Second week - About Obihiro and the Japanese people

On the second weekend, I went to visit Tomomi in Obihiro. It's about 150-200km south of Kitami, but while one might think the trip takes only 2 hours, it really takes four. I had to take two local buses to get there and all through the trip, they go really slow. It's not like the roads are in a good condition, either, but it still takes a long, long time. Luckily, there's usually not too many passengers on the buses, so I can relax and sleep on the back seat. I consider it my private bus and my private back seat as well, since there's really not any other frequent users that I've noticed so far.

While sleeping in the bus, I sometimes wake up to look around the scenery. On the second trip, I was scared fgoor some time that I had take n a wrong bus since the scenery was exactly the same as before. Really, the quiet suburban areas between Kitami and Obihiro are all exactly the same, broken only by some vast fields and farms scattered between them. I only recovered from my shock after the bus arrived to a familiar bus station, followed by miles and miles of fields. They say that the area around Kitami is famous for producing two things - onion and mint. So I guess that in summer, it's either of those two that will be growing on those fields.

As for the weekend itself, it was not all that exciting to tell about. Tomomi had to go to work for every day except Sunday so I simply waited for her to get back by working on a website project and taking a few long walks around the city. On the first trip, I strolled around the suburban area which is where Tomomi lived too. After crossing the supermarkets, there were just houses with bonsai gardens, schools, vending machines and an occasional restaurant. I walked for about 10km around this area and really got my fill of the Japanese housing. The only thing that kept me going was that I had to get back to the apartment as well. I lost my way a few times, but the huge dome of a pachinko parlor guided me back to the main road and from there, back to our apartment.

The reason I went walking was that I saw really beautiful mountains out of the apartment window in the morning. I wanted to get closer to them, but having no map of the area, I didn't know how far they even were. After walking for about five kilometers and seeing how the mountains were not getting any closer, I gave up and turned back. Later, I found out that they were actually 35km away from the city, being a part of a much larger mountain range far away from anything.

On one evening, Tomomi mailed me that she would get back home from work in half an hour. Then, I started to make pancakes to surprise her. I like making them since I'm not a very good cook and that's one of the few recipes I can easily memorize - just some flour, milk and an egg with a pinch of sugar and some oil or butter for cooking. While it all sounds really easy, it is not in Japan, at least not for me. Everything went well until I reached for the sugar. Tomomi had bought salt before and I had put it next to the sugar pack. Since I cannot read Japanese text or at least understand it, I just took the first package without looking at it at all. After all, sugar and salt do look the same, but one might argue that their taste differs somewhat. Did I taste the white grain? No. I just poured it in the dough and started making the pancakes afterwards. I only noticed after eating some of the first pancakes that they were very, very salty. After that, I realized my mistake but continued making the pancakes anyway, since I think throwing away any food is a bad thing. Thinking about the issue now, I should've just poured the dough away, because neither of us could eat all that many of the pancakes. Tomomi said the pancakes were not too salty, but I think it was just out of the standard politeness to which Japanese people are accustomed to.

The same kind of politeness and not being able to understand the language is also something really noticeable in my daily life. Everyone is really friendly and although I say "wakarimasen" (I don't understand), they somehow do what I wanted to, anyway. But at the same time, everyone keeps staring at me constantly, especially in Obihiro. I think there are probably foreign, Caucasian students as well in that city, but only few and far apart. In Kitami, there are only six. We're definitely outgunned, but in the staring content, we usually win, because when staring back, they usually turn their eyes away. Some do not, though. It was another Finnish exchange student, Petri, who said that we are like black people in that sense. In Finland, many people stare at blacks who are equally few and far apart in our home country, so in Japan, I imagine we feel the same way.

Whereas old people stare, teenagers and young adults sometimes say "Hello!" in English. In a country where almost no one can speak English properly, this is probably an act of great courage. Sometimes, in the bus, people peek at me through the seats. The best I can do is to peek back, but that's about the limit of my communication skills in English. I'm lucky that at least my girlfriend speaks decent English, but on the other hand, we couldn't have a relationship otherwise at all.

Back in the dorm, there was no internet access due to some renovation work in the apartment through which we go the Internet access from. There is internet access on the campus in the International Lounge, but that is only open until 8 p.m. or 9 p.m., so we actually had to figure something else to do than just internet for all the time. Studying is one thing, of course, but I'll see if I can pull myself together for such an endeavor. After all, I didn't come here to study. I think most of the previous exchange students from TUT had noticed it as well - to really study, one might have to think of another college.