Well, our need to hear English overpowered our need for sleep last night and we ended up staying awake until 4:15 AM, watching, of all tragic TV shows, Beverly Hills 90210 (the later years)! I am almost too embarrassed to admit it, but for those of you who know of our AMC addiction, it should come as no great shock.
So, we were just a little sleepy today. We promised ourselves, though, that we would get out at least once a day so we don’t fall into the habit of hiding in our apartment. At about 5 PM, we ventured out on our bikes and it turned out to be very eventful. We decided to ride in a direction we have never gone before and the first thing we came across, about 20 blocks away, was an amazing nursery (we have developed an obsession for plants) and garden. It is beautiful! There is a grape arbor, a large rose garden, a small pond with bonsai trees, a grove of Aspens perfectly surrounded by hydrangea, and then the nursery. It feels like a mini-forest in the middle of the city. I am going back tomorrow with my new friend, Kate, to buy a sunflower and a fern (they are very cheap, too!). The plants around here go for about $15 for a very small size. Anyway, after the garden, we rode on to the river which bisects Sapporo perfectly. We came to a bridge that we had never seen before and guess what???!! It is the bridge that holds “Portland Square.” There are plaques everywhere, which talk about the friendship between the sister cities and there is even one with Vera Katz’s signature with the word “friendship” written on it. I know, not too exciting from that end, but when we saw the familiar name, it was very exciting for us. It is a beautiful blue, arched bridge with a walkway overhead and the view of the city from it is gorgeous.
After that, we rode around and finally spotted out first Sapporo Love Hotel. It was a tad classier than the Tokyo versions but it made us laugh all the same. A few blocks from that, we found a Mister Donuts, and promptly parked our bikes and grabbed a few treats =) We then came across a neighborhood festival, with red lanterns, prerecorded singing and a 20 foot raised platform in the middle with a drummer playing to the music. There were older people seated all around, eating ramen and drinking beer bought at the vendors set up around the little park. We stood in the street and watched for a few minutes. We are coming up on the Obon festival (festival of the Dead), in which people sooth the spirits of their departed loved ones by playing music, dancing a traditional dance in Kimono and offer food, flowers, and candles at grave sites. We think the one we saw was a pre-Obon gathering. We plan on participating when the actual festival time comes around -- we can dance if we want to but we are thinking we’ll just watch this time. So that was our day. Ryan has a meeting tomorrow with the Hokkaido Int’l School, where he has a position teaching Journalism and Creative Writing. That will begin at the end of August.