Picture Post: Last Days in Sapporo, Japan

My last couple weeks I tried to carry my camera around with me as much as I could and take pictures of the last days I had in the city. Here are the things I did before I left. And ate. Mainly what I ate.

I ate buta-don (pork over rice) at this tiny little shop across from the Central Ward office. This one is actually my friend's, mine was covered in cheese. I recommend no cheese.

I walked around at nice a bit to enjoy all the lights. My neighborhood, I miss you Susukino! Though I don't miss dodging all the vomit piles at 6am.

Had a final trip to the beer garden by Sapporo station on a random Wednesday with a friend.

On the way to get food we ended up walking past this big display in Odori park, probably for Obon.

And we ended up at Rad Brothers, a bar near my place that has one of the more entertaining bathrooms. Surprise long nights out are always the best ones.

That following Friday I went to Mugi Shu Tei with some friends. Mugi Shu means "beer" in Japanese, kinda like how "Nihon Shu" means sake to us.

The walls are completely covered in all of these old beer cans.

I started off my last week in Japan with my favorite Sapporo food, soup curry. This one has coconut milk curry. And pork. And all the veggies. You can find it at Soup Curry Samurai.

For my last dinner with my close friends I ended up getting yakiniku.

Then I made a final trip to Nakajima Park on my last day in Japan.

Where I met a friend for a final Sapporo Classic.

And that night I had more soup curry at a tiny restaurant with my best friend who was letting me crash on her couch.

And at the airport the next day I had my final meal in Japan, kitsune udon with some tempura veggies.

The Next Step: Life After Japan

As I've mentioned before, I have decided to leave Japan and move towards the next phase of my life. I get asked a lot what exactly I plan on doing after leaving here, and since it is a handful of days away (my apartment is looking really bare...) I thought I would take a few minutes to give a short update as to what the next steps in my life are going to be and some different things I am working on.

Living in Orlando, Florida (with my parents!)

Yes, you read that right. I, a 26 year old girl who moved out of her parents house at 18, am moving back in with the folks. It's a temporary set-up, mainly so that I can adjust to life in America and save money so that I can buy grown up things like a car and an apartment. They've also remodeled the house since I have been gone and I am looking forward to taking advantage of the HUGE kitchen and huge bathroom-that-is-bigger-than-my-apartment.

Finding A Job

This one is a no brainer. I want to get a job and save some money. What type of job? I'm not too sure yet. I haven't really looked into any serious careers, as I am not sure I'm quite ready for that yet, but I have been applying to various theme park, photography, writing, event planning type gigs that may provide me with some cash. I'm not picky at this point, I just want it to suit my interests. Hopefully it won't involve a cubicle.

Planning a Trip to Europe

I really want to visit Europe in the next year, and right now I am aiming for a Spring 2016 trip. What exactly that trip will consist of I am not sure of quite yet. It all depends on how the whole securing a job thing goes, and how much time off I can get!

Giving the Blog Loads of Attention

Now that I am a NEET I have loads of time on my hands. And while a lot of it is spent trying to get myself out of this apartment and onto a plane bound for Orlando, a lot of it is also spent doing absolutely nothing. This is what happens when you give yourself a month lag between stopping work and leaving. So I've joined a number of Facebook groups geared towards helping bloggers network and I am slowly trying to get myself out there. I also want to get up to 3 posts a week if possible!

Doing Collaborative Work with Other Bloggers

Part of getting my blog out there is doing work with other bloggers. I have begun writing some guest posts for various travel blogs which I will let y'all know about once they are live, as well as started my own collaborative post venture, which I hope to launch in the next two weeks! If you'd like to get in contact with me about collaborative work, I've set up an email just for this blog! Please send communicationisdifficult@gmail.com a message if you're interested in working with me!

YouTube Videos!

I have wanted to do YouTube videos forever, I have had a few (failed) ideas and I think my move back to America will give me the perfect chance to really focus on this area. I love YouTube and watch videos on there constantly. Way more than any other video media. I am hoping to start a vlog type series on becoming an ex-expat and moving back in with the parents at 26. Have I mentioned that my parents also have a beautiful home that I can film in? Way better than my cramped Japanese apartment.

Photography and Writing

While I have been doing quite a bit of photography lately, I would like to do more of it. I would love to step into portrait or wedding photography (I've applied to some relevant work!) to go alongside my travel photography. I also wanna give my Instagram way more love! Hopefully when I get the new iPhone next month it'll help, because my iPhone 4 camera doesn't cut it anymore! Especially next to my DSLR photos! I also want to get back into my creative writing, which is my true dream. If I could be anything, it would be an author, so I am going to try and get back into that (hello, NaNoWriMo).

