Hokkaido - Being a Tourguide

Comic Timing Helps
As I explained earlier, our tour guides were from Hong Kong.  One, shown below, is married to a Japanese lady and lives in the outskirts of Tokyo.  He had some interesting insights into Japanese culture and he delivered them with great comic timing.  I knew this only because after listening to him speak in Cantonese for five or ten minutes the entire bus would erupt in laughter.  I asked for a translation of a few of his stories.  Here they are....

Hokkaido - Otaru

Cheesecake City!
Otaru is a small port town of 130,000 people on the Sea of Japan.  It's a thirty minute drive north of Sapporo and is famed for sushi, glass works, ice cream and cheesecake.  We took our bus from Noboribetsu, past Sapporo to Otaru for lunch and an afternoon stroll.  Dodo and I stormed right past the glass works and everything else on our way to a lunch warm-up of cheesecake and coffee.

Hokkaido - Goodbye Hotsprings!

Thanks for Nothing, Yukijin
Our two days of hot springs in Noboribetsu were up, we were heading north to Sapporo.  On the way out I took a shot of Yukijin, the demon whose job it is to guard over the hot springs.  Looks like he was undergoing a distracting touch up.  In my two days I'd spent a grand total of 2 minutes soaking in our hot springs tub - it was just way too hot for me.  I think the thermometer was broken and now I know why.

Hokkaido - Driving to the Rim

Man = Insect
On a late evening drive home we stopped at a scenic lake for phototaking just as the sun was setting.  Light flurries were being whipped about by a slicing wind.  I was so cold that I had a hard time focusing the lens.  It was a very large, round lake with a mountain range poking out of its depths.  I suspected we were standing on top of a volcano, at the rim of an old caldera that had filled with water over the millenia.  I shrugged off the thought, it was simply too big.

Hokkaido - Long Live the King

King Crab and Co.
When you can't read Japanese, you rely on context.  Clearly we were in store for a crab and seafood lunch.  Not just an ordinary one, our tour guide promised, but a superior one. He'd made an earlier observation in his tour-guide-slash-stand-up act: "What's the difference between the Chinese and the Japanese?  Simple, in China everything good is exported but the Japanese keep the best things to themselves."  Part of this theory was about to be put to the test.

 

Hokkaido - Edo Wonderland

Historical Theme Park?
I didn't know what to make of this place, a re-creation of an Edo village. If nothing else, it was photogenic.  I would've liked to learn more Edo period history but that wasn't to be.  I settled for photo taking and cheesy samurai reenactments.

Hokkaido - Setting the Scene

Let Me Help You With the Big Picture
In Asia many companies have an annual trip to reward employees for their hard work.  Not all of these trips are created equal, this one being grander than most due to the Boss, a hard drinking bon vivant originally from China, now transplanted in Australia.  This is the same Boss whose bus of a Mercedes I tool around Singapore in. The Boss, seated on the front left of this photo, does everything in a big way.  His aim, from what I can tell, was two-fold: for us to enjoy as much expensive food and pricey sake as possible while draining from the Frenchies a maximum of Euros.  You see, this was an all expenses paid trip a la my former French company.  Every bite and sip tasted the better for it.  All I packed were my fancy Paris sweaters and an appetite.

Hokkaido - First Imressions

Natural Beauty
After a one and a half hour flight from Tokyo we landed in another world.  The Russian on the airport signs stopped me dead in my tracks.  I later checked the map and noted that Sapporo is closer to Vladivostok than it is to Tokyo.  In addition to Japanese and Russian, the signs were in Chinese and Korean, all close neighbors

Sapporo - Coming Up Next

Another Dodo Company Trip
I missed Dodo's company trip last year due to my Paris work schedule.  Luckily I'll make this one.  We're headed to Hokkaido, Japan's northern most island.  It's home to Sapporo beer and a famous ramen loaded with seafood.  Included in our itinerary is a visit to a volcano, walks along a downtown canal and soba noodle making.  We leave on Monday night, spend a day in Tokyo, then fly to Sapporo for a five day stay, then another three days in Tokyo.  Sapporo shares a latitude and weather pattern with Syracuse, so I'll be packing my sweaters and leather coat.  After this trip, I'll have experienced this wacky, interesting country from top to bottom.

Singapore - Babbling in Chinese

At Least I Passed...
I was nervous throughout, you can hear it in my voice.  I said "ummm" a thousand times, so embarrasing.  Enjoy.  Click on this LINK to watch the video.

Singapore - Cramming for Finals

Three Minutes of Hell
I never liked giving speeches. I've become better at them over time but they're still not my favorite.  Tomorrow night I have my Chinese class final exam.  It's simple, get up in front of the class and speak in Chinese for three minutes.  Probably going to be the longest three minutes of my recent life.  The speech is written - I'm memorizing it.  I've got a deck of pictures to go along with it to help my recall.  The teacher will film it, if it's not overly horrendous I will post the video.  As you may be able to tell from the few English words, it's mainly about family.

你好。大家晚上好。
我叫Josh. 我的女朋友叫我小明。
我不喜欢 这个名字。我喜欢大明。
这是我的女朋友叫 Jean。我叫她豆豆。她是新加破人。
她喜欢笑。
她有一个妹妹，叫 Joanne.
和一个弟弟，叫 Ben.
Ben 有一个女儿，叫 Giselle.
我不是新加破人。
我不是英国人。
我不是 澳大利亚人。
我是美国人。
我来自纽约。
我家没有八个人。我家有四个人。 爸爸，妈妈，姐姐和我。
他们住在美国。
这是我的爸爸，叫Dan。他是教授。
这是我的妈妈和她的朋友门。她叫Sal. 她也是教授。
我的妹妹叫Amaya。
她有三个孩子。一个女儿和两个儿子。
他们叫Caleb,Mach and Dee.
我没有孩子。
我和我的女朋友 一起住。
我们住在波东巴西。
我的女朋友 是 CFO。
她的工作很忙。
这个星期她在印度.
我是顾问
这是巴黎。我在巴黎工作了三年。
我在学习中文和法文。
我喜欢做饭。
我喜欢喝咖啡。
我喜欢旅行。这是韩国。

Singapore - Destruction

Top Down, All Around
Were they dropped from helicopters or assembled on top of the building?  They chewed noisily, reducing the building next door floor by floor.  They reminded me of the hungry caterpillars you see on nature shows, biting down a jungle tree one leaf at a time.  Our living room became brighter and breezier by the day, the neighborhood microclimate shifting slightly.

Singapore - to be Four...

Prepping for 1st Grade
Nowhere are parents as crazy as here in Singapore.  There is a Hokkien word used here, "kiasu", which translates to "a fear of losing that is used to describe someone who is overly competitive." While we were dropping off Jean's niece at ballet class this morning at the mall, I noticed many small businesses aimed at kiasu parents.  They were targeting parents of four year olds - here are some of the classes they can attend to prepare themselves for 1st grade!!

Singapore - More Language

From the Pan to the Fire
Chinese makes French seem like a leisurely hobby.  The day after I started French class I also began a Chinese class.  It meets Tuesday and Thursday nights for two hours at a time but demands daily study twice that.  Whereas I study two hours of French outside of class per week, I easily spend ten times that on Chinese.