Fuk U Oka

On our last night in Sapporo, we checked out more Yuki-matsuri, some of which was incredibly impressive, and almost froze to death. We then had a birthday dinner for Jen who turned 23, and ate nabe (soup/stew thing in a pot) that had that blowfish called fugu that will kill you if cut improperly. Fulbrighter Laura thought she was going to die at first when she ate it, but it was a false alarm. It wasn't that good too, though it wins the award for scariest thing I've ever eaten. The restaurant then gave us free orange juice, slices of chocolate cake, and chicken (!!). Afterward, we grabbed some drinks at a gaijin bar called Rad Brothers II (the sequel to Rad Brothers I down the street). After everyone went home, Dave, Katie, John, and I grabbed one last bowl of Sapporo ramen (if anyone is interested, all in all, I was unimpressed with the ramen in Sapporo). John and I stayed out after Dave and Katie went home, but most places were closed already, so we dragged our heels home through the snow and ice. Kind of a sad end to our last night in Sapporo.

The next day, we woke up and started packing. My trip to Hokkaido ended the way most trips end around here - like the last episode of Road Rules, with everyone wandering off in their own direction dragging their luggage off to catch a train or plane. But rather than a slow denouement it suddenly changed abruptly when my mom called while I was eating with John and Anna at Sapporo Station to let me know my dad's oldest sister Michilene had passed away. In a strange twist, I was wearing the new t-shirt she had had my Aunt Maureen deliver to me in Sapporo only two days before. She is the second of my dad's three sisters to pass away in the last three years, and was only in her mid-50s. Her death was sudden and came with no explanation or cause. My family has now convened in San Francisco for the services and I am once again not around for it. I sent a letter to be read in my absence, but I still feel pretty guilty about not being able to attend another memorial service for a member of my own family. I did stop off in a Catholic church here in Fukuoka to say a prayer for Auntie Michie.

In the meantime, I've been just hanging out and soaking up Fukuoka, where Fulbrighter Jen is placed, spending short days shopping around the downtown Tenjin district and spending late nights out running around the same downtown Tenjin district with her friends. That in itself has been a fairly goofy experience. That's all I can call it really. Goofy. But Fukuoka itself is a really nice city (it's on Japan's southern island of Kyuushuu). Across the street from Jen's apartment is a really nice park, and we checked out a nice temple down here in Dazaifu that is supposed to make you smarter and where the little shops lining the road going up to the temple sell a little fire-cooked mochi that is apparently only available there, but doesn't seem terribly different from other mochi everywhere else. There is a lot of good shopping around here too - the aforementioned Tenjin-district, an outlet by the sea called Marinoa with apparently the largest ferris wheel in Asia (and another slightly smaller and entirely unnecessary ferris wheel), and another set of pretty classy shopping areas on a river bank complex called Canal City.

Today, we went down to Nagasaki (a two-hour train ride from Fukuoka) to check out the atomic bomb musuem and the Chinese Lantern Festival going on right now for Chinese New Year. Like Hiroshima, Nagasaki is a city whose public transportation is largely by street cars that stop about every 100-200 meters. So we hopped on a car (the fare for which is ridiculously cheap) and road northeast to the musuem. The atomic bomb museum wasn't as horrifying or affecting as the Hiroshima museum, but it was still enough to silence us for awhile after exiting. Nagasaki has a really nice park with memorial statues leading down from the museum to the bomb's point of impact. Again, it's not as massive or impressive as the Gembaku do-mu and peace park in Hiroshima, but was very nicely done. I'm glad we could see it. Subsequently, after deliberately damaging ourselves emotionally at the museum, we hopped on the cable car to go downtown for lantern action in Chinatown. The streets are impressively packed with lanterns (literally thousands of them) and light-up fabric figures of animals and gods and various other Chinese imagery. My favorite sites were probably (1) the dragon and rooster (it's the year of the rooster in Chinese Zodiac) made entirely from those plates, cups, and spoons you use at a Chinese restaurant and (2) this grotesque display with candles lit around a table with a cooked full pig as the centerpiece and about twenty severed, roasted pig's heads on plates with their tails threaded through their forehead. I kid you not.

Tomorrow another day trip to Beppu to soak in hot pools of sulphuric water again at some onsens.

The day after, it is back to Sendai and home sweet home.