After the rather anticlimactic start here in Sapporo it seems to be getting better. I made a friend at the dormitory the very next day. His name is Yasuharu and he wants to learn english so he asked me to teach him some and since I had nothing to do that day anyway I taught him some english and then we went in to Odori (one of the stations in central

Sapporo city and also the name of the park there, known for the Sapporo Snow Festival).

Another thing that picked me up was when I went to try and find the language school so that I can find it directly when I go to there for the guidance and placement test. I actually only intended to find it and then go back home, but they noticed me from inside and came and said hello and wondered if I had any questions or something. They were very kind and welcoming. I got in a good mood and went for a stroll in the Maruyama park after having some tuna-mayonnaise onigiri (japanese rice with filling and wrapped in dried seaweed). I got a bit nostalgic when I walked past the firs I climbed to get down the frisbee last year. We used to play with a frisbee a lot and we always seemed to get it up in a fir... I wonder if they have taken down the lower branches since then. It seemed a bit high to the lowest branches.

The guidance and placement test was also nice. Most students were Chinese and Korean but there was an Australian guy named Darcy who had already studied for a while and translated for our the table with non-asians. There was also a Danish woman named Christina there but we didn´t have time to speak much. The Australian invited us all to a party the next day however. the guidance consisted of some explanation of the school rules and courses. As students we are allowed to take a part-time job, but there are restrictions. For example we can only work for 4 hours a day. A little more surprising are the rules concerning the type of part-time job we are allowed to take. It can´t be in the entertainment business and it can´t be places that "...(a) requires staff, such as hostesses, to entertain customers, (b) are dark (with an illumination less than 10 lux), and (c) are narrow (less than 5 square meters per customer seat) or otherwise difficult to see.". I´ll be sure to bring a light meter and a measure band with me if I go looking for jobs... Anyway, the placement test (to see which level class I belong in) went well, if not too well. I hope they don´t think I am better at kanji than I am. I´m a bit worried I´ll end up in a high level class with a lot of writing assignments and Chinese and Korean students who have no problem reading and writing. The Chinese students already writes kanji perfectly so I might end up looking like the bad student in the class. 

The party was really fun! We were at a small café near the tv tower in central Sapporo. There were beer and food and a bunch of Japanese people who wanted to practice their English. The best part of the evening was a 71 year old man who was very talkative and was surprisingly good at speaking english. His pronounciation was not always the best but he used very advanced words. I thought maybe he had been in USA or Australia or something when he was young but he had apparently went to an English-school some years not so long ago. The worst part of the evening was when I left. For one thing it was dull to have to leave at 22:00 and even worse; I forgot to pay. Well I´ll pay another time. I had wanted to give my card to some people too but I guess I´ll see them there another time. The next day I ran into Christina at the International Information Plaza. Then I showed her where she could buy a Wordtank. It was a beautiful day with 11º C when I watched the giant thermometer on one of the buildings at Odori, so it didn´t matter much that I didn´t find the place directly. 

The next day I used my last Seishun 18 Kippu (all day train ticket) to go to the neighbouring town Otaru. It is an old port city and you can there are strong influences from other countries in the buildings and streets as well as the contents of the shops. One funny shop at the famous channel near the harbour is filled with american stuff both old and new and with American country music playing in the background. There are a lot of huge crabs on display in the fish shops and one shop had an aquarium with crabs and a big squid. Also, there were a lot of glass art on display. There was even a place where they made glass with an opening towards the street so that you could see everything. But everything was of course very expensive. At one place (with the second largest steam clock in the world outside...) there was also a temporary Totoro shop. It was pretty big and there was all imaginable Ghibli stuff. At least as expensive as the glass stuff. But it was interesting to see. It was a bit dull that I didn´t have anyone to walk around with and that I didn´t want to spend my money on the expensive "famous" food or a glass of the Otaru beer. It would have been more of an experience somehow. And the train was so fast and there was so little to do that I had most of the day left when I got back. 

I was surprised that morning that there was no breakfast and for some reason no morning showering was allowed. When I got back I learned there is no food served at all on Sundays. Oh well. So I used the rest of that day walking around this neighbourhood exploring the streets. There is a main street with a lot of great shops actually: a bunch of 100 yen shops (including a great 1-100 yen shop with vegetables and fruits and stuff too), a manga and internet café (expensive but close: 500 yen/hour), a couple of bars with 1000 yen/90 minutes nomihodai (drink all you want), a 100 yen/hour karaokeplace (if you are a student and go there before 19:00, but the other hours are pretty cheap too) and other good and/or amusing places.

Today I went in to Sapporo station again and this time it was 15º C when I checked the thermometer at Odori! What a great day! I´ll soon have to change back to the summer jacket I wore before I went to Sapporo. At the post office a kid standing next to me with his mother and brother suddenly noticed that I wasn´t Japanese and "sectretly" told his mother. She replied that he should try and talk to me in English because it is good practice. Unfortunately my number came up and I went to the register and never had the pleasure of speaking with the kid. When I got home I was surprised to see two lines hanging outside my window and wondered what the people upstairs were up to. When a guy came climbing down I could do nothing but smile at him but then he started washing my windows and I realized that I shouldn´t stare at him doing his job. In Sweden we usually open and wash the windows from the inside, but then the windows are constructed to make that easy.