Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters Champions Parade in Sapporo, Japan ( Nov 24, 2012 )

So many people gathered in Odori last saturday !!!

... and... things were falling down from the sky ! what was happening there ?! riot ?? snowfall ??  paper fall ?? (heh... O.o) ^______^

The day before, my japanese architect friend and senior, Jimmy invited me to watch Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters Champions Parade in Odori on Saturday from his office. I got to know him and his beautiful wife from another friend who introduced us before she left Japan. After that, we started to do a lot of design competitions together for fun and experience. He is a very nice person and also very young at heart. Older people in Japan usually give some kind of strict and serious atmosphere around them, but Jimmy is open to new ideas and culture.

He loves to sketch, and for sure, his sketches and watercolor paintings are amazing !!! He inspired me to learn how to paint with watercolor. I'm always amazed every time I think on how we managed to work together with my limited Japanese. __ __ !

Ok, i'm not supposed to talk about him here !! ^_^ the main thing now is ....

HOKKAIDO NIPPON-HAM FIGHTERS CHAMPIONS PARADE ! ^^

The view of Odori Park during the parade from　道銀ビル

The parade, with a bit of snow on the background and tons of flying papers around, was AMAZINGLY PRETTY !!!! I was wondering how to clean the papers after, as there were really tons of papers and they were blown by the wind all over the place ! well, I will talk about it later.

The team won the Pacific League this year, and the parade was part of the celebration. Honestly, I don't know anything about baseball teams, hehe ^_^!, but I know that Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters is a famous team here. I tried to check a bit online and I'm going to share the basic info with you here.

According to Wikipedia,  the Pacific League (パシフィック・リーグ) is one of the two professional baseball leagues in Japan. The winner of the league championship competes against the winner in the Central League for the annual Japan Series. It currently consists of six teams from around Japan.

The Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters (北海道日本ハムファイターズ) are a Japanese professional baseball team based in Sapporo, Hokkaido. The team name comes from its parent organization, Nippon Ham, which is a major Japanese food processing company. Through a long history from 1946 with the name 'Senators', the team name had changed several times until it became Nippon-Ham Fighters in 1974, and then Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters in 2004 until now.

Some flying papers we caught and my nails in Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters colors :)

The team's home field is Sapporo Dome, a stadium with retractable surface, designed by japanese architect Hiroshi Hara. Retractable surface here means that the stadium surface is able to switch between two entirely different surfaces; artificial turf field for baseball games, and grass pitch that slides into and out of the stadium as needed, for football games.

As I mentioned before, I don't know about baseball and the team itself, so I'm also not familiar with the players. However, it still made me so excited to be able to see these amazing players in the city with my own eyes ! ^^

The best from the parade beside the team players were ... the confetti and flying papers !! ^_^ (I don't think confetti and flying papers are the same, hehe) They were really a lottttttt, and blown all over the place by the wind, decorating the blue sky of Sapporo. It was so nice that the flying papers also came out from 道銀ビル, the building where we were at. It was nice to know that a lot of papers were cut from old advertisements, pamphlets, and used papers instead of new papers. Environmental awareness must always be kept in mind while having fun. :)

Colorful flying papers from both new and recycled papers pamphlets, etc

This was how they did it !

Flying papers cut from used papers, pamphlets, etc

I always love colorful stuffs ! I believe that each color can create its own atmosphere depending on the situation and condition. That's the reason why although my favorite color is green and I have a lot of things in green, I don't stop using and enjoying other colors. It's so fun to mix-n-match them. I don't believe that by sticking to that certain 'my color' shows that we have character, or even style. No relation at all. To my amazement, there are people who get angry when others are using what they call 'their color'. I really don't know what to say. *amused* Why should we stop expressing ourselves and being creative ?

Just use whatever color we feel the best at the moment.  If you want to buy something and it happens that the one in other color looks nicer in your eyes than the one in your favorite color, do you need to insist to buy the one in your favorite color ? Those people are not flexible at all. Also, I think some of you can understand what I mean by 'choosing color may depend on our mood' too.

Back to those pretty confetti and flying papers. They really gave me excitement ! Who won't enjoy them as much as I do ? ^^ mmm... maybe the agencies who are responsible for cleaning the city ? 

The thing is ...

        

The citizens surprisingly helped the staffs to clean up after the parade!!!! O.o ... Isn't it amazing?!? I couldn't understand what was happening here, really. Is it about education? Is it about self-awareness?? Of course not everyone did that. Some of them were just passing by. Some were collecting papers for memorabilia... Some were taking pictures... but there were so many of them really helping to do cleaning! (We did all of them !!! ... yup2, we helped to clean a bit too !!! ^___^ ... *and be proud. what a gaijin/foreigner...*) We also saw parents and children helping the cleaners together. Japan and its society never stop to surprise us! 

Everything has good and bad, and my knowledge about Japan and Japanese people are not enough to make pro and con judgements. However, whatever it is, I think what they did was admirable. They really have different level of self-awareness, and different definition in mind of... maybe 'responsibility' is the word? 

