John Stupart.com

No matter where I go, I leave out this road. That’s Onishibetsu, my home-town for the year. I live about 100m behind that white tower building on the right.

It’s been a long interval since my last post, and that’s largely due to a potent combination of laziness and travel. For the past two weekends in a row I have been away from home and computer, rendering me unable to write anything halfway coherent and utterly exhausted upon return late on a Sunday night!

The previous weekend was spent in Sapporo, the largest city on this island, and was a great time in general. I cannot report overly much on the experience however, as most of the time was spent buying essential items unavailable in the countryside. Things like decent clothes, 30cm shoes and the like. What I can say of the trip, however, is that Sapporo is a horrible place to get lost in! The drive from the north took a surprisingly quick 5 hours by car, but we ended up hopeless driving around in circles for 3 hours in Sapporo, frantically calling Sarah for further directions as we encircled a widening area of the city.

The major problem, in my opinion (and I think Heather may well object), is the utter lack of distinguishing landmarks in the city. Likewise, the lack of road names or even regional markers all serve to frustrate the foreign driver. Given my traditionally hopeless navigational skills at the best of times, this all added onto the stack of challenges in finding our destination. A pain, to be sure, but one that I will be careful to avoid next time!

Sapporo aside, the weekend was spent in Wakkanai, the wonderful town of Russian occupation, and culminated in a rather pleasant evening! The day was spent over delicious sushi chatting with one of Heather’s coworkers about the merits of awesome university debating (ie my style) versus crappy Model UN “do your research on a country for 2 months!” styles, together with the normal internationalisation Japanese folks never seem to tire of. Add in a street pub crawl for the townsfolk, being mistaken yet again for Russians and gawking at the unnaturally cute waitress at a fancy Japanese restaurant, and the day could largely be considered normal by Gaijin standards!

Pub crawl near the Russian sector of Wakkanai. 90 minutes to drag yourself around the block and visit as many bars as possible. Sadly, driver that I was, we could not partake!

Curiously though, Heather had informed me that Wakkanai had a tiny blues club/lounge/loft that might be worth checking out, and check it out we did!  The fine establishment of ‘BB Kings’ (I think that was the name) was an extremely small 2nd floor lounge-bar festooned with native American trappings. Lord knows how or why they got there, but it was pretty enough. The barman I think was happiest of all to have two non-Russian foreigners frequenting his abode, but there was unfortunately no official lineup for the night. Undaunted, we hit the beer and Jack Daniels (because it’s everywhere!) and soon enough we were watching a 3-man traditional Japanese guitar group strumming away through several apparently-famous tunes (including the anthem of Fukuoka, I think.) Following this, Boss-san (our resident barman) plucked away with his own decidedly western guitar for our pleasure. Given the size of the establishment, we were effectively 50% of the place’s clientele, so it made for a rather unique and intimate musical experience, as opposed to the thronging sweaty masses I’m used to in South Africa. If only I’d remembered to bring my beret. Nonetheless, the oddity of a South African, American (from Tennessee) and Japanese woman drinking Jack Daniels in a Japanese Blues bar festooned with Native American decorations, whilst listening to a mixture of local and foreign music was not lost.

Much like eating a delicious curry made by Indians in Sapporo, it’s fast becoming apparent that there is no such thing as an area untouched by the western world. It’s by no means a bad thing, but it is noteworthy nonetheless.

Following that, Sunday was spent largely fighting off a creeping hangover with spicy and delicious udon noodles (thick white noodles in your choice of soup and meat/vegetables), avoiding deer on the drive home and basking in the warmth of my apartment’s gas heater!

This sign just about sums up the charm and the hilarity that is Wakkanai.

On a more mundane note, the weather here has fully turned into Autumn mode, with temperatures comparable to Johannesburg’s winter. The autumn colours are fully in gear to boot, with a lot of the browns and oranges one would expect. Nights dip tentatively below freezing and a return trip to Sapporo at the end of this month is looking to be a very good idea, as gloves, thermals, ski boots and assorted wintery things are still in dire need in the land of John!

So after a week of teaching ridiculously studious students in ‘Engrish’ and trying like hell to get them shouting “WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY?!?!?!” in order to get a sense of intonation, I was honestly looking forward to a nice long weekend of slowing things down and chilling out a bit. Instead of the vastly superior Eastern JET party occurring somewhere 8 hours’ drive away, I opted instead to sleep in, drive to Wakkanai and explore the surrounding countryside with Heather. While there weren’t nearly as many opportunities for typhoon-chasing camping, it was inspirational in a completely different sense.

Wakkanai from a big hill. Ferry boats leave several times a day for the local island and volcano.

 Perhaps a little background of northern Hokkaido’s most populous city. It’s essentially a large fishing town, 6 hour’s ferry ride from Russia. The result is an odd mix of depressingly compressed residential areas and a wonderfully fractious assortment of Japanese fisherman, bureaucrats and military personnel, Chinese factory workers and the Russian boat crews, in dock for the pre-Winter fishing season. Although the Japanese are largely far too polite to say it, they consider the Russians as generally no-good louts. In Sarufutsu I’m used to being treated as ‘different’, but in a good way. In Wakkanai, however, this is not usually a good thing, as being ‘different’ means being ‘Russian’ and thus guilty of petty theft, alcoholism and general undesirable behaviour.

