Summer 2010

My summer break is almost over and I’m left wondering where my time went. Here is some proof of the fun:

Visit with Renee and Brad in Vancouver ( 3 nights)

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Visit with lady, doc and Sophia in Colorado springs (3 days)

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ISTE conference in Denver (8 days)

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Visit with friend and family in Ottawa with a 2 night trip to Niagara Falls with Rosie (3 weeks)

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2 weeks of summer school
1 week of computer setup, relaxation, tweeting, blogging, staying up too late and waking up to early.

Teach workdays begin on Monday August 16.

Tokoname Pottery Path

Kathy and I explored the Tokoname Pottery Path on a windy, cold sunny day during our spring break. We went in the afternoon and the two sites that we could have visited were closed but we enjoyed the circuitous walk, with frequent photography stops.

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Pictures from Sapporo and Otaru, Winter Festivals 2010

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Beautiful Hokkaido

I met the mother of one of my grade one students at Centrair Airport. Her son pointed me out and told her that I am his teacher; she was initially confused because she hadn’t met me before. Once in Hokkaido, we took the train downtown together. As we parted, she gave me her number and invited me to call her if I needed help or wanted to grab a meal together.

I messaged her yesterday to suggest lunch today. We met for a late lunch and went to an Indian restaurant near her parents’ home. The proprietress is so interesting. She is a Japanese woman married to a Tibetian man who has refugee status in India; they met in India when she was vacationing there. We bonded over our Ayurvedic experiences in India and over our adoration of the twin polar bears at the Maruyama Zoo. My friend translated some of our conversation but it’s amazing how much of a language you can understand from the tone of voice and body language. We spent a lovely hour and a half together before she pointed out a nearby bus stop to Otaru, my next destination.

Simply beautiful. I’m overwhelmed by the beauty of the Otaru winter festival. I took a 50 minute bus ride from Sapporo to Otaru and walked around the beautifully lit up city. Ice candles are laid out all over the city, particularly along the more traditional streets. There was no pomp and circumstance tonight, just crowds of people enjoying the unique candle holders made of ice and snow.

I stopped along the way and bought a large clam cooked mostly by blow torch.

Long weekend in Hokkaido

I’m sitting at my hotel in Hokkaido, having a tart and coffee. It’s warm in here even though I have the thermostat set to 23 degrees. I’m enjoying the warmth after several hours in the snow and cold today.

I got to Hokkaido yesterday in time to enjoy the ice and snow sculptures in Odori park and the entertainment for the final night of the Sapporo Winter Festival. Light snow constantly fell over everything giving the illusion of a snow globe. The scale of the sculptures is empressive. There is one of animals at the zoo and several of buildings. Most of the sculptures are done by Japanese but there is an International Park with sculptures representing the following countries: Finland, USA, China, Thailand, Korea, Bali, New Zealand, Singapore and Hawaii (yes I know it’s not a country). There were two other sites for sculptures too but I didn’t make it to either of them. And now it’s too late because I saw cranes tearing the sculptures apart as I walked to my hotel tonight.

Right opposite my hotel was one of he largest sculptures. A stage was created as part of the sculpture, one of several such stages created in Odori Park to host performances. Most of the Japanese performances that I’ve seen involved taiko drumming. These were unique in that there were no live instruments. Large groups of performers danced while one person on the sidelines called out/sang out. Considering how cold it was, I was surprised that the outfits were often sleeveless or bared the men’s torsos. In one outfit, the men stripped down to underwear. There was even a Japanense boy band who performed. One thing that strikes me when I watch Japanese performances with dancing is how much fun the participants seem to have. The audience was having lots of fn too, dancing and waving in time with the performers.

Today I simply walked around the city and went to the zoo. I’m heading to Otaru tomorrow.

More pictures when I get home …

A long way and a relaxing holiday

It’s been hard carrying this secret for months; I told my family and friends that I was going to Thailand for the holidays. I couldn’t suppress my excitement on the long trip from Nagoya to Detroit. I was exhausted by the time I reached Detroit, around the same time of the same day that I left Nagoya. And I still had to contend with a 10 hours layover.

I’ve heard so many bad things about Detroit that I worried for weeks as to whether I should leave the airport to explore the city. I finally decided that if I could live in Sudan and travel in Yemen, I could find some areas of Detroit where I could feel safe in the daytime. But I refused to pay close to $50 to get there.