By the way, winter is really here! Get ready for the fluffy powder snow everywhere for at least the next 4 months !! ^________^

Hello from Sapporo !!!

JTB Monitor Tour course C : Okhotsk Ryuhyo Museum, Abashiri, Hokkaido

This is another post about one of the spots I visited during the JTB Monitor Tour course C to Shiretoko and Abashiri areas, Hokkaido.

If you are interested to read about the other spots, 

please check this link:

Kiyosato Shochu (japanese sake) Brewery, Hokkaido

Konbu (kelp) Factory in Rausu, Hokkaido

JTB, well-known Japanese travel agency and one of the largest travel agencies in the world, conducted 7 kinds of 2-3 days guided tour packages to various places around Hokkaido for foreigners, and they are like almost free. Foreigners who wanted to participate had to apply and choose for a course depending on where and when they wanted to go. There were a lot of people applied, of course, and I was quite lucky to get a place ! ^^

The website of JTB Hokkaido is here (sorry, it seems everything is in Japanese).

I was really looking forward into going to Shiretoko and Abashiri areas because I think I have been in most of Hokkaido's famous spots, except Shiretoko, Abashiri, and Wakkanai.

We chose one of the furthest courses, Shiretoko and Abashiri. Shiretoko national park is a UNESCO world heritage, and Abashiri area is famous for its drift ice and old prison. I always want to go there but the timing was always not right. It's also very far, so beside the travel duration issue, it is quite costly to go there and also tiring for Javier if he has to drive alone. 

This post is mainly about our visit to Okhotsk Ryuhyo Museum at Tentozan, Abashiri. So, what did we see there?

1. Beautiful view of Sea of Okhotsk, Lake Abashiri and the city

Abashiri city, with population around 40000, is located on the northeast of Hokkaido and faces the Sea of Okhotsk. The city is blessed with abundant supply of marine products from Sea of Okhotsk, allowing the fishery industries to grow and become the most prominent industry there. 

The view of the city and sea of Okhotsk

The view of Abashiri lake

On the other hand, agriculture and tourism are also another important industries in Abashiri. According to the city website, Abashiri's spectacular beauty of the lakes, landscape and the Sea of Okhotsk with its mystery of drift ice on winter draw around 2 million tourists to the city each year. The popular tour of the drift ice onboard the first icebreaker ship in Japan, the "Aurora", is also conducted here. 

2. Drift ice experience

Drift ice has been part of the image of Abashiri and Okhotsk region. Each year when it comes to winter and the landscape begins to be all white, ice forms at the end of Amur River in Russia, carried southward by sea current and wind until it arrives on the northern coast of Hokkaido. It is said to be very soft and not so dense at the early stage, but gradually grows during its long journey into what we see as drift ice. Its final shape varies since it is shaped naturally by wind and tide.

This museum has a drift ice simulation room in which we can see the real drift ice and experience the extremely low temperature even in summer. We can borrow a coat for free before entering the room. Most of the coats are too thin for the real temperature on winter actually, but they are sufficient for around 5 minutes experience in subzero temperature. If I remember correctly, the temperature inside the room is kept at -10 degree Celsius.

They gave each of us a wet small blue towel to do try a simulation inside. We had to hold one end of the towel with one hand, and then move it very fast in the air in circular movement, until ...

What happened after that ?

In just few seconds, the towels were completely frozen!! haha ^____^ Can you imagine how cold it was inside? Well, most of us who joined this trip have experienced the harsh winter in Hokkaido so we somehow know how cold it is. However, everyone, including me of course =P, was still getting so excited with this simulation, hehe.. not to forget that we were also surrounded by the real drift ice specially brought to the museum for the purpose of this simulation room!

3. Clione

Clione is a species found only in polar waters. It is gelatinous, transparent, and very small. The wing-like parts of its body were developed from its foot. Its shape is like flying creature with wings, which explains the reason it is commonly known as sea angel. According to Wikipedia article about sea angels, not all sea angels are cliones actually, because the family Clionidae is just one of the families within this clade.

    

 

Sorry that the pictures are not so clear ^__^! Cliones are so small and they kept moving, while I don't have special talent in photography, hehe. By the way, the pics on top were taken by iPhone camera. Not so bad la huh ? ^_^ In fact, I had to do so much editing to the picture below as well, which was taken by normal camera.

Talking about cliones, my cousin asked me to check Pokemon center for some soft toys of her children's favourite Pokemon characters. Two of them happened to be Phione and Manaphy. I have no idea about Pokemon hehe, but then when I saw the pictures, I was wondering.. don't they look like clione ??? Apparently, they are really based on clione!!! You can read more about it here.