 Case in point, upon meeting up with Heather at the local general store/mall (A monolithic mall called ‘Saijo’), we headed for the nearest food outlet like true westerners in search of breakfast that wasn’t fish, pork or a mixture thereof. After being handed a Russian menu and a generally perplexed response, the lady behind the counter was most surprised both that we weren’t dirty Bolsheviks and that we were able to say as much in Japanese. Funny in an isolated sense, but a little disturbing. I guess  a pale and blue-eyed John next to an equally Caucasian and green-eyed Heather didn’t help pass us off as visiting Lebanese tourists, or something…

 The Russians are conveniently contained in a small portion of Wakkanai unsurprisingly near the port. Within this section are a plethora of stores catering primarily to our soviet clientele. What’s notable, however, is how differently the shopkeepers treat you. Whereas in a normal Japanese shop of any sort and size one is greeted with a hello and acknowledgment in Japanese of your potential patronage, the Japs in the Russian sector closely shadow your movements to make sure you don’t steal anything, with nary an acknowledgement of your legitimate mercantilist aims. In South Africa this is normal, as often someone is indeed out to steal something, but in Japan it was tantamount to being doused with icy cold water.

 Wakkanai as a city is really quite fascinating, with an interesting mix of people, shops and sights. Anything from communications stations listening in on the Vladistovok Naval Base radio transmissions through to dirty Hokkaido bikers camping underneath the mammoth concrete break-wall. It’s an interesting mix. Of course it’s hardly a Newtown-esque bohemian melting pot of different colours, cultures and arts and crafts, but rather a fragmented, kaleidoscopic crushing of many demographics into one port-town. It ultimately lends itself to a terrific experience when driving safely by.

Shinto Shrine! One of many in the city. A plus was receiving a crash course in Buddhist and Shinto theology courtesy of Heather. Definitely a big eye-opener!

The surrounding countryside is much like the rest of Northern Hokkaido, with small country roads, giant power-generating windmills and miles and miles of lush green pasture-land, rivers and circling birds of prey. This is not limited to the outskirts of the city either, as even a short drive down some Wakkanai side roads revealed the curious mortal combat between fox and feline. Truly a sight only to be seen in Japan!

Wakkanai is always a pleasant drive to and from, so it was a genuine pleasure to just kick back and take a slow tour through the city and its surrounds. The rest of the weekend was completely relaxing, and for the first time since Tokyo I actually felt like my mind had caught up to the reality. It was great!

This little guy was rummaging in the backyard of a nearby house for some dinner. You can see the glinting eyes of the resident cat-guards on duty behind the tank.

Japanese Behemoth cat fights off the fox. The sound of fox vs cat combat was quite a shock!

Next weekend (another long one. God bless Japanese public holidays!) I’m headed to Sapporo for a much-needed winter-clothing expedition. Stay tuned!

After a busy week jumping between school, town hall and soccer field the weekend camp in Tomamae (a tiny North-Western town) for all the JET folks in Northern Hokkaido sounded like a great idea. A chance to say things like ‘incomprehensible’ and be understood, a rare occurrence in Japan; Beer and beach and sunshine. But that was before the typhoon…

…Friday morning arrives and I’m greeted with images of tiny Japanese news reporters holding onto street poles for their lives as a category 2 typhoon wends its way through Honshu, just south of Hokkaido and the precious campsite. Come the afternoon and the weather in Sarufutsu had taken a definite turn for the worse. Gale force winds, torrential rain and all the other things one associates with the end of the world. After some furious chain emailing amongst my neighbouring JET residents, I was able to dampen the delightfully hazardous enthusiasm that was expressed amongst certain individuals to make the 3 hour drive in such a maelstrom, pitch a tent in the pitch black of night whilst fighting off wind and rain and wild bears. By ‘individuals’, of course, I mean Heather and Moraya; Super-keen Wakkanai JETs, unafraid of being thrown off a country road by gale force winds into the sharp and fatal hooves of a nearby dairy cow. I love being miserable, cold and wet as much as the next person, but my idea of fun includes a roaring fire and a beer in hand, not watching cows being flung about like leaves in gale force winds, becoming giant bovine missiles of udder-death. It can happen…

On the road to Tomamae.

Thus it was on a Saturday morning that we set out for Tomamae. Driving in the hills and countryside is an utterly sublime experience, to say the least. Mist-enshrouded hills and mountains, wide open crops and pastures for the many dairy farms that dot the landscape of Hokkaido, all do well to impress upon oneself the true beauty that this place holds. Now I realize there are plenty of cows, mielies and hills in South Africa, but this is Japan damnit, so it makes it better for the simple reason that I’m a tourist in this land and thus am paying a bit more attention to my surroundings! To be honest I can only compare the experience to taking a long drive through the valleys and mountain roads of the Drakensburg, but the awe at Hokkaido’s natural beauty remains. The car trip itself took ‘slightly’ longer than anticipated (four and a half hours instead of three) thanks to a combination of my horrific navigational abilities and the frustratingly retarded signage system employed by the Japanese road department. It seems one is meant to simply know what turnoff is what, as the actual signs indicating a turnoff or a route change appear a full 500m or more before the turn itself. At the actual turnoff there exists no discernible means of figuring out what route or highway it is one is taking. The only thing differentiating the indicated expressway from a normal road is the amount of traffic going through it. Getting lost in Japan is nonetheless hardly a train smash as we simply ended up seeing a little more of the countryside than anticipated. Given that it’s all new and exciting there weren’t too many complaints from the car’s occupants. Any and all protests were swiftly stifled as soon as we figured out how to make the sound system work.

