Friday, April 20, 2012

食べ物

Food adventures in Hakodate. 




Superbly detailed carry bag from Donq bakery, underneath Boni Moriya デパート, near Eki Mae. 


Purchased from Donq, chocolate, almond and walnut swirl bun. 



Honey and lemon baton.


Lunch set from a Chinese restaurant near the station.



One of many meals from Lucky Pierrot(ラピー), a fast food chain exclusive to Hakodate. Later I will probably dedicate a whole post to it! カレライスとサラダ。


Quick even meal of korroke, mushrooms, rice, snow peas, Japanese mayonnaise, sesame seeds (ゴマ)and a cup of miso. 


Milkissimo is a gelato shop inside Goryoukaku Tower. Doesn't quite compare to Messina in Sydney, however both the sakura and black sesame flavours were delicious! 






Mochi are Japanese sweets made with glutinous rice flour, usually filled with smooth red bean paste (餡こ)おいしかったよう。I eat them far too often. 


Lipton Smart Times Milk Tea (ミルクティー). Study buddy. 

The worst/best decision I ever made at the supermarket. Mini profiteroles (チョコシュー)filled with chocolate.


I shamefully finished the entire packet in one sitting. Alone. 


Nutty Bar Chocolate. Expensive chocolate meant for presents (おみやげ). Similar to a Crunch bar, but with additional nuts. 




Monday, April 16, 2012

Jolly Jellyfish


After a hearty lunch of toast smeared with kimchi sauce (don't judge until you try it), I left the dorm yesterday with my bike to do some exploring. I intended to visit some markets around Nakajimacho with supposedly cheap groceries, but whatever I found there was closed, as it was a Sunday. At least I'm familiar with it now so I can go back during the week! It was still early in the afternoon and the sun was shining so I decided to ride to Motomachi for a little look. I'm not sure whether it's because it was a Sunday, or the time of year, or that everyone within a kilometre could smell gaijin, but there were very few people around. The streets were surprisingly empty. I stopped at this monument, then parked my bike over by this little bar. I'm fairly sure I was at Takataya Dori, an impressive slope lined with trees and sculpted shrubs. 


I parked near this cute bar/restaurant, Jolly Jellyfish.







 I meandered up the slope and to the right, past some Orthodox churches, temples and shrines. It was lovely.


The top of the Higashi Honganji Temple (東本願寺函館別院). 








At this point, I really wanted to take a picture of Hakodate Public Hall behind me, but there were a gaggle of Japanese tourists gawking at me from the steps. So, I turned around and started taking pictures of this green and needly tree. 




Steps, sans tourists. 


Old Public Hall (旧公会堂) was built in 1910 and is just one example of Western architectural influence in Hakodate. I think it was originally used to house government and for official administrative duties. So much pastel. I'm sure I'll be back here and then I can take a look inside. 

Lots of studying to do for class tomorrow, so じゃ ね。







Sunday, April 15, 2012

はつプリ


Obligatory first purikura. At 400円 per session, it's a cheap thrill. 


Sometimes, you can get the machine to send quality copies to your ketai email, but often you can only access the file if you are on a plan.
Photo courtesy of Courtney, our senpai from Alaska. 

Saturday, April 14, 2012

High school blues

Survived the first week of classes! The word 自己紹介 (self- introduction) now gives me mild anxiety, but nothing went horribly wrong. The way classes are organised is very different to what I was expecting. I expected to have different classes to correspond with one skill, ie. one class for conversation, one for grammar, one for kanji, one for writing etc. However, we have seven different classes, taught by 4 different teachers, each covering most of those elements at once. I hope that I can keep up. It is clear that I am the student with the least developed language skills.

We also get to do a culture class twice a week, which starts next month. We travel to the house of another sensei and practice arts like ikebana, koto and tea ceremony!

Just a quick photo of my most prized possession here, the bicycle:


Without it, getting anywhere further than the combini would be a chore. As it's the standard cheap bicycle, it looks identical to 70% of Hakodate's total bicycles. To avoid confusion, I'm going to have to find something colourful to decorate it with! ポンポンかな。。。?