I got on the Smartbus at the airport, having decided to sit beside the driver. I almost lost my nerve when I got on the airport and found the driver calmly having a smoke in his seat. I hoped that this lawless behavior was not a bad omen. I kept my wits about me, observe everything closely as we drove through Detroit, going past many boarded, graffitied and deserted buildings. I kept watch for a safe place to get off. I decided to do so in the downtown area beside a Subway restaurant.

I walked around and grabbed coffee at the Au Bon Pain. There was a Hard Rock Cafe and mall nearby and a skating rink where many families seemed to be enjoying the beautiful winter day. I walked around the area before grabbing a taxi to take me to Livernois avenue to a hairdresser that I’d previously found.

I still had 4 hours to kill by the time I was finished at the hair dresser and had walked around the area looking for a nail bar that was open, to no avail. I called a taxi (as I’d had enough adventure for the day.)

I stayed overnight in Miami, just enough time to deal with all my Amazon.com orders. Between the packing, the time difference and my internet addiction, I only got three hours of sleep before heading to the airport.

As I sat at the airport waiting for my flight to board, I called my aunt to find out if the family would be home that day. As they called the flight, I started to wonder if it was such a good idea to surprise my grandmother. I called my aunt and told her that I was coming and that she shouldn’t tell anyone, knowing that she’d tell my grandmother if she thought it best. Four hours later, I was in St. Lucia. The immediate family all knew that I was coming.

I spent a little over two weeks in St. Lucia, visiting family and friends. It was a relaxing time in the heat, surrounded by familiarity and heat that make Japan seem a very long way away.

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A Week in Bali

I walked along the beach last night and listened to the play of waves. This was my moment to say goodbye to Bali.

The dolphins were the highlight of my week in Bali. We took a morning dolphin “tour” in Lovina, hoping to see the dolphins up close. We were not disappointed. There were hundreds of dolphins all over, playing, doing air flips and belly flops. I even saw them under the water. I couldn’t stop smiling watching them. The experience was surely worth the early morning wake-up.

During my week in Bali, I spent two nights in Ubud, one night in Kintamani, two nights in Lovina and one night in Kuta. I watched legong dancing in Ubud, climbed Mount Batur around Kintamani, saw dolphins and felt the mist of waterfalls around Lovina, relaxed in Kuta, and did spa treatments several times. I did not enjoying having to bargain for every purchase, even fruit, but I did make some good purchases of Balinese batiks, silver, Balinese puppet dolls and the obligatory tshirt gifts. The week was wonderful. It seems surreal to be back in Nagoya on a cool cloudy day…

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Day Trips from Nagoya

Saturdays seem to have become the unofficial day for exploring nearby regions. I finally got my credit card and ETC card last week so we can go traveling and get better rates on the toll roads. My car doesn’t have an ETC reader but my friends’ do so we use their car. So far we’ve been to Inuyama and Tahara. This weekend was my birthday weekend so I got to choose what we did.

My birthday was on Saturday but the celebration started on Friday evening. A friend cooked a fabulous dinner. On Saturday morning, we had breakfast together while we planned our trip to Toba and Ise in the Mie Prefecture. Our first stop was Ise. We went to Sushi Train for lunch. I think I’m going to miss those two little tortoise characters when I leave Japan. As we headed to Sadahama Port for the boat to Dolphin Island, we came across a home made ice cream shop. I had chestnut ice cream while my friends had Pearl and blueberry. Mikimoto Pearls originated from the Toba region so I assume that pearl ice cream is a local specialty. We didn’t visit the Pearl Island but took a boat cruise to Dolphin Island.

The boat was clearly designed for an amusement park with bright colors and a myriad of life size adornments. Dolphin Island is quite small. The dolphin show was disappointing but the beach was beautiful. We walked along the beach with our feet in the water before climbing to the observatory for a panaromic view of the area.

From Toba, we headed to Ise to visit the Jingu Geku shrine. We were too late to go to the Naiku. The entrance and viewable areas of the shrine are relatively simple. It’s a Shinto shrine that has not been influenced by Chinese or Buddhist traditions. The walk through the grounds is very peaceful with majestic trees and small ponds.

The Jingu Naiku is 6 km from Jingu Geku so we did not go to the inner shrine. It was already dusk. Instead, we went to see the wedded rocks. There is a boulevard along the water. It was relaxing to stop for a moment and enjoy the sound of the waves and the trickling of water from the nearby temple. We didn’t get to see Mt. Fuji in the background but perhaps another day.

