John Stupart.com

It’s Spring, and that means the park golf courses open. Park Golf is a cutthroat sport native to Hokkaido involving the head of what could be a 3 wood driver, the shaft of a putter and a ball slightly smaller than those used in hockey but of the same texture and solidity. It’s really just a larger version of putt-putt, but woe betide any gaijin who takes this sport lightly. Weekends see the courses full of ernest-looking men and a few women, replete with their clubs, golfing attire and utility belts full of tees, extra balls, gloves, collapsible Gundam and so on. I have been on golf courses with less-devoted players! One basically whacks the hockey ball-thing with your club much like you would if you were putting on a 45m green and had quite a distance to the pin. I like to pretend I’m really aiming for a line through the course, when the reality is I’m basically just hitting a ball along a flat line over and over again. This sport is very popular in Hokkaido, I should add, with professional leagues and equipment costing upwards of R1300.

Park Golf in all its glory

So Chris and myself headed out and played a round. This is because there are no golf courses within easy driving distance and all the snow has melted, so it’s either play park golf or watch the town garbage truck make its rounds through the town. The truck plays Mozart on loop from 6am on Saturday, so it was a tough call to make.

My pale body was unused to so much sunshine as well, which resulted in a slight dizziness later in the day. It’s sad to think that just 3 hours of being out and about in real sun would do that. Testament to the ravages of Hokkaido Winter I guess. Park Golf is entertaining enough for a while, and the scenery is certainly quite beautiful. I wouldn’t play more than one round a week though, as it can get rather monotonous!

School wise I got to teach the tiny new 1^st grade elementary kids. They’re six years old and the one school had 5 of them, 4 of which were little girls. ‘Cute’ doesn’t quite cover it. They enjoyed watching the South Africa DVD I brought and wanted to know if SA also had rabbits. In the Junior high the PE teacher seems to be on a mission today, ranting and screeching at everyone. I don’t think he likes Mondays. Kinda sucked for my second grade class, as they’re usually really excited in English and we get along great with them. Today we entered the class to find PE teacher chewing out some of the kids for god-knows-what. Most likely running in the hall or something equally silly, but the end result is that we were handed a class of kids who looked very sullen. Some, of course, were on the verge of tears.

Next weekend is a super long 4 day effort, so I’m scheming to go a camping with Chris and hopefully some others to a huge lake in the middle on Hokkaido. Should be fun, unless it rains. Pictures will be taken, with luck!