Manaphy and Phione (picture taken from Bulbanews column)

4. Balloon lumpfish

Aren't they so cute !??! ^__________^ scary ? no la! They are small (so much bigger than cliones, of course) and fat. hihi.. It's so fun to see them swimming like tiny orange balls, looking so busy struggling to move from one place to another place. ^^

Ballon lumpfishes are also species found in cold waters. They have pelvic discs which help them to cling to stones and other substrate in the water. After swimming a bit, they easily hopped or clung here and there, both on horizontal and vertical planes. How convenient!

 

If any of you think that balloon lumpfishes are scary, now see the pictures below!! 

Don't you love the babies ?!?! ^______^ 

At least the babies are less scary, don't you think so ? ^^ They are super tiny and smooth! ... really look like cartoon characters for me... O.o

I was quite disappointed that we didn't pass by the prison. I don't understand why they didn't bring us there while the prison is one of the most famous spots in Abashiri, and it will look as it is all year round. I mean, it's not like drift ice which we only can see on winter or flower gardens that are pretty when the flowers are fully bloomed during specific season.

Anyway, I will  definitely want to go back to Abashiri. Maybe on winter. :)

Cannot see the background actually huh ? =P

Haha.. nice pic! Thanks, Javier ^^

Shimamui beach, Shakotan Peninsula, Hokkaido, Japan

Shimamui beach from the top

It's sooo cold these days until I suddenly wanted to check my collection of summer pictures just to bring back the memories of those warm and sunny days. These pics were taken during our trip to Shakotan Peninsula last summer. It is located in Shiribeshi area on the west coast of Hokkaido island, Japan.

We joined HUISA (Hokkaido University International Student Association) summer trip, and we went there with many international students and their families. We visited Shimamui beach, Cape Kamui (kamui misaki), and Nikka Whisky Distillery to join the factory tour and whisky tasting. It wasn't my first time being there actually. I also joined exactly the same trip two years ago. However, I didn't mind going again coz this time I went with different people. We are not supposed to miss the precious summer scenery in Hokkaido since we have limited warm sunny days anyway !! (actually it was cloudy on the day of the trip... __ __!)

In regards to Shimamui beach, it is known as one of Japan's best shores. Here we can see the wonderful sight of Shakotan blue sea, crystal clear sea water that allows us to see the surrounding underwater reefs in summer.

Narrow and dark tunnel on the way to Shimamui beach

After walking through a narrow and dark tunnel with extremely high humidity level (the ceiling is quite low!!), you will reach a high spot where you can enjoy the beautiful scenery of Shimamui coast and the Shakotan blue.

Going down to Shimamui beach

Then, if you are ready to do around 10-minute hike on the way back, there are steps leading your way to the rocky beach down there where you can soak yourself inside the chilly water. (oh yes.. it's chilly, if not cold. I have never experienced warm seawater in Hokkaido before.)

The trail is quite well-maintained although it is a bit rocky. Besides, although we could see some people wearing heels ... O.o ..., good shoes are recommended. Don't forget that you will have to hike back to the top on the way back !

On the way ... 

We reached the beach !

 

People enjoying the summer sun and Shakotan blue

If you plan to swim a bit, you may bring your bathing suit or wear it under your clothes. Be prepared that there is no changing room there.

Check my other post about our next destination:

Cape Kamui and Nikka Whisky Distillery

New FANTA flavors - some using the old logo

Fanta apple and fanta peach

Fanta golden grape

The fact that Japan always has special edition stuffs in the market especially related to food and drinks makes me love this country even more. I will never get bored because there is always new thing to appreciate and enjoy everyday!

This year FANTA came up with some new flavors (not sure if these flavors have been produced in Japan before, but they haven't been in the market since I came) :
apple, peach, grape, strawberry soda, and golden grape.

As you can see, some of them use the old logo of FANTA. It really reminds me of my childhood.. ^^ I'm not a big fan of carbonated drinks, to be honest. It takes days for me to finish only one bottle !! (HA..HA) however, I'm always tempted to try special edition stuffs ! ^_____^

Since they came into the market around the same time, I didn't try them all but I tried fanta golden grape. In my opinion, the taste and smell quite represented the green grapes. I haven't managed to research the difference between green grapes and golden grapes, hehe. If any of you know something about it, please let me know! :)

Don't forget to check my post about Japan's latest winter edition Pepsi White launched on December 11, 2012, Pepsi Franky Cola which is another latest special edition Pepsi based on famous Japanese shounen manga series, One Piece (ワンピース), Japan's summer edition Pepsi Black Lemon with all-black Pepsi logo, a bit of lemon flavor and 50% less sugar content, Japan's summer edition Pepsi Salty Watermelon, my favourite among all ^__^, released last year to celebrate the enjoyment of summer, and Coke Zero 007 Skyfall Special Edition. :)

Fluffy socks are back !

It's really getting colder these days !! I'm pretty sure the snow will fall in 1-2 weeks.. >_____<
*sigh..* ... *depressed* ... anyway, if we think positively, it's time to shop for soft fluffy warm stuffs again for winter... and of course we cant miss... new fluffy socks! just bought them yesterday hehee... guess which socks are mine!! ^^