We found a nice little restaurant on the way home. It served “dry curry” which is apparently quite healthy. Unfortunately, all the descriptions were in Japanese so I don’t know what dry curry is (although I think I ate it) but it is apparently healthy. The restaurant is called Caravan and has lots of character with old records hung all over the walls. There were posters of the Beatles and John Lennon with the Statue of Liberty. The man and woman who I assume ran the place or maybe own it were very gracious. We wanted hot tea (which they said that they did not have) but the lady later brought us hot tea with a note written in English saying “Japanese hot tea is free”. We got home quite late but my travel companions came over and had birthday cake with me. Thanks ladies for a great birthday weekend.

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Passing time in Dublin

I’m ready to go home even though I’m not really sure where that is. Losing my passport left me with this feeling of incredulity. I’m absent minded and forgetful but I’ve never found myself in a bind quite like this before. After an unsympathetic visit to the Canadian Embassy in Dublin, I was really upset and not at all in the mood for sightseeing. I had to cancel my visit to Glendalough so that I could appear at the Canadian Embassy at 9:00 a.m. this morning and throw myself at their mercy.

I signed in to the embassy at 9:05 this morning and filled out all the forms and paid my (hefty) fee for a temporary passport. I was told to come back at 2:00 p.m. since the Dublin office is 5 hours ahead of Ottawa and wouldn’t be able to get approval from Ottawa until that time. I walked around a bit and then decided to take the hop on / hop off Dublin tour. I took pictures of the highlights but did not visit any sights. I’ve had enough of looking at things; I was just passing time until I could return to the embassy.

I finished the tour around 1 and went for lunch. Lunch was quick and it still wasn’t 2 yet by the time that I finished eating, so I went for a walk beside the canal. When the clock struck 2, I headed to the embassy. I was asked to wait.

I waited, and waited, and waited some more. Good thing I remembered to bring a book with me today. I guess there were some complications with the passport and I finally got it just before 5 p.m. I’m thankful to the lady who processed my application and got me the passport. She’s the same one who made me lose all hope of getting my passport in a day but she pulled through for me. I must remember that actions speak louder than words.

I’m the owner of a white temporary passport. I guess the fee also pays for a real passport when I get to Ottawa but I didn’t know that at the time (or I would have paid a few more Euros to get a 48 page passport). I have to exchange the temporary passport for a 24 page passport within 60 days. I can leave Dublin and get a little bit closer to Ottawa, though it doesn’t quite feel like going home.

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Irish culture

Today I walked on cliffs in the clouds with birds while the sea roared below. That’s what it felt like. I couldn’t see further than a few hundred meters away because of the thick fog swallowing the Cliffs of Moher. The burren and cliffs tour that I was on was saved by the spectacular views of the burren and of the Irish countryside, as well as the visit to Aillwee Cave and the stop to see the slab tomb at Poulnabrone Dolmen. Note to self: Don’t expect to be able to see spectacular sights at high altitude when on a day trip. Stay in the area for at least 24 hours in the hope of catching a clear view. That’s what I did in Banaue, in the hills of India; I’d forgotten the lesson.

Tonight, I continued my immersion into Irish culture, not the land but song and dance. It was a quick 5-10 minute walk to the Salthill Hotel from Clare Villa. I paid a fixed price for the deliciously satisfying three course meal on offer for the night before experiencing the magic of Trad on the Prom show. I have no pictures because they’re not allowed of the show but you can see them at http://www.tradontheprom.com. The musicians and talented and versatile. Out of the five main performers, three of them demonstrated more than one talent. The dancers were high energy, enthusiastic and well synchronized, simply fantastic. It was a full and enjoyable day.

Yesterday was a more relaxed day. I walked around Galway, exploring the Spanish Arch, the museum, the market, St. Nicholas’ Church, the Galway Cathedral, Cobbin River, the River Walkway. I got most of my gifts at the market which sold a variety of crafts, wollen wear, baked goods, vegetables, fruits, cheese, hand bags made in Nepal, some jewellery made in Ireland while others were made in Sweden and other places. I stopped by the river to finish my book, and to watch the fishermen and the other people enjoying the sunshine. As I walked on, I saw some swans and ducks in Galway Bay. I’d given my feet quite a workout but I’d do it all over again.

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