Hokkaido!... Oma to Hakkodate

An hour from Osorezan is Oma, famous for its tuna. I missed the 7:10 ferry and had to wait until the 2:30 one. Great... time to explore exciting Oma.



This is one of the MANY places in Japan that is crazy boring, but it's slightly famous for some random thing. In this case, its famous for tuna and being the northernmost point of Honshu. So every 30 minutes at the northernmost tourist stop, a couple busses show up, and the tuna pushers come out in droves. Then, 10 minutes later, everyone leaves and the tuna ladies get a break.



The tuna is pretty damn good though.



Not to mention the fresh uni.



The shop owner realized I was actually in need of breakfast, so she went and got me a bowl of rice for free. Solid!



Arrived in Hakkodate at around 5:00pm. Turns out it had been pouring rain for the last 3 months straight. If I had started my bike trip on time I would have been caught in that and spent 2 days just sitting around. That's some universal synchronicity going on there. Word!

I met my friend, and almost immediately was out. Turns out I hadn't slept for 48 hours!

Next time: Around the southern tip of the island, free onsens, and possible nude pictures of me available on the internet.

Osorezan - 恐山

恐 = fear
山 = mountain
恐山 = Fear Mountain



Yep, a place in Japan called "Fear Mountain".



Osorezan came highly recommended. It's one of the three holiest sites in Japan, founded in the 9th century by Buddhist priest En'nin. Chillin in Kyoto having a dream, En'nin was shown a place with 108 boiling pools of sulfur and mud, each corresponding to one of the 108 worldly desires, each linked to hell itself. The landscape wasn't just gloom and doom though, the 8 mountains and lake were so beautiful that they were nothing less than an image of Paradise, a blooming lotus flower. En'nin walked 30 days from Kyoto, found his dream spot, built a statue of the Bodhisattva Jizo, and the rest is Buddhist history.





If you come here July 20th, blind mediums will channel the dead for you. No blind mediums on July 27th though. Missed it by a couple of days.



There are some onsens inside the temple itself. Don't forget your towel. At 6am, I had the whole place to myself.







Living in Tokyo, one can forget how amazing the religious sites in Japan are. Tokyo is chock full of temples and shrines, but they are nestled between crumbling high rise apartments and messy power cables in most cases. Something like Osorezan is well...



... amazing.













Next time: I missed the ferry from Oma to Hakkodate.

Hokkaido!... Let's Go!

The plan = Leave early Saturday morning to take advantage of the 1000 yen flat rate toll on expressways. Camp on the "ax handle" of Aomori Prefecture near Osorezan. Well rested, I'd take the ferry Sunday morning to Hakkodate to meet some people to ride motorcycles with and crash on their couch.

The plan also = completely fucked.

I stuck the key in my bike Friday night. No go. The starter was doing it's job, but the engine wasn't starting. I guess that means the starter wasn't doing it's job. Anyways, suddenly my month long vacation to the north of Japan, Hokkaido, was put on an immediate hold. The prospects of 23 degree weather and epic motorcycle touring... delayed. Not a good way to start the weekend. I got drunk and went to sleep, figuring I could fix the issue the next day.

The next day. I couldn't fix the issue.

The battery had a problem in the past, and a good charge was all it needed. I don't own a battery charger. So I went and bought a battery charger from the bike district near Ueno Park. Got home, charged the battery, it's now the afternoon on Saturday. The charge, of course, was ineffective. I started checking off a list. Push the bike to a station and fill it with gas... check. Clean the carbs... check. Add some oil... check.

Random side note. The dude at a local bike shop had to use Wikipedia's Japanese site to look up what a funnel was. Not the English to Japanese translation, but the actual existence of a thing that you use to pour liquid into holes. I dunno.

Oh yeah, it's like Sunday night by now. I should be in Hakkodate, eating ika somen, sitting in an onsen, and not at my apartment watching old episodes of Conan - Future Boy on my computer. Then, on another random check of the bike, I see that something on the top of the engine looks askew. These yellow rubber plugs are off somehow. It turns out some jerk-o pulled my spark plugs sometime in the last couple weeks. Who pulls spark plugs? Bunch of savages in Bunkyo if you ask me. Plugged them back in, and started the bike on the first go. Literally ran up to my room, grabbed my shit, and left. It was now a race against the clock. At 11:59 the cheap toll would revert to the expensive toll. About $10 would become about $150.



On to the expressway, I could see stars in the sky and dry lightning in the distance. I think I had some 48 hour Armin Van Burren trance mix to keep my awake and speedy.

The plan B = drive hella fast until 11:55 and then take the first exit I see. The 1000 yen discount, like Cinderella, vanishes at midnight.

The plan B also = All kinds of good.