Sunday, April 8, 2012

Kibana

A few nights after I arrived in Hakodate, I made friends with a girl called Tomomi-san. She was very patient, genuinely interested and tolerant of my broken Japanese punctuated with numerous えと。。あの。。moments. Last night, I opened my door after hearing a faint knock, and there was Tomomi-san, holding a packet of cookies in her outstretched hands. I took them graciously using some of the right vocabulary for that situation, but I don't think she really understood exactly how welcomed they made me feel. Thank you Tomomi-san!



Snow and X-rays









The Sydney I left was humid and unpredictably rainy. Here in Hakodate, humidity is not a problem, but rain, snow and sleet can blow in unannounced. Snow can be beautiful; like delicate, frosty lace. But when the wind is strong and you are riding home, snow can be the devil. It piles up on the frames of your glasses and quickly melts down your face, distorting any oncoming traffic and/or pedestrians into vague blobs.  When you still have a large scar from the last time you rode a bike, this lack of visibility is worrying. 



The above photo is courtesy of Savannah-san, a 留学生 from Townsville who was brave enough to use her camera during the mini-blizzard. 



Another example of when snow was particular annoying was during our first 大学 medical examination. After peeing in a tube, having our height, weight, heartbeat, blood pressure and sight checked, we were required to have a chest X-ray. After removing certain garments, we had to walk out of the university building and into a truck where our X-ray was performed. The truck's back door was constantly open so a line could form for the process. Strong winds, lack of clothing and snow don't make for fun times. 

As us girls lined up around the room, each taking our shoes off in turn to step on the scale, the constant chatter in the small classroom made it feel more like high school than university. It brought back traumatic memories of the beep test in PE. A far cry from the anonymity of UTS and its 30,000 students. 

The very fact that there was such a thorough medical examination in the first place was a little shocking for me. Universities in Sydney do not take responsibility for nor care (as much as Japan) about students' health. It may also be considered a slight invasion of privacy, if it was conducted in a similarly public setting as the one I just experienced. 

It's been an interesting week. But snow and X-rays aside, Hakodate is growing on me. 

Saturday, April 7, 2012

肉まん for breakfast


Between riding my new じてんしゃ around in the snow and spending three hours negotiating with the staff at Softbank, I haven’t had too much time for blogging. But a few things have been happening, so I'l try and update you.

After the lovely Alaskan 留学生, Courtney, helped us scavenge forgotten furniture for our rooms and showed us our shoe lockers, I made my new space look as homey as possible. Luckily, as the new school year is just about to start, there was a good selection of furniture left by our senpais. I even got a low bed frame for my futon! The photos in my previous post show a small section of what it looks like now, but here is another one of the whole room:




Because of the tight quarters, long poles are handy for creating extra hanging space. Apart from missing the occasional book or set of coloured textas, living with less stuff is working for me. However, I am a hoarder by nature, so who knows how long this space will stay clutter-free. 

The girls' dorm is about a fifteen minute bike ride from university (北海道教育大学) and is painted a calming pale green. There are around sixty girls residing here, twenty on each floor. 




Within ten minutes walk there is a 7 Eleven, a Lawsons, a Seria (100 円 store) and the コープさっぽろ(a supermarket). I woke up this morning and bought a 肉まん for breakfast. The combinis are almost dangerously close.




美味しかったです。また、ね!

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Yoroshiku onegaishimasu

This little blog is just here for me as motivation to share thoughts, writings, photos and frustrations of my 函館の関係 during the next year or so. I am a creative writing student from Sydney who is terrified of finishing university and getting a real job. I have escaped to Japan!

My dear friend Emmieちゃん over at mymelonsoda featured some of my first photos from Hakodate on her blog! ありがとうございます!もうすぐ日本に会いたい。While you're there, read the rest of her posts because she is worth your attention.



The past six days have been overwhelming, daunting, exciting, strenuous and a little bit lonely. I am sitting here in my newly furnished dorm room, listening to Lullatone, listening to the rain fall on the ground and the bicycle shed, and hoping that I can be a good ryuugakusei this year. 

Oyasumi nasai minna san!