Yokoso! Sapporo

Last week Thursday was my last day at the second school, Naba JHS. I booked Friday off for the long weekend. I had to do another fairwell speech, but this time around was very different. If you recall in a previous entry, I was a mess saying goodbye at the last school and I didn't know what to say for my parting speech. I again didn't know what to say in my in my speech, but this time it was because I didn't have the chance to really get to know the students. My time at Naba went by so quickly because of the Christmas holiday. I came up with a very simple speech and was on my way. Friday I got up nice and late(relatively speaking) and got myself ready to head to Osaka Kobe Airport. Khaleelah and I met up at Sapporo airport in Hokkaido(the northern and coldest island in Japan) and headed to our graceful host's(Mark) house via train. We got to Shin-Sapporo in about 2o minutes then walked about 5 minutes from the station. We basically dropped off our bags, headed out to see some of the snow sculptures at the snow festival and then went to a bar, TK6 in Sapporo city to meet up with some other ALTs. After dinner we went to club Booty. Yes, the club name is booty lol. To my surprise the music was good, the dj shocked me. I didn't expect a middle-aged, Irish (or was it Scottish?) man to be digging in the crates for some ooooold reggae and r 'n b. It was great until the guys from the US navy/marines got to the club. They were so whack! Basically they came there with the mentality of the soldiers in WWII thinking that b/c they are from the US that every Japanese woman in the club would jump on their jock at the drop of a dime. In the admission line we witnessed one guy telling a girl she was a dog because she didn't want to leave the club with him to do God knows what. Anyhoo, we left the club and went back to the house by cab. Saturday morning, actually afternoon we went to have breakfast/lunch and went back into the city to look at the ice sculptures. We went to dinner at a Jamaican restaurant and let me just tell you the food was off! You don't hear me saying that very often, but when you see the pictures of their patties you'll understand. After dinner, we went back to TK6. Khaleelah and I ventured back out to see more snow sculptures and we caught a dance battle on the way. We walked back to the bar and we all went back to the house got ready and headed to club Jade. The dj was ok to start but went down south not long after, so we left and went back to Booty. I really can't take the cigarette smoke in the clubs here in Japan and I don't understand how we did it when smoking was allowed in Toronto. Needless to say we left the club early because of it, that and we were tired from all of the walking we did. Sunday morning K and I got up and left the the house before everyone got up. We didn't feel like wasting valuable sightseeing time like the previous day. We had brunch then headed into Sapporo city to finish looking at the ice sculptures and to buy some omiyage for our co-workers. We were finished and ready to head back around 5pm but the others had left the house so we had dinner, did a little shopping and then met up with them at St. John's Irish pub. There was a man there from Istanbul, quite the character, chatting up everyone and buying them drinks. I usually don't take drinks from strangers but your girl was THIRSTY! So I had a second orange with pineapple juice on the rocks lol. Mark and his girlfriend, Maiko had been waiting on their friend going on 2 hours before they got fed up. They left and went to Gaijin bar where we met up with them shortly after. (sidebar: the term gaijin pronounced guy-gin, is used to refer to foreigners. Some sensitive people actually get offended buy it lol go figure) By this time in the night I was absolutely exhausted and we had a reggae party on the schedule. Maiko was tired and driving home so being tired ourselves, we were quick to catch a ride home and go to club bed. Monday morning we got up bright and early to catch the first train(about 6:30am) to the airport. We parted ways at the airport and ended what was an incredibly adventurous weekend in Japan's land of snow.