Dina :D (check out her blog it's also about life in Japan and really cool).

Final stop, and highlight of the day, Miyajima Luma lake. Seriously. Wow.

You see a lot of birds migrate north this time of the year, I don't blame them, who would ever be happy with warmth and sunshine?! Again, not the smartest of creatures hehe. So where we were is the final pit stop before they reach their destination. They stop here to eat the remaining grains in the rice fields. Apparently there were around 30,000 or so, and at night, most of them sleep in this lake, to avoid predators. Unfortunately, when around so many birds, this is bound to happen :)

Truly a marvelous sight.

Now some people say I have a very short attention span, and that I get easily distrac... ooh look a bird! Doh!

They CAAAME... from... BEHIIIIND!!

I blame my couz Imad for this... must... resist... urge... to link... video...