JAPANEXILE

The first official day of our holidays were spent going en-masse, Yuko, Hiromi, Namiko, and of course the ever present Shiro early in the morning to Noboribetsu. I of course have already been to Noboribetsu, and wrote about it in detail here so I won�t say too much. With different people it was definitely still good fun. We remembered to bring our swords along for the sole purpose of attacking the guy at the entrance. Who gladly indulged out childish side and was hacked down like a true warrior. All on video, which really is quite funny. One thing I must put up on Youtube. I was also lucky enough to manage to win the four way Janken match at the theatre, so got my wish of acting on stage there! Two things I learnt there, firstly, its really difficult to speak Japanese loudly and maintain any sort of correct pronunciation, so I sounded like a idiot. Secondly, downing quite large amounts of Sakke (in the name of theatre of course, I wouldn�t normally start drinking at 11am) is actually quite difficult. I managed, I�ve had plenty of practice. But still. The Ninja show was as cool as ever, different Ninja this time, whose sword bent during the performance, which whilst comical at first was just distracting after that. We did all the rest, had a go at the Archery, at which Dad was surprisingly good. Surprisingly not because it was dad, rather that the equipment is near un-useable in my opinion.

All Edo Period-ed out it was time to induct the parents in the way of onsen. We went to our favourite one back in Toya-onsen, which seemed counter intuitive considering we were in Noboribetsu � a hotspring resort. But whatever. As expected mother loved onsen, its pretty much her idea of a perfect activity, scorching heat in many forms. Dad was less keen, not liking the heat quite as much. Which I agree with in many ways, I enjoy onsen, but not for too long, and not everyday. As we seemed to end up doing. Hopefully I didn�t upset Hiromi by having a beer afterwards, it felt right though. I haven�t mentioned yet that a few weeks back we had a fun meeting discussing what we are aren�t allowed to do in public. Drinking being one of the �aren�ts� Due to our growing fame around Hokkaido (8 Newspaper appearances, and a TV Show) there is a risk we would be recognised. And as we are not of the legal drinking age this apparently could be a problem as we are officially government employees. I understand where they are coming from, locally as we are the only foreigners yes we probably would be recognised. But up in Sapporo I don�t think it is such a problem. Considering we are one of many up there, and who in a dark nightclub is going to care? I guess it doesn�t really matter � the rules aren�t for discussion. So back to the day. Lastly it was time for a tradition with Shiro, Korean BBQ. Gotta love it. And I think mum and dad did.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 7th, 2008 at 2:41 pm and is filed under Japan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.