It was similar to the mixture of relief and disappointment a moth must feel at the extinguishing of a candle. Tom Robbins-Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates

I sewed. For the past month I have done very little that was not related to making new bags for my bicycle. But I have finished and the journey was spectacular and I learned so much. Thus ends the introduction paragraph.

January was filled with thoughts of snow. Every year the city of Sapporo on Japan’s northern most island, Hokkaido, hosts a world famous snow festival known here as the 雪祭 り(yuki matsuri), literally, “snow festival”. We planned our trip well in advance to beat the crowds and get plane tickets and hotel tickets early as to be sure to be able to go. Chika, Ben, Ezra and I all live relatively close to the airport while our friend Lucas lives a healthy distance to the north in Gunma prefecture. As is life, the day of our departure, Tokyo got its worse snow storm in some 20 years and Lucas’s later departure flight was cancelled, as was any transportation device to leave the airport thus stranding him there along with 5000 other passengers over night. He survived to write a funny travel story about his adventure but missed the festival. The four of us were able to depart and arrived in Sapporo for our four day adventure. We ended up spending a relatively short time at the festival itself. This year the festival had plenty of snow to work with and they were able to produce some amazing sculptures. The only problem is that to be able to afford to produce such big works of art, they were all but one or two advertisements for various thing, countries and businesses, which in and of itself doesn’t limit what they could do with the snow but it for some reason correlated to not interesting sculptures. The one that I really loved was Olympic themed and just incredible in size and detail. The others were country themed and were snow replicas of various world tourist sites or enormous sculptures of animated characters.

Other than the actually festival which is located in a specific park in the middle of the city, we visited other towns close to Sapporo. One, was the first whiskey distillery in Japan which was interesting not only for its beautiful old buildings and explanations of how to make whiskey but also because of the man who founded the company and whose life is well documented and displayed on the grounds. We next visited Otaru, which is also famous for its snow lantern festival, but which was too crowded to really enjoy. We did eat famous Otaru sushi which while being good, maybe did not live up to its name. Also Ezra got a bone from a fish stuck in his throat while eating sushi (95% certain it came from the sushi) and had to go to a doctor to get it removed. I tried unsuccessfully to use tweezers to access the back March 25th, 2014 of his throat which in retrospect was not the most sanitary method for removing a bone. I think that sticking my entire hand in his mouth ultimately made us closer friends though. My favorite place we went on the trip was Jozankei hot spring. We had found a very cheap hotel to stay at which had slight signs of aging and had a wonderful time having the Japan hotel experience. I personally love Japanese hotels because I get the opportunity to sleep on the woven bamboo floor called “tatami”, to wear a Japanese style robe around, go in the hot spring as many times as I want and at least at this hotel, have a great view of the river that runs though the town. The actual best place we went was this incredible outdoor hot spring that we found out about from the tourist office there. Normally, most outdoor hot springs are in fact fenced in, or have roofs, but this one was actually completely outdoors, surrounded by snow, overlooking a mountains range and in natural rock. Laying there in the warm little nook I found with snow falling on my face was a genuine moment of peace and satisfaction for me; at least in the moments when this duo of drunk, hot spring rule breaking tourists stopped taking naked selfies of themselves and their beer cans blocking my view of the mountains. Other than that, some of our best moments were actually just playing in the snow and being silly in a new city together.

After Sapporo I started thinking about how to make bags for my new bicycle. My friend Ezra purchased my first touring bicycle from me along with all of the bags that I had made for it. With that money I bought a new bike and had to begin again making bags for it. I knew that we would be going on a big tour around Mt. Fuji, which I just returned from, so I had a definite date by which I needed to be completely ready with redesigned bags. I spent a long time thinking and researching what would be the best way to make them and what the best materials would be. I now know a lot more about outdoor materials, waterproofing methods, seams, sewing feet, attachment systems for panniers, hand stitching, grommets, hand waxing, sewing a zipper, leather and how to work with it and brushed up a lot on my geometry skills. Luckily I had many days where I was sent home early and since I go into Tokyo at least every other week, access to Japan’s biggest fabric district. All in all I spent at least 60 hours of actual cutting, sewing and fixing time and finished the day before the trip, like it seems I always do and the bags pass the initial test. We will see how they age and if they continue to be functional. At least, they are pretty and I am actually glad to be finished making them, but it was a great activity while the weather was still cold and raining and my knee still recovering from last year’s over usage.