Cooking!!!!!

This is probably the one I am most excited about. I love cooking so much but my Japanese kitchen really limits what  I can do. Not to mention I can't really afford many ingredients in Japan. And cooking for one kinda stinks. So, living with my parents will give me the perfect setting to really develop my cooking skills. I'll probably post about it on here!


As you can see I have a lot planned once I get back in America, hopefully it will keep me busy! Also, all the distractions will be nice because I am sure I will miss my Japan friends so much. A lot of it is focused on this blog, so I hope you'll enjoy everything that I have planned!

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5 Ways Living in Japan Has Changed Me

This Saturday marked my four year Japanniversary. And today marks the official beginning of my "Last Week In Japan". I've been doing a lot of reflecting on my time here, and I have come to realize just how much I have changed in the four years I have lived in this country.

I'm not the same person I was when I came here. For starters very few people are the same person they were at 22. Your mid-20s change you a lot and going from the sheltered life of a full-time student to an adult with a real job and real bills and a real apartment to manage really shifts the focus in your life. But, deep down, I still feel that I am the same Kaley I have always been, just cleaned up around the edges and more sure of myself.

College was a rough time for me in general, because of my anxiety I didn't really go out and meet people, I stayed inside my apartment watching anime and sleeping too much. I gained a lot of weight and was overall just a really unhappy person. Also didn't help that I was in a pretty emotionally draining relationship. Japan was my chance to start over and remove all off the bad things in my life. So often people have told me that I am so brave for coming to Japan, but I really view it as running away from a life I felt that I had failed at.

I wanted to try really hard in Japan to become that person I was before college, before the anxiety and the depression and losing myself in another person. And I think I did just that.

1. I am more forgiving.

While this is still a part of my life that I feel like I need to work on, overall I think I am a more understanding and forgiving person. When living in a foreign country you're constantly surrounded by people who don't think like you, don't act like you, don't believe in what you do, and don't speak like you do. Because of this you really have to learn to work with people, and not against them. Any sort of conversation I have with a Japanese person is a lot of compromise between the two of us trying to mix our languages and cultures together in order to understand one another. And it's beautiful.

2. Equal Rights matter more to me.

I've always been pro-equal rights. I mean, what good person isn't? But living in Japan has made me understand just how frustrating it can be to be judged for things I have no control over. While I did choose to come to a country that is almost entirely one race, I didn't expect just how often I would be treated separately because I am not "one of them". As a straight, white, female from a nice American suburb these issues have often gone over my head because I just can't understand them, but now that I have (in a very minor way) experienced this frustration I can see why people are as passionate as they are towards receiving equal treatment for things they can't control.

3. I care way less about "things".

When you move across the world you have to be picky with what matters. When you then move across a country you have to be picky about what matters, And when you again move to a different city you have to be picky about what matters. Not to mention my shoebox Japanese apartment doesn't really allow for a lot of "stuff". Looking around my apartment now on the brink of another global move, I realize just how much of the crap that fills me apartment doesn't mean to me and I just want it all gone. Bye!

4. I appreciate simple foods.

I've posted before about my food issues prior to living in Japan, but aside from widening the variety of foods that I was able to stomach Japan has taught me that loads of salt and artificial flavorings don't really make things more delicious. When I first moved here the food tasted bland, but in just a few short months I found that I can no longer handle bags of American Cheetos or bags of Skittles without feeling sick. And my trips back to America have often left me praying to the porcelain god when I gorge myself too much on these heavily processed foods!

5. I realized I can do anything.

Honestly, moving to Japan wasn't that difficult. Compared to everything else I have been through since getting on that plane four years back, finding the job and packing to leave was really easy. It was interacting with people in a language I barely understood, surviving an assault, moving between three different cities (once across country!), and building a strong foundation of friends in a country where I knew zero people that were hard. Thinking about moving to America and all the things I have to do there like getting a cell phone and finding an apartment and even getting a job seem so easy now because, well, everyone speaks my native language! Nothing can stop me because I've done it all before, but in Japanese!

Milk Mura, Sapporo: Ice Cream and Liqueur Cafe in Japan

In all honesty, I don't really have the biggest sweet tooth. My family doesn't have the best history with sugar and I believe I am following their lead. I do, however, really enjoy alcohol. And every so often I like to stuff my face with ice cream. Ben and Jerry I am coming for you in September! Om nom nom.

Anyway, a few years back some friends mentioned this place where you get to eat ice cream with various liquors and I knew I just had to go there. I tried for months to go, but the odds were never in my favor. Once my friends even went a couple days after I went back to America for Christmas (thanks guys! D:). Eventually the stars aligned and I was able to go to this wonderful place, Milk Mura.

