I finally posted all of my photos from my four day bike ride north from Oumu around Cape Soya and then south to Rumoi. The captions of the photos chronicle the trip well enough. I’ll let them and the photos tell the story without a blathering blog post.
Photo below links to the gallery.
Here’s a map of the route:
View Larger Map
A college friend of mine, Jeanine Dargis, is starting up a hostel in Northampton, Massachusetts, near my alma mater (sort of) of Hampshire College. I was actually rather surprised that there wasn’t already a hostel in that town, considering the sort of nice little place that it is.
In order for the project to move forward, they need to raise some money. $15,000 dollars. I decided to pitch in a bit, because starting a hostel is something I’ve thought about, and I’d like to see them succeed. The neat thing about this donation system is that your donation doesn’t actually become a real donation unless they meet their funding goal. In that sense, it’s a pledge, kind of like the pledges in elementary school for Jump Rope for Heart. Your uncle’s 1¢ per jump pledge will only becoming a $20 donation if you actually bother to do all 2000 jumps.
So, if you appreciate the uniqueness of hostelling and feel like chipping in, go to the link below and pledge some dollars to help them meet their goal.
This weekend marked the 22nd annual Pumpkin Festival here in Saroma. It’s by far the biggest event of the year, with the whole town coming out for a weekend of festivities revolving around the famous local pumpkins.
The Pumpkin Festival weekend kicks off every year on Saturday night at 6 pm. As it gets dark, the Cinderella “Dream” Parade begins at the Town Hall and ends about two hours later at the Citizen’s Center where there are fireworks, vendors, and a band. That’s right, the parade lasts two hours, enough time to allow each group in the parade to do a performance at several locations throughout the route. These are elaborate performances, with costumes, choreography and fantastic floats. People spend weeks preparing for the parade and it’s definitely the main event of the festival.
Last June in Murakami, I had the privilege to do some really fun English lessons in the swimming pool at Senami Elementary. My supervising teacher at that school, Mrs. Hiki, was really, really, into English and integrating it into her classroom. A few months ago, up here in Saroma, I gave a presentation about my experiences as an ALT in Niigata Prefecture to the teachers at Hamasaroma Elementary. They were impressed with many of the special lessons that we had done in class, so I suggested trying to recreate the swimming activity, since it didn’t require as much preparation or special in-class study time as some of the other lessons I presented about.
Last year, Mrs. Hiki and I hurriedly made a bunch of fish shapes on copy paper and laminated them. Half were totally waterlogged and destroyed after two periods of munchkin-munching. This time, I tried to come up with a better way of making toy fish that would be much more durable and less wasteful. So, using 25 boards of A4-sized EVA polyethylene foam, I drew and cut about 100 salmon, whales, octopi, squid, crabs, dolphins, starfish, sharks, turtles and scallops. Then, using an oil-based marker, I drew faces and outlines on all of the shapes. After they had dried for a few days, I coated them in waterproofing spray and let them sit for another day.
August 30th is a general election in Japan, for all 480 seats in the lower House of Representatives. It’s receiving more attention, domestically and abroad, than elections in Japan normally do. The nearly-unbroken 54-year reign of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is expected to finally be broken with a majority win by the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). The LDP leader and current Prime Minister, Taro Aso, is even less popular in office (11% approval) than even President Bush and Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski ever were (25% and 21%, respectively). Starting a few years ago, parties have released clear ‘manifestos’ outlining their election platform. The LDP is essentially running on a “don’t change horses in midstream” platform, trying to instill a fear of change in order to maintain control. The DPJ has some very popular policy proposals, such as a $280 per month per child supplement for families. Both parties are running on promises of decreased taxes, increases in social welfare, particularly child rearing in order to slow Japan’s low birth rate. The DPJ even promises elimination of road tolls on expressways across Japan (tolls can reach into the hundreds of dollars) and an elimination of the current 5% consumption tax once the economy recovers.
What I find interesting about this election is that the proportional election system and Parliamentary Democracy allow many third (and fourth and fifth) parties to exist and operate at a much higher level of notariety than third parties in America. Sure, we have the Greens and the Libertarians, the Constitution Party, the Reform Party, the Communist Party, the Prohibition Party (thanks, Jacob). But other than the Green Party in 2000 and Perot’s Reform Party in 1992, these parties have had little publicity and almost no effect on election results. Even those that have been moderately successful, like Perot, win no role in governing because of the winner-take-all system of American Politics. In Japan, though you have some weird ones that have commercials on TV and put flyers in my door. I got a flyer from the Japanese Communist Party today, and one from the almost-a-cult Happiness Realization Party last week. Here’s a list of all of the parties fielding candidates in the election, along with a list of the total number of fielded candidates (both regional and proportional).
1allied with LDP
2allied with DPJ (two sources for this: wikipedia, 2.)
3party of the nutty “Happy Science” religion – deserves an entire post.
If none of this makes sense, this article in the Yomiuri Shimbun gives a good explanation on exactly how these parties are working together towards forming coalitions in the new government. The Economist also takes a nicely critical view of the whole affair.
Here’s a little slideshow of the campaign signs for four of the major parties running in the election, taken this afternoon on Saroma’s main street:
DPJ, Yukio Hatoyama pictured. Slogan: seiken koutai (regime change).
LDP. It says ima, gambaranaide dou suru? (If we don’t persist now, what will we do?) What’s up with the cartoon character?
Social Democratic Party. Slogan: seikatsu saiken (rebuilding livelihood)
Japanese Communist Party. Slogan: ima koso (now more than ever). Their party leader has to be the dorkiest looking leader of any party since Ralph Nader. The only significant minority opposition party that is not part of the DPJ coalition.
