Abashiri, part II

Sorry it’s taken so long to write and post this. Life just got pretty busy for a while, and I now find myself battling what seems to be hay fever. It’s not too bad, though, and the beautiful weather is worth it.

Two weekends ago, we were scheduled to have Undoukai (Sports Day). For days before the event, everyone was glued to the weather channel, anxiously watching and waiting to see what the weather would bring. The Saturday prior to Undoukai dawned with a fierce rainstorm that flooded about half of the field. The students all went to school for their practice day, and ended up having class instead. Ridge actually didn’t go, due to his fever. The following day, Sunday, was cold and gloomy. At precisely six o’clock a.m., according to the “rain plans”, an announcement blared forth from our community radio, announcing the inevitable postponement of Undoukai. Instead, students needed to go to school as usual, and they would attend classes until about 11:30. Part of the reason the students needed to go to school on Sunday (and actually have classes) was due to the fact that Monday and Tuesday had been scheduled as days off – with no school for teacher or students – as sort of “make-up” days for Undoukai. No school lunch had been planned, and therefore staff and students needed to work in order to justify having Monday and Tuesday off.

Ridge was feeling much better, so we got him dressed and sent him off to school on a Sunday morning. What a strange experience! I was pretty bummed, since I had spent so much time and effort making the Undoukai lunch. Also, the rain date for Undoukai coincided with my English Lock-In, which meant that my next week and weekend would necessarily be very busy.

After Ridge arrived home, we ate lunch and decided to “have an adventure,” as I put it to boys. We thought it would be fun, with three days off, to just get in the car and go somewhere for a few days. Unfortunately, due to a clash between my stubbornness and Holt’s, we were delayed by about two hours. Holt is a VERY picky eater, and Aaron and I sometimes just don’t know how to handle it. I’ve always wondered what would happen if I just refused to allow him to do anything unless he agreed to have one bite of a hated food. So, silly me, I decided to pick a fight with him and I insisted that he eat one bite of meat from his plate. Two hours, many tears, and the threat that “Daddy and Ridge would go on an adventure without him” and I had my answer. I think we will no longer try to wait him out. It’s just not worth it!

So, we piled into the car, brought along my lovely bento lunch to serve as our dinner, and set out. We drove towards the east, still not exactly sure where we would go and where we would spend the night. It was a pleasant drive, actually. Since we weren’t in a hurry, we were able to just stop and look at anything that caught our fancy along the way. By around 6:00, were reached Abashiri, a city three hours to the northeast of the village. After a combination of decoding some Japanese camping flyers and making educated guesses with our bi-lingual map, we managed to find a campground by the name of “Tent Land”. Of course, we didn’t actually have a tent, but we had never really planned on sleeping in a tent anyway. We managed to finally navigate the maze of small roads and find the check-in area about twenty-minutes before closing time. It’s amazing how competent we have become. Aaron was able to secure a small cottage for us, using broken Japanese only. Very cool!

So, we settled in for the evening in our adorable and reasonably priced bungalow, and promptly ate the bento that I had worked so hard on. It actually made the evening quite nice. It turned out to be a somewhat fancy camp dinner.

The Cottage
Ridge, Holt, and Roll Pan Chan snuggled up for the night

The next morning dawned gray and cold as well. We didn’t let that deter us, though, since we were very determined to have an “adventure”. I went out for an early morning run and took the opportunity to explore the park a bit. Almost like magic, I stumbled on to the most interesting playground I had seen in some time. After a quick breakfast, I led the way and took the boys to my discovery.

We’ve noticed that a common feature of some playgrounds here is this sort of hanging thing (that’s a technical term, by the way). I guess it’s a bit like a mini-zip line. Well, we’d seen some fun ones, but the one at this part beat them all, hands down. There was no contest. Check out the photos and video clip and you’ll understand what I’m talking about. Aaron went around it about half a dozen times before finally convincing Ridge to give it a go. Holt was a bit nervous, so Aaron walked beside him and kept it from going too fast. It was too much fun!

