happylife

Fireworks festival in Obihiro

It is now the summer vacation season in Japan though it is very short and dense. Lots of people go back from major cities such as Tokyo and Osaka to their home town and have a good time with their family and old friends. Fireworks festivals held here and there color the vacations. It is said that more than 200 fireworks festivals are held a year in Japan and most of them are in this season. I went see one of them held in Obihiro. It is one of the largest festivals in Hokkaido island and more than 20,000 shots of fireworks were launched in less than two hours. It was really great and I was more or less impressed after a long break. Sure I used to enjoy the fireworks in Vancouver every summer very much, but this fireworks was so gorgeous and beautiful that I can't tell both of them in the same level. The large shots of fireworks which were launched only in the last stage in Vancouver were generously fired one after another in the show. It was not only the size; the colors, shapes, combinations, musics and the new technologies including laser beams. Everything was great. I found teas came to my eyes, but it was not because I was so impressed but because the powder from the fireworks came into my eyes.

Burning?

The hot air during the day stayed in my room until late at the night. I gave up the idea of sleeping in the bed and got up at midnight to face towards the PC without any opportunity. After reading some articles on the Internet for hours, I recognized red color outside of the window. It was the sun rise which looked like a fire through the silhouette of the trees. I found for the first time after coming to my new room that my window was facing towards the east. It was really a beautiful show; the color gradations of the sky from bright red to dark blue changed into the usual blue sky in a few minutes. By the time the show came to an end, the air temperature had dropped a bit and I could fall into a sleep for a short time. I thought that it might be a good idea to work at night and enjoy this show during the summer.

What to eat?

When I was living in Vancouver I usually cooked by myself to save money and to keep up health. Eating out in Vancouver often meant spending a lot of money for some greasy menu items and poor services. On the other hand in Obihiro, there are so many good restaurants that I don't need to cook by myself. It's more reasonable and of course delicious to eat out than my original menu items. This picture is the entrance of my favorite restaurant. If you can read Japanese, you would be happy to see this menu list; all the dinner set menu items including fish, meat, fries and noodles are less than 500 yen! Can you believe all the dinner set comes with vegetables, appetizer, miso soup and rice? I know we can't buy even two slices of pizza at this price in Vancouver. It's very enjoyable to think about what to eat for every lunch and dinner.

huge shopping malls

Different from most cities around Tokyo, Obihiro has a lot of huge shopping malls. They are just like those in Canada or the U.S. Single storied houses with vast parking lots satisfy all the visitors demands including food, clothes, gadgets, books and so forth. My favorite of all is Daiso, one of the most popular 100-yen shops. We can purchase every item for 100 yen, exactly for 105 yen including tax out there while everything costs C$2 plus tax in the branch of Vancouver. It was the largest 100-yen shop I have seen before and I got some tableware and batteries at reasonable prices. It is generally considered that Tokyo is the most convenient place in Japan because we can get whatever we want, but I can't agree with this idea. Sure, most products come into Tokyo, but this city lacks lands and that sometimes causes inconvenience. For example, if you wanted particular furniture and visited a furniture store in Tokyo, the sales person might say, "I'm afraid the product is just now out of stock and it takes a few days to get it." You have to visit the store again in a few days and pay the parking twice in total. On the other hand in Obihiro, you can park for free, order the furniture, pay for it and get it! Everything is literally in the spacious store.

Hot days

It's not that I was injured or had a fever, but that it's just too hot. Of course it is cooler here in Obihiro than in Tokyo, but the maximum temperature sometimes comes to more than 30 degrees in the afternoon. As I'm easily affected by heat, this weather is a little bit tough for me. Furthermore, as I have no air conditioner in my room, I feel even hotter. It's too hot that I'm seriously thinking about purchasing a cooler for my room though I know these hot days do not last long. I'm now barely avoiding wasting money in such a way and I'm taking a water shower a couple of times a day instead. It works to some degrees. This head pad is what I found at a drug store today. There is a sheet of gel inside of the pad so that the heated head is cooled down. It seemed to be a good idea, but it doesn't work well; the pad becomes warm in a few minutes!

Heritage horse racing

Obihiro is the only city in the world which is hosting the official and unique horse racing games called "Bannei Keiba." Keiba means horse racing and Bannei is the type of racing. Jockeys in most horse racing ride on the horses, but in this type of racing, they are in the sleighs pulled by the horses. The weight of the iron sleigh comes to 500 kilo-grams to 1 ton! The horses are way bigger and stronger than usual thoroughbreds. The horses run a 200 meter long, straight course with two slopes. They are not so fast and sometimes stop on the course to take a rest that spectators can watch them close by walking along the course. It looks so powerful and exciting that it is natural this racing are designated as the cultural heritage. However, I hear that Bannei Keiba has been in danger of abolition because of financial problems. I was thinking that public gambling is one of the most lucrative business, but the economy of this city is too bad to run it. I don't like gambling but I think this racing should be kept forever.

Hinomaru Bento

Hinomaru Bento is a traditional Japanese lunch box which is made of only steamed rice and a pickled plum. The red plum at the center of the white rice field symbolizes Japanese flag "The Rising Sun." It used to be a very popular menu item when Japan was not so rich after the World War II, but it is too simple to satisfy the rich Japanese people now. A few days ago we had a heavy rain caused by the typhoon and I found I had nothing to eat in my refrigerator. Unfortunately, I didn't have an umbrella either. I was hungry and what I did was boiling the rice and putting two pickled plums on it. It is almost a Hinomaru Bento, but this one is a little bit more gorgeous because there are more than one plum. What I learned was that I need an umbrella and I am lucky because I can every day eat whatever I like.

Burnable or non-burnable?

Different from my expectation, the garbage collection policy in Obihiro is very strict. There are tens of garbage groups and each of them is collected only on a particular week of day. For example, Milk packs should be washed and spread into a sheet of paper beforehand, and it is collected only on Mondays. Plastic bottles should be washed too and they are collected separately from their caps. Strict policy is a natural demand in a cramp city such as Tokyo, but Obihiro is one of the most spacious cities in Japan. It is proved by the fact that there are at least three airports in this city. Why did they enact such a strict rule then? I think there are two reasons for that. One is money. I had to pay 90 yen for each colored plastic bag; the blue one is for Non-burnable waste and the red one is for burnable waste. Of course the bag is not so costly, but most of the money is tax and it is used to collect and dispose the garbage. The other reason is to protect the earth from garbage. I don't think the idea of ecology has infiltrated to all the residents, but it is working at least for persuading them to pay the tax and accept the inconvenience. Anyway, I don't know where to categorize the paper lid of instant noodle coated with metal to be water proof. Burnable or non-burnable, that is the question.

Bathroom dryer

My apartment has no balcony where most Japanese people dry laundry. There is no dryer in my room either. How do you think I'm drying laundry then? Well, my dryer is on the ceiling of the bathroom. When I want to dry my laundry, all I have to do is hanging it in the bathroom and turn on the fan switch for the dryer mode. Then the built-in heater in the ceiling goes on and the fan starts to rotate in the opposite direction to come out the warm air. The dryer is not so powerful that it takes almost five hours for all my laundry to get dry. I prefer the gas or electric dryer, but it has two advantages; no special room for the machine is required and the bathroom can be dried with the laundry which prevents the bathroom from going moldy. As far as I know, I have never seen this kind of machine in the west coast area of North America including Vancouver and Seattle. It might be the special product in a wet and dense country.