Earthquakes and an unexpected departure from the Land of the Rising Sun

It wasn’t until three days after the quake that there was a noticeable change in the atmosphere in Niseko.

Obviously everyone was concerned for the affected areas of Japan, and horrified at the destruction caused by the tsunami that hit the coast and devastated so many homes in Northern Honshu.  But even though we had all felt the quake, albeit very slightly by comparison, as we watched the news it was very much as if it were all happening in another country.   Hokkaido is quite a bit further north than Sendai, the city nearest the epicentre, well over five hundred kilometres, and we were also in an elevated position on the western side of the island, whereas the tsunami struck the eastern coast.  There was talk of there being another large quake quite soon, but Japan is a country generally prepared for seismic activity (8.0 quakes followed by tsunamis excepted) so the danger seemed remote.  In short, most of us were resigned to stay on in our little oasis of calm to enjoy the remainder of the ski season. It wasn’t until the news about the reactor trouble in Fukoshima came out that people started getting nervous.

Some of the season staff started booking flights earlier than others, deciding to get out of the country ASAP.  Then there were those that were sure that they had it all under control.  We’d heard that they’d flooded the reactor with seawater to cool it, a drastic measure which means that it can’t be used again, but we thought that that would be an end to it.  But as the days went on and they struggled to cool down the increasingly volatile situation it seemed that they weren’t getting anywhere fast.

More people started investigating means of leaving the country, some because of the threat of radiation, some because their original plans of travelling around Japan after the season didn’t sound like they’d be much fun; it’s hard to have fun with the locals when they are recovering from a national disaster.  After a long discussion in the house where we discussed the pros and cons of leaving, the cons for basically being: missing out on snow and my last week of work; the cost of booking new flights at short notice; missing out on visiting Okinawa, the sub tropical islands to the extreme south-west of the country where I was planning on spending the month of April.  Disruption to travel plans and slight monetary loss are trivial complaints when ten thousand people are missing or dead and thousands more are homeless though, so I decided to get out.  There was also the fact that I was getting a lot of emails from concerned friends and family, and I was afraid my mother would have a nervous breakdown if I stayed any longer than I had to.  So I booked flights direct from Sapporo to Hong Kong (which meant that I could skip a layover in Tokyo), along with three of my workmates who’d also decided to bail.

The threat of radiation where we were was remote, and even the “above normal” levels of radiation they were detecting in Tokyo were negligible.  We were eight hundred kilometres or so north of the stricken plant, and a reliable Siberian wind blows south over Hokkaido (bringing powder snow along with it), which should keep any airborne radioactive material away from us.  On the other hand, it also had to be taken into consideration that as consistent as the winds are, globally the weather has been doing some pretty crazy things, and what was once dependable might not remain so for long.  It also occurred to me that our location, within ten kilometres away from a huge sleeping volcano mightn’t necessarily be the best one, considering more seismic activity was predicted for the near future.   Even if Yotei or another volcano on Hokkaido just decided to throw a lot of ash around the place it would still be enough to ground flights and strand us for an indefinite amount of time - Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland (no, I didn't know how to spell that), which had delayed my flights into Tokyo by two days, having made me wary.

Some people scoffed at us for leaving, and they were probably right, there is nothing to worry about.   But why take the risk, particularly when no one seems entirely sure what’s going on.

Anyway, after saying goodbye to all the gang in Niseko, and then the ones in Sapporo I flew out on Sunday the 20^th of March.  It wasn’t the ending to my working holiday I’d pictured, but you’ve got to take what you get I suppose.

All I can say for now is good luck to the ones that have stayed put in Niseko, and to all of the other friends that I have made over the course of my ten and a half months in Japan.  

In particular, my thoughts are with the family from Sendai that picked me up while I was hitching to Matsushima, and invited me to join their family barbecue, took me fishing and then dropped me back off at the motorway after a terrific day.  The email address I have for them never worked and I couldn't get through to them on the phone number either.  I hope they made it out all right.  It's a long shot, but if anyone knows anything about them I'd be very grateful to hear from them.

Waste Collection and Employment

A hectic few weeks have passed since my big move to Sapporo, and I haven’t really had the opportunity to keep everyone updated quite as much as I planned.  The main things that have kept me busy have been: work (kind of); becoming a CouchSurfing host; study (ish); and trying to get my head around the waste collection in Japan.

I’ll begin with the last one first, as that may take a bit of explaining to people not familiar with the “efficiency” of the separation of household rubbish.

