Saturday, December 5, 2009

Sapporo is good for the soul...

Small town girl that I am, I would not have thought that the big city would make such an impact. Rianna (the AET from Date) stayed over on Wednesday night and Ian drove the two of us to Sapporo on Thursday morning. Ian had to go anyway and get the re-entry visas so that we could come back after we go home for Christmas.
Rianna and I got ourselves oriented and settled into the first session at the conference. I assumed that lunch would be provided but it wasn't so we had to go out and find food. Thankfully Rianna has two years of college level Japanese behind her so it made things easier. She's also been to Sapporo a few times before so she had some confidence in using the subways and getting around. After lunch we checked into the hotel and deposited our stuff in our rooms. I wish I'd remembered to take the camera because I'd have loved to have taken a photo of the room. It was small - very small - but it had everything necessary for one person. When I checked in there was an envelope for me from Ian with my paperwork for the re-entry permit. For some reason he had not been permitted to process mine so I needed to find some time to try and get to the government building to do it. When the afternoon session ended Rianna and I tried to go and deal with the permit paperwork. The person at the front desk of the hotel thought we wanted directions to the historical government museum building so we wound up far away from where we should be and as it turned out the office was already closed. We had a quick tour through the museum and then headed for the station to get some dinner.
The JR (Japan Rail) station in Sapporo is an amazing place. There are two or three large malls attached to the station and a ton of shops. We went up in the JR tower to the 11th floor and found a place to eat. I don't know what I ate but it was amazing! Afterwards we shopped our way down the tower before taking the subway back to the hotel and heading to bed.
Friday morning there were two workshops. One of mine was kind of lame but the other one was quite good. I connected with some other AET's and compared notes of work loads and accomodations. I realized that I'm quite lucky in the situation here with the house and the car and my work situation. Rianna and I went for lunch with a group of JET's from one of the northern areas. They were very nice - but young! It was actually a bit painful to look around the conference and know that I was the oldest one there! (If not actually the oldest then at least close to it!) I cut out of the afternoon session to go deal with the re-entry permit. I took the subway (by myself) and changed lines (by myself) and found the right building in the middle of Sapporo (by myself) and accomplished the task all by myself!!! (Are you hearing the pride?!?!) I found myself in the middle of the park in the centre of downtown Sapporo just marvelling that I am here. It still seems very unreal to me sometimes!
I made my way to the train station where I met Rianna and we caught the train to Date. Ian and the kids had been in Date for Taran's rehab anyway so they met us at the station and we grabbed some food and headed home.
We've had a pretty lazy weekend - Naoko came for dinner last night and we played a few games. It was a wildly windy night last night - we actually thought at times that the house was going to lift off the ground. It rained and stormed all night but around noon today it turned to snow so now we're getting a bit of a White Christmas thing going. The whole world is grey and white.
I forgot to mention that Ian's team came in second in the table tennis tournament on Thursday night - he really enjoyed the whole evening - I was sorry I missed it.

2 comments:

  1. Sapporo sounds like an exciting place! Everything still as usual here. Just trying to get ready for Christmas and all that. Take care and nice to read up on your adventures.

    Susan

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  2. Hey cool! Way to go, Phaedra, on navigating the train/subway system! It really is empowering, isn't it?! Jozu ne! Can't wait to see you!!!

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