Likewise, upon arrival on Saturday afternoon there were exactly two people who had arrived for the camp so we had not lost out on any special moment or somesuch. Clearly the typhoon had done well to ward off any eager beavers wanting to head out on Friday. More people arrived, mostly Americans and a smattering of Canadians, and tents were pitched. What was probably the most surprising aspect of it all was how fragmented everyone was. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to claim that us northern-most ALT folks are about the most tightly-knit of the new JETs in our region. It’s nice to be arrogant, but it’s even nicer to be arrogant and right! Thus Saturday saw me sitting in a circle with a decidedly (and I would say deservedly) pompous air, beer in hand, trying to decipher what accent was American and what was Canadian. As a plus it turned out that the Typhoon had veered sharply eastwards, removing the last of my doubts and fears of typhoon-powered dairy cows impaling me at mach 2.

The sun making a long-overdue appearance after the giant typhoon of doom flies away.

Giant energy-producing windmills, doing their thing. These things are everywhere in Hokkaido. For a country that still harpoons whales and consumes about a rainforest a day in disposable chopsticks, they sure are energy-friendly!

The campsite. It’s as surreal as it looks.

In all the camp was great, and new friends were made, mostly due to us commonwealth folks sticking out like Boers laagered in the open veld, keeping a stout heart and making snide xenophobic insults at anything that doesn’t play rugby, as well as what was quite possibly the funniest beer run in history. Thankfully the one Brit at the camp didn’t come along and was spared being reduced to tears by our unceasing anti-Anglophile assault. With a true-blooded South Irish girl, a South African (me!) and two Kiwis, the tolerance for colonial bally-hoo-esque antics was low and any transgression brutally shot down, but in a funny, drunken kind of way, of course. I have to wonder how long we shall remain pals, however, as the World Cup has now started and I must for the sake of the boks become mortal enemies with any and all New Zealanders running around this island. Such is the way things are. I don’t make the rules about these things, I just follow them!

Americans and Canucks. Largely unremarkable except for a precious few.

Heather. From Tennessee… Definitely not unremarkable!

Irish Anne, Kiwi #1 and Kiwi #2, 15% of Theresa’s head and some other nameless bloke. The funniest people to go to the store with!

Of course, just because we’re foreigners doesn’t mean we’re friends, and there were plenty of folks at the camp I had neither met nor wished I ever had. It’s slightly disturbing to see folks so committed to being ardent retards, but kind of endearing as well. I guess it’s like the kid in your class who drools a bit. You just have to smile and pat him/her on their hunchback. Of course, my initial pomposity after such a glorious trek from Sarufutsu unnerved many I’m certain, and those who know me will also know how hilarious I find that. Correct use of feigned arrogance does wonders to ward off slack-jawed loud-mouths from far-flung corners of the earth. It does not, however, prevent the bastards from stealing your chair and beer. That’s right folks, Americans steal your beer! If you want one, ask and I will gladly provide, but simply yoinking an icy beverage from my hoard will earn you scorn and eternal shame in the books of John (for the religious I mean MY books, not that other guy who wrote about Jesus.) I have no idea in what part of the world such open thievery is tolerated, but in the People’s Republic of John beer-thieves are drawn and quartered. Mr. beer-thief, if you’re reading this, I will stab you in your spleen. Repeatedly. With a spoon. From a post-camp inventory we still ended up with a lot of excess food and drink, but the principle remains true! Just because there’s lots doesn’t mean it’s there for the taking. Revenge shall be had, I am certain of that. The northern-most JET’s shall strike back when everyone least expects it. So don’t be surprised come Christmas day when your turkey disappears, or there are no presents. It’s not the grinch, it’s karma hitting back!

After seeing the unending compassion and humility displayed by the locals in my town, the brief 24 hours spent with true westerners was more of a shock than I had anticipated, and would have dampened my spirits as easily as any typhoon had there not also been some very incredible people attending as well. And at the very worst, watching a giant night sky on the grass, replete with shooting stars and bonfire, made up for all the little minor inconveniences and still left change to spare!

Basically then, the weekend can be summed as follows:

l  Typhoons mean STAY IN BED! Flying moo-cows are a real and ever-present danger.

l  If you think it’s the right turnoff, it probably isn’t.

l  The British have the funniest accents in the world. From cockney to  Windsor Lordling, they’re all hilarious.

l  Stealing my beer means I will steal your first-born and sell him/her to Somali pirates.

l  Americans are loud.

l  The Irish have a disturbingly strong affiliation with the IRA even today…