Ridge and Holt at the Cool Playground
Hanging thingie
The Coolest Hanging Thingie ever
Aaron helping Holt
On the jumping thingie

After a stint at the Cool Playground, we moseyed up to the check-in office to sign up for another night. As we did so, the attendant kept enthusiastically talking to me about something. I could only make out a few words he was saying, but I confess that I just played along. We played in the rec room a bit, and he reappeared, asking me to come look at his computer. Turns out I hadn’t fooled him, and he had turned to an online translation program for help. Online translation programs really stink, by the way. I guess it’s better than being 100% in the dark about something, but the way they translate Japanese into English is just terrible. Fortunately, I was able to wade through what he wrote and make out what he was trying to communicate so emphatically.

Turns out that the local board of education’s Social Education department was scheduled to have a barbecue at the park we were staying at. Apparently, at 6:30 that evening, they would be cooking out just down the hill from our little cottage, and Mr. Campground Guy thought it would be nifty if he suggested to both groups (us and them) that my family join in the event. Oh my. We were just asked to crash a party. He assured me that it would be fine, and that it would only be 3000 yen for the whole family (remember, people here pay for parties), which is a real bargain! How could we refuse?

Later that evening, we did indeed join in the party. It was chilly, so everyone huddled around the fires drinking hot sake, tea, or cold beer (go figure). The grills were full of sizzling meat and the generous folks we had just barged in on happily plied our boys with chocolate and any number of sugary treats in order to soften them up. In no time at all, we were chatting with the few English speakers and watching strangers ooh and ahh over Ridge and Holt. Once it was dark enough, they brought out a huge box of fireworks (mostly sparkers) and turned the boys loose on them.

Turns out that one of the men there is actually good friends with my boss Mr. Kamaya. His English was pretty good, and he and Aaron had a nice chat. There was another person who spoke good English, but I’ve forgotten her name. In a funny turn of events, Aaron got most of the attention because for the first hour or so of the party, everyone thought Aaron was the English teacher; I was just the children-watching-wife. It’s usually the other way around in Nishiokoppe – everyone wants to talk to me because I’m the teacher. I think we both enjoyed the role-reversal. Anyway, Aaron told the woman that the next day we planned to visit the Abashiri Museum of Northern Peoples. Believe it or not, she is a good friend with the assistant curator of the museum, a man who happens to speak English! She promised Aaron she would call her friend and arrange a private tour for us.


Boys and fireworks
Ridge and a sparkler
More sparklers

The next morning, we played in the sun and loaded up the car. Before leaving town, though, we stopped at the museum for a visit. Aaron was very eager to see it, as he had heard about it a while ago and had been looking forward to visiting it. True to her word, our new friend had in fact called the assistant curator, who met us at the front desk shortly following our arrival. The boys were quickly bored, and I moved off to keep them entertained, but Aaron and the assistant curator toured the museum for some time, chatting quietly. It was a great experience.

We hit the road and made plans to drive past a couple of towns known for their flower viewing. First on the list was Engaru, where the flox completely covers some of the hillsides. The picture I posted previously of the boys came from Engaru. After Engaru, we went to Kamiyubetsu to see the tulips. We visited this place last year, but more than half the tulips had bloomed out by then. This year, it was perfect. I think only two sections of flowers had finished blooming. The rest were in full color. It was absolutely breathtaking.

Tulips in Kamiyubetsu
More Tulips at Kamiyubetsu
Pan and Scan of the Tulips Flowers in Engaru

Finally, we headed home. Arriving shortly before 6:00, I noticed that Mr. Kamaya was still at work (we live across the street from the city offices). Wanting to confirm the schedule for my English camp, I decided to pop in for what turned into a rather lengthy discussion. Since Undoukai was rained out, it was being moved to June 2, the date set for English Lock-in. After looking at a very busy June schedule, we determined that it was best to go ahead and do them on the same day; we simply assumed all the kids would fall asleep more quickly this time, since they would be tired from Undoukai. So, my mini-vacation was officially at an end, since I now had to follow through and finish preparing for a lock in that was to have double the number of kids as the last time! Oh, how foolish I was!