Hokkaido Trip

I realize it has been a long time once again since I have done any kind of an update. Much has happened over the last 3 months. We had 6 students come from America and spend 9 weeks with us; I went to Hokkaido for 10 days with 12 others from Utsunomiya; and been preparing for the America trip which is in 2 days.

Back in April, Bryan and I went down to Shizuoka with 3 students to do a preparation trip for doing Hokkaido this year with Nagai-san from Shizuoka BEST. Two of those students went to Hokkaido with us and the other then decided to go to America instead.

Our trip to Hokkaido was from August 10-20. We took Nagai-san's minibus and drove up to Hokkaido by way of ferry. We spent much time traveling as we went to 7 different cities. Some of the exciting things were eating king crab for the first time, eating venison in Japan for the first time (that made me really happy), seeing sunflower fields, playing idiotic games with each other in our down time, going to a famous zoo, going to many hot springs, going to Sulfur mountain, running in the mornings with 4 of the students, and, of course, seeing cows.

Hokkaido is a very beautiful place and nice and cool in the summer time since it is so far up North. In the winter they receive a lot of snow and they are famous for their snow festivals. We were able to help chop firewood for the people in Kawayu. It is amazing to see how much wood they have stored up for the winter.

This is how I would describe Hokkaido. It is like the midwest but with mountains. They have a lot less rice fields and more crop lands, many cows, more open land, and many pretty flowers. I think it would be a wonderful place to live sometime.

It was exciting to see how the students came together and bonded while on the trip. It was two days before the trip ended and they had already planned a reunion before school starts in October.

I have posted pictures from our trip. You may think, wow Alan, that is a lot of pictures but in the end a very small amount compared to what was taken.