a week in Hokkaido

Here's a quick blow-by-blow account of my time spent in Hokkaido last week -29th July -5th August roughly.
Well, I thought I'd gone through the initial culture shock experience. But I realised as I boarded the ferry in Sendai (actually in Tagajo, not far from where I live) bound for Tomakomai, Hokkaido, that I was wrong. My mistake came when I first saw the ferry. Oh it's big! It looks nice! It has restaurants on board! It must be just like one of the many ferries I have taken to France, or the ferry I took to Vancouver Island (which was another adventure of its own merit). Uh-oh, I've found when you assume something will be similar to back home, that's when you'll come unstuck. If you assume everything is always different however, you'll be pleasantly suprised.
What struck me then? The signs for a 'Grand bath': they have an onsen (well sort of)- communal bathing on board, & many towels drying after use; my bed for the night was of the ilk that John Leslie slept in on that Blue Peter special in Tokyo. I thought I'd paid double price for a cabin (room), but I obviously hadn't looked at the picture closely enough in the travel agent: I had a bed and pull down blind and no storage space. There was a karaoke room on board, and a shop, outside of which kids could try on the captain's uniform for free whilst their parents snap happily away. All of the menu was in Japanese (that was ok), but I was surprised that there wasn't much free seating. Maybe most people were hiding in their quadruple priced bedrooms. The layout harked back to the titanic, and there was a grand piano, where a pianist tinkled in the evening. I managed to eat dinner and have a bath before the boat set sail (at 20:00), then slept & had another bath in the morning (why not?), with a view overlooking the water. I could see then why they sensibly hadn't decided to put an outside bath on the boat! There was a 'dog house' (kennel) near my cabin and I brushed passed some tiny dogs and their owners as I set out on deck just as we were arriving in after the 15 hour crossing.

And the place I got to was beautiful. Ah, dry heat and summer sun! (For a few minutes I couldn't get over the fact that they only allowed 2 mins between the boat arriving and bus leaving for Sapporo station though. I knew 2 mins wouldn't be enough to get off the boat some time after 10:45am and the bus leaving at 11:47. It was whilst I was complaining about this at the bus stop that I then realised I had an hour and 2 mins, ah dear, I must have been tired. I knew these Japanese wouldn't muck up with timing like that, I just couldn't figure it out!)
I successfully arrived in Sapporo, met a man (Dale) at the OMF centre, was taken to my homestay, where for 6 days I was cooked for and taken care of (something you appreciate a lot more when you're used to cooking for yourself!); had expert tution to help me iron out all the mistakes I've picked up in my Japanese this past year; nice contact with other people and Christians (not that Christians aren't people!) up there; did a spot of sightseeing; ate the local speciality (ramen); witnessed the fact that they have milk delivered to their door every day in Hokkaido (small milk bottles mind, you wouldn't expect anything else here); and basically a lovely week all in all.
I returned back to these parts via the Nebuta festival in Aomori. That detour cost a small fortune, but I'm glad to have experienced it. I came back and saw another festival briefly and am now back at 'work' although there's not much to really do. But saying that I'll probably realise there were a million and one things I could have done, when I'm back in the swing of term time in a few weeks.
Adios for now.