Strangest graveyard I've ever seen and other weird things.

So, weather has been horrible here in Sapporo. Horrible to me anyway. ;)

Fairly steady 30 degrees every day and with surprisingly humid air. This is not the kind of summer weather I like. Pretty much get sweaty by just sitting in a room.

As for what I've been doing... Quite a bit actually.

Friday I was in a little barbeque party and met some new people from one of the english seminars. I ate takoyaki (fried octopus), okonomiyaki and yakisoba.


This is takoyaki. Small dumpling is filled with piece of octopus and laced with sauces and spices.


Okoniyaki is fried on a large pan by yourself (even on restaurants) and can be filled with just about anything. Kind of like crossbreed between pizza and pancakes if you ask me.


Yakisoba looks like this. "Soba" is the name of those thin noodles. Noodles and other incredient are fried on a flat iron skillet and served right after that.

Saturday I went to see percussion (mostly drumming) show and after that we went to that graveyard mentioned in the title. It is very bizarre place, but let me just insert some pictures here:


One of the teams performing with various drumming instruments.




Graveyard with huge row of Moai statues which come equipped with prayer wheels? In a way one could interpret this as a clever way of throwing a little jab at ancient people of Easter Island. After all, buddhism teaches us that we should stop craving for things we don't need. Apparently these people literally worshipped themselves to extinction with excessive production of statues in hopes of gaining status. They destroyed their living envinroment and died out.

Actually that reminds me of modern societies. Although many of us are aware of the consequences of unchecked consumption we can't stop it due to societal inertia and monetary system set up to produce maximum amount of "wealth". Maybe one day we too will serve as examples of short-sighted foolishness to some other people.


On the other side of the road we have Stonehenge replica and huge statue of Buddha. Roadsides are littered with statues from various cultures, including totems of indigenous people of Hokkaido, egyptian statues, chinese temple guardian statues and more.





There was also huge stone bell that I rang (pretty darned loud sound by the way) and enormous temple drum. Unfortunately drum playing was forbidden. :)





Monday I met Robotics laboratory people in HIT and afterwards visited materials laboratory in Hokkaido university and participated in "nomikai" aka drinking party in local barbeque restaurant. My god that was a HOT day... I was so beat after that I just couldn't get to school on tuesday before 12.00.

We ate local barbecue food called "Genghis Khan". Here is one picture grabbed from internet. Basically big pot with vegetables and meat with lots of sauce. After you have eaten the contents you dump pile of udon noodles and simmer them in the sauce. Udon soaks it up and I have to say it's really good.



And tuesday we went into Moerenuma to see strangest park in Sapporo. It was planned wholly by one guy called Isamu Noguchi. This artist put some fountains in the park, couple large hills and some strange pyramid-like structures. We climbed one of the hills (close to 200 stairsteps by the way).







Here is the central piece of this park, The Glass Pyramid. It has restaurant, souvenier shop and resting rooms inside it. And great view from the roof.







I also almost managed to injure myself at one stairway when I stumbled down but luckily Mr. Tsuchida, english seminar teacher caught me. Many thanks to him for that. I was so tired and had a loose shoe on so when I stepped little bit too close to the edge of the stair I was suddenly going down much faster than I had planned! ^^

"Echo room" inside the pyramid. Aqustics were deliberately set up to produce alot of reflections.


Seminar students watching down, looking at "Echo room" from upper floors.

We also watched a fountain show in the evening when it was getting darker which was quite nice, just maybe little too long in that mid part. Total running time was about 30 minutes.




On wednesday there was another barbeque thing, this time outside. I ate some local fishes, including "Tai", which is apparently where word "Omedetai" originates. Omedetai means "happy occasion" or "happy event". Like birthday or some other fortunate thing. This fish is often served on such parties.

And finally today, Thursday, I went to meet people from schools Shogi and Go club. I just barely had time to play one quick match of Shogi and one match of tower game before I had to head to cafeteria to meet some Korean students and teachers. Cafeteria food was quite interesting today, they offered seaweed rolls with various free choice toppings (chicken, fish, vegetables, strawberries, rice etc). I really liked it, I just think nori (seaweed) paper is little bit too tough so you have to chew on it pretty hard. Also met a student from Korea who studies eastern pharmacology (natural medicines and such).

Well, pretty gigantic update. I hope it was ok read for you anyway. Oh, and outside temperatures are finally coming down. Such a relief to me personally...

Good night. o/