Well this month we didn't get up to anything very ambitious. We're saving for a trip to Thailand and Cambodia next month, so we only left Asahikawa once on a day trip to Sapporo. I did get a chance to explore a lot more of Asahikawa on my bike before the snow started to fall. That's right. It's barely half way through November and it's been snowing almost everyday for the past two weeks. They say it's going to be this way until the end of March. I think you see now why we want to go to South East Asia.

Halloween Party

The Asahikawa International Committee put on a Halloween party and all of us Jets in the city volunteered to help out. It wasn't a very hard job. We just had to make sure the kids didn't cut off their hands making jack o'lanterns and give out lots of candy. It was actually a lot of fun. I wore a stunning pirate costume, but all photographic evidence of it has mysteriously disappeared.

Sapporo

November 3 was Culture Day, a holiday. No one was able to explain to us exactly what Culture Day is, but it seems to be the day everyone is supposed to stay home and do quiet Japanese things like calligraphy, tea ceremonies, and meditation. Jill and I decided to go to Sapporo for shopping, and it seems that many people had the same idea because the train was packed in the morning. It was actually a pretty uneventful day in Sapporo. It rained most of the day, and I didn't even buy anything. But it was worth it to see the colours on the trees in Odori (right) and Akarenga (bottom and top) parks.

Northern Wild Plants Garden

Just before the snow started to fly I found perhaps the best view of Asahikawa at the Northern Wild Plants Garden. The park itself wasn't much to look at since everything is closed up for the winter. But it's probably quite nice in the summer. They have a replica of an Ainu settlement, and a number of trails through the forest. One of them goes up to the observatory where I found the view of the city, but there's another trail to the site of an old fort built when they first settled Asahikawa a little over a hundred years ago.

First Snowfall

We actually had our first snow in mid-October, but it only lasted a few minutes. It started to snow for real two weeks ago. The ground’s not frozen yet because the temperature only drops below zero at night, but when it snows all day for three days in a row it starts to add up. I took these pics at Gokoku Shrine on my way to work one morning.

Karaoke

Not many people know this, but karaoke comes from the Japanese word for empty (kara) and a Japanization of the English word Orchestra. So Karaoke literally means "empty orchestra." Don't ask me why. Not surprisingly, since they invented it, the Japanese do karaoke much better than we do. First most of them don't know what we're talking about when we say "kerry-okie." The correct pronunciation sounds more like "karla-okay," if you blend the r and l together like the Japanese do. Second if you go into a karaoke bar in Japan they take you to a private room for just you and your friends, so you don't have to sing in front of a bar full of strangers. Third most bars in Japan have "nomi-hodai," or all you can drink specials. You pay about 2000 yen ($20), and get to drink as much as you can in one hour. I'm pretty sure this would bankrupt bars in Canada pretty fast, but it seems to work quite well in Japan.

We've been going to karaoke fairly regularly since we got here. If you're planning to visit us in Japan take a good look at these pictures because this is your fate.