Odds and Ends: 2020 Edition

Happy new year! It’s been quite a while since our last post, but for obvious reasons, we’ve been spending more time at home recently and I didn’t want the blog to end, unceremoneously. There’s a lot to talk about, and I do hope to expand on a number of subjects. For now, I want to hit the high-level topics – we’ll get there in time.

A Brief Note on COVID-19

Just to get it out of the way, even though I’m sure you’re a bit tired of all of the COVID-19 news, we’re doing fine. I didn’t want to devote my first blog post in a while to the pandemic, although I’d like to talk about it at a later time, to give an idea of how things are/have been over here. But not now.

Aomori and Sendai

For my birthday in October, we headed down to Aomori and Sendai with Seri’s mom and Uncle Toshi. This was the first time we’d taken our car on the ferry (although we took the ferry up to Hakodate when we moved here, we dropped off the rental car in Aomori before boarding). We boarded, wearily, at around 6am, along with a number of delivery trucks from Sapporo and beyond. But before we boarded, we had to wait for a seemingly endless caravan of trucks who’d already made their trip from Honshu. The ferry takes about 4 hours from Hakodate to Aomori, so it was hard feeling too sorry for ourselves about waking up early – they’d been awake since at least 2am!

We visited a number of places we’d gone to when we first arrived in Japan, but it also gave us a chance to visit Seri’s Aunt and cousin, who live in Sendai. Seri also connected with an Instagram friend who lives there and owns a corgi named Ora, so we took a walk with them and reminisced about Einstein. Ora is the last of 4 corgis in their family, so they knew the feeling.

Visitors!

We had two sets of visitors from the states in late 2019, and two more visits in 2020. In the fall, our friends Chris and Laura made their way here, and we enjoyed their company as we traveled around Sapporo, Niseko, and back down to Hakodate. This was a really special trip, worthy of its own post. I look forward to talking about it in depth!

Shortly after Chris and Laura left, Seri’s brother, Chudo, and his wife, Karen, visited for a couple of weeks. This was the first time they’d had a chance to check out the property we’d purchased on their behalf, and it was great seeing various sketches and ideas for how to transform the property into something livable in the coming years.

In 2020, our friends Sasha, Rick, and their daughter Ellie arrived, and we headed down to the Tokyo area to greet them for a few days. We traveled a bit west to visit Mount Fuji for a second time – their first – and had a great time exploring the Tokyo area as well.

Finally, Seri’s sister, Han-Yu, came out for a few weeks. She was initially going to come out later in the year, but with the possibility of travel restrictions, she chose to move her flight up to March. In hindsight, it was absolutely the correct move, since Japan has temporarily banned travel from the United States in an effort to curb the spread of the virus.

Snow Days

This winter was unusually warm in Hokkaido. Last year, we were shoveling snow nearly every day, but this year I think we only shoveled once or twice. It was pretty bizarre, but it also meant that we weren’t able to go snowboarding as much as we wanted to. Even still, we managed to get out to Niseko (about a 3-hour drive from home) twice – and met/hung out with a couple from Vancouver on our second visit – and Nanae (about 45 minutes from home) twice. Nanae was actually better than Niseko, in my opinion, due to fewer people and much less wind. Generally, Niseko is the place to go for snow up here, but it seems like foreigners have really overwhelmed it and it’s gotten particularly crowded. Add the mild winter and it was kind of… blah.

A Death in the Family

On a sadder note, we experienced a death in Seri’s family: Her cousin’s wife passed away from cancer in February, and it meant attending my first Japanese funeral. We’ve been trying to make ourselves available for her cousin, going out to dinner and trying to take his mind off of things. It’s obviously a sensitive subject, but I’d still love to talk about it if only to share some differences between how our cultures deal with death.

All For Now

Like I said, even though it’s been 8 months since our last blog post, I wanted to hit the high-level points first before digging into individual events. If nothing else, it’s easier for me to recall those events this way, and it keeps me honest about things I’d like to talk about. I’ll do my best to start things back up again!