POTW: Framed

Becca has got me onto a Facebook initiative she's started. It's a group she made with photographer friends to encourage them to post their photos somewhere other can see them. There are no rules or categories: just the idea that you should post a photo a week: one that you think is the best you've done. I have further limited myself to chose a photo I actually took that week. As I've been neglecting the blog of late, I thought it might be the kind of thing I should post up here.


This week, it was a two-way tie between the photos below, each of which were taken in Sapporo this past weekend as I was hanging out with Perry, Lindsay, Max, Mark, and various other folk like Nick Small. 


Then, out of nowhere, I realized that neither of them compared to the sexy focus of the following picture of Perry seated in the window of Kyosuke's Hookah Bar, located on the second floor of a restaurant, right where Tanuki Koji 6 turns into Tanuki Koji 7 in downtown Sapporo.

POTW: Spiderwebs

Becca has got me onto a Facebook initiative she's started. It's a group she made with photographer friends to encourage them to post their photos somewhere other can see them. There are no rules or categories: just the idea that you should post a photo a week: one that you think is the best you've done. I have further limited myself to chose a photo I actually took that week. As I've been neglecting the blog of late, I thought it might be the kind of thing I should post up here.

Here's my first week, taken just after I got home from the Furubira International Exchange Association's Sobetsukai (farewell party) held in my honour. I was contending with a misty sort of rain and annoying little biting insects, but I managed to shoot the following hand-held. The web was on one of the metal railings that encircle the park outside my front door. These railings seem to be a popular hang-out joint for spiders.

Leftovers: Back to Rishiri

It's been a dog's age...again, but I haven't exactly been idle. Two weekends back, Mark Mowbray, Mark Rostrup, Lindsay, and I returned to Rishiri, determined to finally summit the mountain we first attempted to climb in our first September here. It was tough going, but we made it, and there's more of a story to it, but for the sake of expedience, I give you the first cut of our Rishiri Adventure, accompanied by the wonderful Johnny Flynn from his album A Larum:

Sam's Boyfriend Asahidake

Alright. I retconned this into my post about Asahidake after the fact, but the video is so fine and Sam did such a good job that I need to give this thing a post of its own. This is shot on the highest mountain in Hokkaido, and one of the finest mountains I've boarded on in my time here. This is one of the reasons I stayed in Japan for two years and why I'm fortunate that I get to leave this place in the summer. Were I to have to terminate my contract in the deep, fluffy, white of February, I'm not sure I'd have the strength. To be able to leave this place, I've had to ready myself for the possibility that snowboarding will never be this fantastic in any other part of the world.

Oh, and Sam's the one in the blue pants, green pack, and white jacket.

Sunset on the Shakotan

Back at the end of May, Mark and I took an impromptu drive around the Shakotan Peninsula (which extends West and North from Furubira and curves around to Mark's town of Iwanai). We had some unfinished business with the peninsula: when we were doing our Four Points Road Trip of Awesome around the coast of Hokkaido last September, we had to cut inland at Furubira and skip the Shakotan because it was getting late.

At the time, Mark had promised me that we'd drive the Shakotan before we left, and he followed through on that promise back on Friday May 27th. We got around just in time for sunset on his side of the world, and we couldn't have asked for better conditions. Here are some photos of the whole thing:

Soran! Soran!

Last week at this time, half the ALT population of Hokkaido was descending on Sapporo to take in the Yosakoi/Soran Matsuri(festival). The whole thing started out with a dance: Yosakoi...or was it Soran? Regardless, it was a dance developed down south in Japan meant to draw from the motions of fishermen hauling in nets and the chants that they used to keep time. But that's a bit like saying that Glee was developed from Christmas carollers. Yosakoi/Soran has grown so far beyond its beginnings that it is now little more than a vague musical/gesticular pattern within which the Japanese LOSE THEIR SHIT.

This is where I live on video (No Reservations: Hokkaido)

Randomly, though he'd already been to Japan for an episode of his fantastic Travel/Food documentary series, Anthony Bourdain came back this past February to do an episode focusing solely on Hokkaido. Well, it's mostly Sapporo as he didn't rove further than about a 20km radius from the city. However, he heads to places I've told you about before, like Niseko and Noboribetsu, and when he talks about "Uni" and "Tarako," those are two things that my town is famous for catching. The video is a little wintery compared to the weather here today, but I figure it's still a great way to get a video glimpse into the part of Japan where I live. What's more, this is the full episode, so you don't need to go hunting for other parts.

Hope you like it. As it is making miss this place even when I am still here, I can attest to its accuracy.

a second year in The Life

Crap.

I’ve been so hit and miss on the old bloggerino (mostly miss) that I neglected to commemorate two years of blogdom last week. Thus, inspired by my more timely post last year, here’s a belated, バラバラ sort of update that should cover a number of things in a random sort of manner.