Hokkaido Photos 3

This is the final place I stayed, Rob's house in Toyosato. Rob is a builder and very creative so he produced a somewhat unusual design. The house is octagon shaped and the roof is a dome. Down the middle of the house you can see a concrete chimney that was poured one section at a time using movable formwork. There's going to be a masonry stove in the basement, it burns at a much higher temperature than a conventional stove and has a much bigger mass. This means that it uses wood much more efficiently, and most of the heat goes into the house instead of out the chimney.

Another view of Yuteisan.



The view from the roof, looking towards Annupuri mountain which is where Milky House is. The slopes are lit up at night and look very beautiful, but unfortunately I don't think I was able to get a good photo of them.

A mountain river near Hirafu. When I talk this photo I was walking to Hirafu with a Scottish lass called Eilidh.

Hokkaido Photos 2

This is the second place I stayed at, Chise Gardens. This is the house I lived in. You can't really see it from this photo, but it's being built in the traditional Japanese style, with huge beams. The wood they used for the beams was very old, possibly more than 100 years old. It had been reused (in houses) three or four times.



Here is my little shack inside the house. Home sweet home. It seems strange to look back on it now but I was sad to leave it. I had made myself quite warm and comfortable there by the end of my stay.

This is some of the wood I cut. There's a whole lot more pile up behind it.

This is the farm seen from the house.


This is Yuteisan, the Mt Olympus of Hokkaido (the top is almost always covered in clouds). The photo doesn't convey how impressive the mountain is.

Hokkaido Photos 1

Here are some photos from Hokkaido. This first set is from the first place I stayed, Milky House.

Here is the pension (what they call these small lodges). It's maximum capacity is about 35 customers. They probably have that many people staying there now, it's ski season and it's always very busy in ski season.

There are many mineral springs in the area, this is one of them.

This photo was taken on the day-long trek I did. You can se the path going through a field of bamboo.

This is Fumiko san, one of the people who work at the pension. She's the wife of the owner.

This is Micchan, another friend at the pension. We could communicate prety well despite only limited shared language ability (neither my Japanese nor his English were particularly good).

Leaving Hokkaido

Hi folks,

The holy fool writes again (I always wanted to call myself that. Anyone else remember Tripitaka from Monkey Magic?). I've been staying in half completed houses for the past five weeks, and between working, studying, and trying to get warm, I haven't had much time for writing. My access to the internet has also been extremely limited.

For the last three weeks I've been staying at the house of a guy called Rob. In his own words, "don't ever call me a fuckin' American. I'm from Alaska." He's married to a Japanese woman called Natsuko. Marriage seems like the only way for a gaijin to get into the country, and if the marriage ends, you have to leave. I've heard of a guy who lived here for seven years who is getting kicked out for that reason.

But it's all fun and games here at the dome. We've been taking it really easy, Rob worked very hard during the summer and he's resting now. Today we watched part II of Lord of the Rings, a great movie, I'm glad I've finally gotten around to watching it. If I hadn't grown up on Star Wars, it might have become my favourite movie ever. Nothing like a little make-believe to stir the imagination.

It's really cold here. I'm not sure exactly how cold, but it's below freezing outside pretty much all the time. I'd estimate temperatures ranging from -2 to -7. I must be close to freezing in my room at night after I turn the heater off. Fortunately I have a nice warm bed. For some teason condensation forms underneath the mattress every night, so I have to keep drying it out. The food here is very good, and the scenery in the area is incredible. I've taken up cross-country skiing, which has been a lot of fun. The locals have been very friendly to me. The people of this country are great.

I'm in a town called Niseko which is one of the premier ski resorts in Japan. There is a nearby town called Hirafu which is a Little Australia. There are also a lot of Australians moving into Niseko. They buy up hotels and holiday houses Some of them are Australian business people who live in Tokyi. There are also a lot of Japanese business people who do the same thing, coming up here for a couple of weekends every month.

Yesterday I went into Sapporo (the capital of Hokkaido) with a very genteel local couple, the Enomotos (Akira and Aiyeko). They are members of the Home Stay association, they host foreigners visiting the country, and they go to other countries as guests of other members of the association. They are friends of Rob and Natsuko. It was a lot of fun but utterly exhausting, I spoke a lot of Japanese over the course of the day and it tired me out. In Sapporo we went to a cooking lesson hosted by the homestay association. It was also a social occasion, everyone gave a quick talk to the group, talking about themselves. I found it pretty hard, the audience was underwhelmed, but it was a pretty good effort for someone of my level of ability and experience.

I've got some photos ready but I don't have time to post them, so they will have to wait.

Later,

James