Skip to main content

It's week 3 already?! (+post-quake)

A super overdue post! Sorry about that guys. It's been a busy three weeks since I arrived with all the language studying, settling in, meetings, and events happening. Anyway, let's get to it.

Here's a quick update on what's happened after right my previous post:

  • Electricity came back at around 8:30 pm the following day (thank God!)
  • Supermarkets & convenience stores were constantly cleared out of their fresh goods (eggs, rice, noodles, milk, meat, fish). 
  • Most shops had remained closed in case of strong aftershocks
  • Japanese classes were post-phoned until the following week
  • Most other areas in Hokkaido, especially those closer to the epicentre still did not have electricity, water, gas
  • Damages in the city (Sapporo) - roads ruined, some trees uprooted, parts of buildings fell off
You can see the hospital lit up in the distance

Dinner time was quite romantic if you can imagine.



Well, it's been a couple of weeks and I can say that life is now back to normal. 今生活がだんだん普通に戻りました。Roads have been fixed, shelves have been restocked with fresh food, and shops are back in business. I mean, it's been two weeks, but it's as if the earthquake hadn't happened. Well, to me at least.

Some photos collected over the past weeks--

Not enough vitamins in your body, no problem!

Weather is always good here for some reason

/Sharp intake of breath - hyperventilates/

Why use a stove when you can use this cute, little thing

No points given if you can figure this out.

Tokyu Hands has really interesting stuff

Like this whole range of Fullmetal Alchemist stationary

... and leather section

... and stickers of numerous variety to spruce up your boring looking laptop, etc.

Road trip!

The famous Otaru canal, plus a boat.

Fish cake factory - Kaimaei
Really delicious stuff!

The shopping district isn't usually this quiet. But thanks to the earthquake, we could shop in peace.

"We will take care of Father (your husband/dad)" when you go shopping.

What is Otaru without its seafood?

I spent 500 yen on cheese drizzled karaage. 

Reminiscent of Le Petit Prince

There was a bare tree/plant(?) that had little sparkly jewel-like decorations adorning its branches.
Pretty-looking thing.

It's bigger than it looks. And probably the culprit behind all the huge poop bombs on cars we spotted.

The man behind Hokkaido University (1876) - William S. Clark
They also have their own brew of alcohol & biscuits. Top that!

The oldest building in Hokkaido Uni (1901). Once used for entomology, it is now used by medical students.
Close enough. 

Monkshood or Wolf's Bane - once used as poison on the tips of spears and arrows.
Good thing this isn't a thing anymore.

"I AM BEAUTIFUL. FEAR ME." 

Finally tested my phone camera's night scene feature.

Ton Ton is 16 years old.

Mini volleyball was founded in Hokkaido and isn't played outside of Japan.

More curry rice!

More students!

Respect for the elders day!

So I asked around whether this was a horse or a donkey.
It is a horse.

More food!

I took the guys shopping.
I only got one article of clothing. The rest in the two bags were theirs.

Soup curry - another local delicacy of Sapporo.
This one's with bacon, sausage, and cheese

House party! Feelin' like a uni student again.



Living the shojo manga life. (Was legit rushing though.)

Gravity Research
Rock climbing at Sapporo Factory Mall - 1500 yen for students, 1800 yen regular price

My arms and fingers have now been rendered useless after several climbs.

Some good ol' okonomiyaki

Yas.

I can't believe it's already been 3 weeks. Somehow it still feels surreal being here? Compared to when I first went to the UK, it's taking me more time to settle down. I keep asking myself, "when are you going to get used to living here?" Well, at least I'm finally getting some decent, undisturbed sleep. The past nights have been filled with vivid dreams that made me really tired when I woke up, like my brain had just ran a triathlon overnight, not to mention the earthquake and aftershocks.

Language wise, I'm slowly learning to speak by listening and picking up on sentence patterns and frequently-used words. I have to say, I am terrible at studying. Somehow I can't seem to apply the stuff I've been learning in my classes. And I feel really disappointed about that. I guess it doesn't really help that I attend two separate places for language study, and have had different teachers every time, でも偶然みたいな。It could be coincidence that I keep getting different teachers (and ending up jumping back and forth across chapters here and there) - I have yet to see the significance of this happening.

But otherwise, living here has been really fun and exciting. The temperature is slowly descending into Autumn with every rainfall, leaves and beginning to turn fiery red, and the wind is as strong as ever.

Can't wait for October. Lot's of work and fun to look forward to in the new semester!

Though, I really wanna go karaoke. Kinda miss all my belting Korean songs.

For now, signing off.








Comments

Popular posts from this blog

An Adventure Awaits!

It's been pretty hectic over the past few days, and now that I finally have some time to breathe , let me hand you some updates. Last Friday was my last day at work and boy did the girlies prepare a wholesome feast! Also I had a chance to try this yummeh thing: Beautiful cheese. Nanda Chicken, 11, Jalan Solaris 2, Solaris Mont Kiara, 50480 Kuala Lumpur, Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur Just a note, if you like spicy stuff, this is your place. I was dying with level 1 spice. So proceed with caution and don't think you won't shit fire, cuz you might. You can thank me later. Me when I see cheese on my food.  Two things make me an incredibly happy person like in the picture above: 1) Korean food 2) karaoke. There's this Korean place called  in PV128 at Wangsa Maju that serves unlimited supply  of Korean food for the price of either RM25, or RM30. Most of its patrons go for the more expensive option since it appears to be more worth of it...
There are three things I realised during these couple of days. One: Cooking Mama is available on Android! Imagine to my utter delight that this DS game would be playable on my phone! I've wanted a DS at one point just to play Cooking Mama because, hello, you can cook stuff without looking like a total idiot in the kitchen and burning it down?! I kid. I'm not entirely hopeless in the kitchen, more of the opposite actually *coughselfpraisecough*. Anyway, I would suppose the game's language settings are set to the one your phone's UI is in, but it also allows you to choose which languages you want the game to be in. Of course, Japanese is one of them (duh). The game is free, but (so far) recipes are bought by cash, and they ain't cheap. They come in a bundle of  about six or more recipes that you can cook and combine  with. Yes, combine. Now you can be the Michelin Star chef you've always wanted to be (or not). Since this game is relatively new, I don...

帰りたい

Have you ever felt this intense urge in your heart, this longing in your soul to go somewhere --  to return to a place you don't physically call home? It's been more than a month since I went to Japan. Suffice to say, I felt what I mentioned above at Haneda airport while counting down the minutes to my departure back to England. New and old friends patiently waited with me as I queued up to checked-in, ate with me my last Japanese dinner bought at the convenience store, and took an abundance of digital memories. These things made it all the more difficult to let go and leave. I put on a smile, wide enough that even my own consciousness is fooled, laughed loudly, assuring myself and the others that I will be back the following year -- the same promise I made the previous year. But life is unexpected and plans are ephemeral. The inital aim of this post was to reflect on my time in Japan (which was no less exciting as the previous time), but I guess it ended up sounding a litt...