Life in Hakodate and Kunebetsu

Every morning I wake up, and just look out my window. It's so strange living here. I've never lived in farm land let alone farm land surrounded by mountains and ocean. It's such a 'The grass is always greener' situation when living in a city/suburb. Growing up in Evanston was such a win-win. We had a pretty decent set up for having fun in downtown Evanston but we had the beach and downtown right next to us. There was the whole lake front and space to play. It was such a great place (Until recently when someone dumped that giant building in the middle, sorry Dad, I know you live there. But Evanston kind of sucks now because of it.) Living here it's like, surrounded by beautiful sounds, gorgeous mountains, the air feels clean and smells clean (It's kind of crazy actually, it always smells good around here and the air literally feels clean.) Then when I take the train into the city, or I'm in Chicago, there are great stores, great restaurants, and it's so easy to get around. I live in an area called Kunebetsu. There is literally nothing to do around here. There's a grocery store and some other stuff. But nothing fun really. I totally get when people live here and raise families though. It's freakin gorgeous and it's a safe and healthy place to live. Especially since if/when there's an earthquake there's space between you and your neighbor so their house won't fall on yours...

I started school today. There are three levels of Japanese you can test into. Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced. Within each level there are two levels. (Beginner A and Beginner b, Intermediate A and Intermediate B...you get the idea) I was placed in Intermediate A. But I quickly decided that it wasn't going to cut it. It was really easy. I took it easy in Nagoya and I learned a TON anyway but this is a way shorter trip I gotta step it up. My host family said I should be in Advanced A. Yeah right, I don't want to work THAT hard. I talked to the teacher and out of the 3 people in my Intermediate A class who wanted to test up... only I did. MUAH HAHAHA. I think I had a good connection with the teacher because I recognized him as a teacher from Nanzan in Nagoya while I was there. I was like "OOOH! My friends were all in your class!" and then we just chatted and he gave me the homework. So... now I'm in intermediate B and I'm darn happy.

One quick story... the other day we went to lunch at a restaurant called "Lucky Pierrot" Its a hamburger/curry/omelet restaurant. Each one has a theme to it, one's animals, one is flowers, one is jungle themed... and so on. The one we went to was Santa Clause themed. Talk about the creepiest meal I've EVER. HAD. I felt disgusting. As if we don't get enough Christmas music in the month of November-December, I had to sit through weird Christmas B-Sides from folks like Neil Diamond and Barry Manilow for an hour while I ate. There were also literally thousands of Santa Clause toys on the walls. Santa signs. Mind you this wasn't a CHRISTMAS themed restaurant, it was a SANTA themed restaurant. It was so gross and uncomfortable. Sadly, I didn't have my camera with me to take a picture of this horror show. I'm not sure if I want to endure another meal there just for a photo, thousands of little imaginary fat red and white men grinning at me while I eat really makes me uncomfortable. Maybe I can do it once for a picture, it's pretty worthy of a picture.

MAN! My room smells so good. I'll do my best to end these posts with a picture. Here's a funny picture I took of where I ate lunch today (not the santa place.) There's no way around this picture, the drawing of the Chinese man is just racist... I don't know what they are thinking...or maybe I'm racist for thinking it's a Chinese person, maybe it's supposed to be a latino person in old oriental clothing...