That exit turned out to be in Kitakami, which is for reals the middle of nowhere. There was a local road that parralls the expressway, so on to that I went. Grabbed some dinner at 1am at a family resaurant. Some small talk with the waitress revealed that she lives in town and that Kitakami is a great place. Then she ran away because I was probably the first foreigner she'd ever talked to.

According to the internet, Kitakami is famous for a sword dance. Word.



I got a tip for you, don't order the "Mexican Pilaf with Cheese Curry Chicken". It wasn't good. Coupled this with about 6 cappuccinos. You do the math.



By the time the sun rose, I had made it to my destination, Osorezan.



Next time: A sacred mountain whose kanji characters are fear + mountain. Yes, please.

Crazy Cube Tower

Check out this crazy building made by stacking dinky rooms on each other. Apparently, people thought modular housing would be the future of city life. Then the bubble burst and everyone forgot.





Also on the street in front is an advertisement for an underground restaurant. Usually they use the nice, always fresh plastic food models. But here they just slap some plastic wrap on the real thing. On a folding table on the sidewalk.

The July Sake-Swap

Signed up for this sake-swap thing back in July. The idea is that you get paired with a random person and have to send them a bottle of sake. In turn they send you one. It's as simple as the name... a sake-swap. I want to "understand" sake a little more, so this might be educational. I only knew of one good sake by name that you can't buy at the local 7-11, so I sent that. In return, I got this great bottle of Odayaka Tokubetsu Junmai from Etsuko over at Tokyofoodcast. Solid. She describes it as a "feel good" sake.



And nothing says "feel good" like some half priced tuna sushi from the supermarket. My attempt at pairing sake with food.



Good sake, cheap sushi, and some anime on the computer. This could work. Note the coffee mug for sippin' the fine nihonshu. Classy.



No lengthy review of the sakes "nose", or what "notes" develop, or even the "taste". Like I said, I don't know anything about reviewing sake. Head over to Tokyofoodcast for a real review!

What's for Dinner?

A $45 pizza topped with sirloin steak. From Dominos.

Gundam in Odaiba

There's a life-size Gundam in Odaiba. Here are my over processed photos of it.





Every 30 minutes there is a "show". Basically there is music and the Gundam's head turns left and right and everyone in attendance except me is seriously into that.





Check it out before it blasts off... into the future!*



*It's gone, sorry. I didn't have internet for 3 months.

New Apartment in Bunkyo

Here it is, the new place. It's in the Bunkyo district of Tokyo, which is on the northern side. The place is actually inside the Yamanote train line, which is dope. A friend suggest it be called RadPad. So I give you RadPad.



It's a 1K, meaning a small kitchen, bathroom, and 1 large bedroom.

But don't call it an apartment. It's a マンシオン. Yes, in Japan an apartment building which is higher than 3 stories is called a mansion. Real mansions don't exist in this country.

One cool feature is that every room has some sort of control panel, all Jetson's style. What's that about?



The bathroom has a few settings, one is a dryer. Hang your wet laundry inside and hit the button. Through the magic of heaters and fans, your stuff is all dry a few hours later. This is hella useful in muggy, rainy Japan.



The bedroom has a video intercom connected to the doorbell in the lobby. Kanji lesson time! That round button at the top, that sets off the alarm. Found that out the hard way. How long before help arrived? It took the security company 2 weeks to respond. Im not joking. Homeboy showed up at the door 2 weeks down the road all like, "Is there a problem, you set off the alarm."



Washlet. I'm gonna miss these if I ever leave this country.



The view from the entrance. My High School is down there, about a kilometer away. I went from a one hour commute on packed Tokyo trains in the morning to a 5 minute stroll.



The view from the balcony. It's rad at night, but I can't seem to take a good night shot of it.



Moving was interesting. Zero furniture or appliances. Coming home each day to a sleeping bag on a yoga mat isn't the best way to say おつかれさまです。 Luckily, in Tokyo, there is a constant flow of foreigners leaving the country. This leads to the "Sayonara Sale". Most things are about 1/3 the price. Some good places to look are

Metropolis Classifieds
Gaijinpot Classifieds
Craiglist

Delivery can be a problem though. There are also second hand shops, most of which will deliver. Or find someone with a truck, which is pretty hard in this country. Or just buy new off the internet. Or carry a giant washing machine 3km on a hot summer day and get to be known as the crazy knew foreigner around your neighborhood.

Took about 2 weeks to get everything sorted.



How much? Well, a typical apartment like this, a 1K on a high floor in a new mansion, is around $1000 to $1500 a month. There are also a lot of upfront costs. 1-2 months "key" money. 1-2 months "deposit" (you wont get this back). And 1 month to the real estate office. Plus regular rent charges. So you can easily have to dish out more than $6000 within your first month.

Most Japanese people live with their parents until they are married.

I paid less, but there are some extenuating circumstances that I can't go into on the blog.