Happy Piggy Doughnut

I realized there has been no photo documentation of me actually being in Japan! So we'll start off today with a picture of me wearing the nifty new HIF shirt that I traded for my luggage. But a small price to pay for such an awesome shirt.  Speaking of small prices, I'm holding today's vending-machine-drink-of-the-day, which was simultaneously delicious and the most interesting drink I've tried thus far.

It was a "Huru Huru Sheikaa" or the Shake Shake Shaker, and I had to shake it ten times before drinking.  Thats because when it first came out of the vending machine it was pure jello! Shaking it up made it liquify a bit, and so by the time I drank it it tasted like carbonated grape soda, but with the consistency of jello that has been swished around. Delicious! But definitely bizarre!

Today when I woke up and went down to the breakfast buffet, I quickly realized I wasn't in Kansas anymore.  Although there were some familiar foods like an omelette area and orange juice, there was also squid, sashimi, caviar, and lots and lots of unidentifiable objects that I could only assume were edible.  And so to test this hypothesis, I just started putting things on my plate. With mixed results. The one thing I grabbed that I completely regretted was Shiokara.  Wow.  When I grabbed it I figured there was no way it could taste as bad as it looked.  But its taste far surpassed its looks, and I decided it is the saltiest slimiest thing that has ever tried to pass as food.  On the plus side though, everything else was quite good!

Today was a very short day of scheduled events, consisting only of taking one ten minute test that was part of the placement test.  After that was over and a brief orientation around the building, we were free for the weekend! And so it gave me some time to explore Hakodate a bit and get better oriented.  

Up to this point my knowledge of Hakodate consisted of the hotel that I'm staying in, HIF, and the path I travel through the city between those two points.  The path itself is interesting, and some places I pass are "The Beer House," several painted manhole covers (like the one above), a telephone pole with an entirely too large sign that proclaims it "The First Concrete Electricity Pole In Japan," and a hamburger place with a huge clown logo that I'll definitely visit soon.  But today I branched out and saw all sorts of cool stuff, from a shrine to a taxi service called "MooMooTaxi" that have black and white painted taxis, and finally to a department store.

The Department store was filled with cool stuff, including a whole floor of manga and anime.  But the thing I just couldn't get enough of was all of the poorly translated english phrases that were thrown together and printed on everything, such as the awesome poster of the "Happy Piggy Doughnut" above. Some other runners up for my favorite:

Note also the shirt that says "Flashy Jewelry.  Very Expensive One."

Dinner tonight was at the Beer House, which had four specialty beers- the fruity beer, bitter beer, clear beer, and the unique beer.  I went with the unique one, which was a purplish color. Kanpai! (Japanese for Cheers!)

High: Buying things in Japanese and understanding them when they count out the change!

Low: Shiokara. fermented squid? srsly? 'nuff said.

Hero: Satoh-san, a girl on the trip who walked around with us today when we were exploring Hakodate, whose Japanese speaking ability helped a ton while navigating.

What it typically looks like walking around the city- lots of Japanese looking buildings with gorgeous green mountains as a backdrop.  tomorrow...more exploring!