Basically, while most of us in Europe are content to divide our rubbish up into ‘recyclable’, ‘non-recyclable’ and possibly ‘compost’ for organic waste, the Japanese go a step further.  Or, rather, several steps further, by separation waste into nine different categories.  These are: Burnable Waste; Non-Burnable Waste; Plastic Containers and Packaging; Bottles, Cans and PET Bottles; Branches Leaves, Grass and Weed Cuttings; Miscellaneous Paper; Pressurised Spray Cans and Gas Cartridges; Dry Batteries; and Bulky Refuse.

This division not only makes life awkward in terms of fitting several bins into an already limited kitchen space, but also results in a lot of time staring at an object that you are planning to discard and trying to figure out what bin it should go into.   Inevitably the trusty “Garbage and Waste Sorting Guide” needs to be consulted before making the decision, which is quite often an option that you hadn’t even considered.

An example?  Alright then, picture this - You’re writing and your biro runs out (you manage to catch it, but discover that it’s also out of ink).  You examine at the choices in front of you and reckon that it’s probably between ‘Non-Burnables’ or possibly ‘Plastic Containers and Packaging’ but probably the first one, right?  WRONG!  Ballpoint pens are, apparently, quite combustible and thus appear on the ‘burnable waste’ list, along with lunchboxes, rulers, SD memory cards, rubber and vinyl goods, clothing, blankets, leather and kitchen waste (basically compost).  Charcoal also comes under this heading, but, although I fail to see why you’d send your barbeque fuel off to an incinerator, at least that kind of makes sense.

Even when you’re fairly certain of where an item is supposed to go, it turns out to be less simple than anticipated.  A PET bottle (you’re average soft drink bottle), which appears in a category of its own, must first be de-lidded and de-labelled before being disposed of, and these are then placed in the ‘plastic containers and packaging’ bin.

Waste is collected every day of the working week, ‘Burnables’ on Monday and Thursday, ‘Plastics’ on Tuesday, ‘Bottles, etc’ on Wednesday and Friday alternates between the remaining waste types, with the exception of ‘Bulky waste’ which you have to ring a special team for and pay for disposal.

I have narrowed my bins down to three, as I had to buy them myself and I was sick of walking around loose supermarket bags of rubbish on the floor.  I chose ‘Plastics’, ‘Bottles etc’ and ‘Misc. Paper’, as these are the ones that I use most.  For my burnables, I’ve taken to keeping a small plastic bag on the sink for them, which I then dispose of in the bins at the 7/11 shop around the corner.

In other news, I’m juggling a few part time jobs at the moment.  Most frequently, I've working in my landlady’s bar - basically paid to get people to come into the place, chat with them and maybe get bought a few drinks in the process.  The wages are pretty rubbish, but I was told last night that next month they’ll be going up by a few hundred yen, which is good news, at least, if that was what she was saying to me.  Didn’t really like the work at the start, but now it’s alright, and it is a good way to pick up Japanese.  I do prefer the nights that nobody buys me any alcohol, though.  I work there most nights from nine until midnight, if it’s quiet, or later if there are a few knocking around.  I can take nights off whenever I like, they usually just ask the night before if I can work the following night.

Job number two is in a Conversation Café, where I work for three hours at a time making conversation with Japanese people who are interested in practicing their English.  The pay is alright, and the people are interesting.  It works on a rotational basis, people pay for an hour and join the table, and if they are newbies that invariably leads to introductions, which we’ve quite possibly covered already, which is a rut that I feel that I have to figure a way out of, so that we aren’t just repeating ourselves, which isn’t too stimulating for the rest of the group.  There are notebooks that we can jot things like vocab down in, or draw pictures to help customers understand if there’s a breakdown in communication.  I have come across some pretty complicated words in there from past conversations, which have made me feel like I’m not really covering the same ground as the other ‘conversationists’ for want of a better title.  But I enjoy the work, and have now been given an extra day per week (making it two days), which is good.  My wages will increase there in month two as well.

Finally I have also taken on a private language lesson which I have once a week for one hour.  It’s just a conversation lesson, although now she wants to go over some grammar points as well, so that’s going to be fun.  The pay could be better, especially as I meet her in a café and so have to shell out for my own coffee (or orange juice), but it’s good experience, and she seemed happy enough with the first lesson, so we’ll try to keep that going.

My free internet in the park seems to have vanished, I think they got wise to my antics (me and three of my CouchSurfers lined up on benches and foldy chairs probably hastened the outcome, but it was good while it lasted).  I’m hoping that it’s just a temporary lapse though.  It means that I have to wander further down the road to the traffic lights, and use the internet from some company or other.  I think I can only do it outside of working hours, though, as one of the guys got chased away from there the other day.

I think that’s probably enough talk for now.   More to come.