And perhaps Far Away as well. This short film was featured on Long Ago & Far Away, a children’s program on PBS hosted by James Earl Jones. I am pretty sure it blew my 6-year old mind. It left such an impression on me that a few years back I got to thinking about it, and bothered to track down and buy British PAL-formatted VHS copy and convert and digitize it to DVD. Lo and Behold, someone else has bothered to upload it to Google Video YouTube. Watch it.
(Updated November 6th, 2013 with a higher quality upload of the video)
Yoshie and I took a four day bicycle trip around eastern Hokkaido last week. On two folding bikes, we covered over 200 kilometers, went through two national parks, rode along two oceans, conquered two 2000-foot mountain passes. We saw five foxes and dozens of deer, bathed in four different hot springs, and saw the Russian-controlled island of Kunashiri. We managed to avoid rain during our ride, but got only one sunny day. We skipped Notsuke Peninsula because of driving rain, but caught the local festival in Shibetsu that night instead. We climbed Shiretoko Pass on Saturday in spectacular weather, with lovely ocean views, and Kiyosato Pass on Monday through a pine forest of dense fog, made spookier by the unnatural man-made rows of trees.
It was a leap of faith for Yoshie, who had never done anything like this before. To convince her, I insisted I would carry all of our supplies myself, in my bike trailer. I also consented to staying in a bungalow on the second night, and a youth hostel on the third, instead of camping the entire trip. Anyway, it was great fun, and I think by the third day, after a small amount of strife, we worked out a good travelling relationship. For me, I worked at staying close together on downhills and climbs, making sure to signal turns and moves on and off of the main road, as well as hollering the number of rear-approaching trucks and buses on narrow sections in Shari and Nakashibetsu. Yoshie did a good job of letting me know when she needed to stop, when her rear brakes weren’t working at all (!), or simply putting up with a boyfriend who is used to riding alone and making stupid turns, quick decisions, and completely random stops for dumb photos.
Here’s a rough map of the route:
米姉妹都市から中学生３人
若佐小でダンス披露
佐呂間で27日まで交流
「佐呂間」
町の姉妹都市、米アラスカ州パーマ市から来町した中学生３人が16日、若佐小の児童と交流を深めた。
町とパーマ市は1980年に姉妹都市提携を締結。毎年、中高生が相互訪問している。
今回来町したのはレベッカ・ファーリーさん（13）、ディーナー・クリスチャンセンさん（14）、エリン・ビンセントさん（14）。14日から27日まで町内でホームステイしながら、佐呂間中に通ったり、道内観光などをする。
３人はこの日、町の英語指導助手ショーン・ホーランドさん（25）とともに若佐小を訪問。「チキン・ダンス」など米国に伝わるダンスを披露した。児童も一緒に踊り、英語で互いに自己紹介して交流を深めた。
（野口洸）
（インターネットで発見出来なかったので、ブログに写しました。）
This article appeared on Page 26 of the Hokkaido Newspaper today, July 18th.
Saroma Town:
On the 16th, three students visiting from Saroma’s sister city, Palmer, Alaska, USA, deepened cultural understanding with the children at Wakasa Elementary.
The link between the town and the City of Palmer began in 1980. Every year, junior and senior high school students undertake reciprocal visits. Those visiting currently are Rebecca Farley (13), Dena Christiansen (14), and Erin Vincent (14). From the 14th to the 27th, while experiencing homestays, they will be attending Saroma Junior High School and sightseeing around Hokkaido.
On their visit to Wakasa Elementary, they accompanied the town AET (Assistant English Teacher) Sean Holland (25). They shared popular American dances such as the “Chicken Dance” with the students, and experienced cultural exchange through mutual self-introductions in English.
Make that the International Okhotsk Cycling 2009. Including myself, there were three non-Japanese among the 982 participants. Good thing we participated, or they would have had to change all of the signage.
Over the weekend, I rode 212km (132mi for those in the dark ages) over 2-days with 981 other people, by bicycle, along the Sea of Okhotsk from Oumu to Shari. It was good. Kind of weird, but good.
There are some definite advantages to riding with such a large group. When you ride alone, you usually don’t have a cheering crowd and different refreshments in each town you pass through, nor brass bands and cheerleaders performing for you when you depart.
When you’re alone, though, you can go as fast as you want. You can stop whenever you want. You don’t have to listen to Mr. Sato from Sapporo’s misaligned derailleur grind along for kilometer after kilometer. You don’t have to wake up at 4 AM if you don’t want to.
The race entry fee and the fee for the town cycling club trip to the race and back was 24,000 yen ($260). For that, I got:
A ride and bike transport to Oumu, luggage transport from the start to the finish, a place to stay for two nights, two breakfasts, two lunches, two dinners, and quite a few cans of beer. Fresh milk, cheese, and sports drink jelly in Okoppe, more sports drinks and snacks in Mombetsu, ice cream in Kamiyubetsu, hard candy and dried scallops and barley tea in Yubetsu, bananas and juice in Saroma, bread, tea and juice in Abashiri, and potatoes and butter in Koshimizu. I even won a gift box of various kinds of sugars in the drawing at the end of the race.
Overall, not bad. A good way to meet other cyclists, drink beer, experience the different towns along the coast, and generally have a good time with other people. I also got to show off my weird bike and all my cycling gear, including the cool Alaska “gold rush” license plate jersey my parents got me. Check out this picture: (don’t I look cool?!)