During the period after Sapporo and this past weekend’s adventure there were in fact many little life adventures which were great to be a part of. At Chika’s café we did our second event which was an open mic theme. As always it is very difficult to judge who would come and most people that said they would come in the end a day before the event said they couldn’t (no resentment (lots of resentment) ), but we had a great turn out. Two of my teachers, who I wasn’t expecting to come, did magic, a man did a drip coffee demonstration, a nutritionist talked about something I couldn’t understand, a couple of people played the guitar, people sang and played musical instruments, someone read a poem and I did a little funny skit with some teachers and forgot the joke I wanted to say. Hopefully we can do another one in the future.

Along with the theme of biking, I made some new friends. While riding my bike to Starbucks to call my parents early in the morning, I meet a group of three Japanese gentlemen who ride bikes every Sunday together. Most hobby cyclist in Japan use super expensive carbon fiber bikes and wear spandex clothes with sponsor names all over them (they are not sponsored by these brands), and it is just isn’t how I like to bike. But this group of men have bikes in a similar style to mine, and wear jeans and sneakers when biking and stop to drink coffee and take pictures of swans and it is just a very pleasurable way to spend a day. They invited me to go with them and to my surprise it actually worked out and we spent then next Sunday morning biking to a beautiful lake just north of me that I didn’t know about. I don’t have any older, male Japanese friends so it is a good experience to hang out with them and they know the area really well so I have seen a lot of really beautiful places close to where I live that I didn’t know existed.

Lastly, this past weekend a group of us set out to bike around Mt. Fuji. It is finally warm enough to start bike touring again and Fuji is a quick morning train ride to get to from my house. It was our first real tour of the season and it turned out to be much more strenuous than we had expected. Especially difficult on our bodies was our first day with a horrible head wind which forced us all to get off and push our bikes up the mountain all day and the third day when we lost our route and had to carry our bikes up Fuji for a kilometer in the forest. Other than that we got to stay at a very interesting Japanese establishment called a “health land” which is mainly centered around a hot spring but if you pay a little more you can stay the night in a big room with another hundred people, each with their own little chair/bed and TV. Very weird but it was great to get out of our cycling gear for the night and not have to spend the night searching for a discreet place to pitch our tent illegally in the city. Also it was the closest any of us had biked near Fuji and the views were incredible and we had great weather. All in all a great trip with great people.

And now it is spring time and we are all waiting for the cherry blossoms to bloom. We already had a little taste of flowers with the plum trees which bloom early and are a beautiful sight at the end of a long winter. Spring is also an interesting time because lots of teachers will be switching schools so some of my favorite teachers won’t be at my school any longer, but that also means some teachers may come that I could really like. We shall see. I am excited to start classes and meet the new students. The group of students that I was closest with graduated this past month and I received many love letters and general thank you notes which made me feel great about my job. Other than that, for the past month I have had close to zero responsibilities at school and while that seems cool, it gets long after a week of not having anything to do at work, so it will be good to get back in the classroom. When I am teaching I love this job, but there is way too much time when I am not teaching and just keeping myself busy.

Soon I will turn 27 which seems like a great age to be. While in Sapporo we hit our half way through Japan mark which puts us on the creeping, year and half left to go, countdown clock. I will try and stay focused and alert til the very end. I also bought a plane ticket back to Wisconsin which will be my first time home in two years. I look forward to that time so much. I am even more excited because my wonderful girlfriend, Chika, will be coming to the US as well for half the time. It will be her first trip out of Japan and I am elated to be able to be there with her. I’ll be home from Aug.3rd to the 23rd and I would love to see as many of you as possible.

From here to there and everywhere,

-James