The reason it was so difficult to go here was because, well, it's really freakin' crowded on the weekends. So you basically have to go right when it opens or wait forever. So we usually end up only going here when we are off of work and free during the weekdays as it is nearly empty until evening.

And since it is summer vacation time in Japan, I was able to go to Milk Mura once again last week! This is the third time I have been here and every time I leave stuffed full of ice cream and slightly tipsy. What could be better? Nothing.

Located in the center of Susukino, right across from a giant Nikka Whiskey man and beside a really fancy looking sushi place, it's easy to pass by as it's on the sixth floor of some random building. But once you go in you are greeted with the most adorable front door ever.

I told you it was adorable. It opens from 1 o'clock in the afternoon and last order is at 11! It's a pretty small place, with only a few tables and a wrap around bar. Couples are the main source of business, along with young girls. I don't suggest bringing more than four people at a time because it is just really small, unless you go between 1 and 4 on a weekday, then you're likely to have the place to yourself!

The inside is adorable. The polka-dotted table cloths and the lights make it a perfect date spot, which is why so many couples go here. The walls are completely covered in so many different knick knacks that you can find new things hanging out every time you visit. There are also a number of interesting looking liqueur bottles around the shop lit up to give even more great atmosphere. The soundtrack is also French songs. Look at the little couples nook in the back wall!

Now for the menu. You can have a choice of three different sets, A, B, and C (though C has been unavailable I believe). A set gets you two liqueur choices and a few little baked goodies and some coffee. B set is three liqueurs plus a coffee and a cookie. I always get B set. They're all the same price and I would rather have booze than some baked things I don't care about. If you go with a group you can all share the booze. 

The liqueur list is huge. It's like pages and pages of the stuff. Maybe hundreds. It's in both Japanese and English so you can order with very little Japanese knowledge. They have any fruit liqueur you can dream about (though I suggest staying away from citrus because... milk and citrus? Bleck). A variety of whiskey and bourbon. All the standard liquors, plus some strange ones like coffee and acorn and cinnamon. They even have absinthe (which I enjoy for the novelty of it).

The liqueurs are served in these adorable little wine glasses, you get about half a shot of each. You then have this tiny spoon that you can use to pour the liqueur over your ice cream. Once you eat the ice cream down enough you can balance your spoon on the corner of the cup and pour the liquid like that, rather than holding the spoon in your hand and trying to not spill all over yourself.

Not that I have ever spilled any liquor on myself.

You can also get seconds on the ice cream! Once you finish your first glass they'll come and ask how full you want your second glass. The answer should always be "as full as possible".

Along with the liqueurs you order you are usually given two for free, oolong tea plus a random one. We had grape with actual pieces of grape in it. They also give you coffee powder to sprinkle on your ice cream which tastes good with pretty much ever liquor I have tried there. Especially the cinnamon. And the acorn is surprisingly wonderful. All the nutty ones are my favorite. Whiskey, acorn, coffee, absinthe...

The coffee you get is served in the cutest little mugs, and the cookies are adorable. Usually a dog or a koala or a circle. The mugs are a bit difficult to hold. I mean my handle is a penguin. But you really cares about that?

Milk Mura @ tabelog (Japanese/English)

ミルク村 SAPPORO本店

北海道 札幌市中央区 南四条西 3-7-1 ニュー北星ビル　６Ｆ

New Hokusei Building 6th floor

South 4 West 3, Chuo-Ku, Sapporo

(map in the link above!)

The Beer Garden in Odori Park, Sapporo!

The summer season in Sapporo is always really enjoyable. The fact that such a huge portion of the year is spent indoors thanks to the months of heavy snowfall just make the desire to get out and enjoy being outside when you can.

And the best way, in my opinion, to do that is the beer garden that happens from mid-July to mid-August in Odori park. This year so far I've been three times, and I'll likely go once more before it ends this coming weekend. As an American, I love any chance to just drink outside in public and not be judged for having a good time with friends. It's probably the aspect about Japan I will most the most when I go back to the States! Grabbing a beer from the 7-eleven and sitting in a park eating lunch...

Anyway, the beer garden itself spans four blocks of Odori Park. Each block is home to one of Japan's most common beer brands, Suntory Premium, Asahi, Kirin, and Sapporo! Honestly, there is very little difference between the three beer brands, as Japan seems to mainly enjoy producing pale lagers that all taste completely identical (oh goodness how I am looking forward to darker beers in America).

These beers are also perfect for hot summer days. Which you get in Sapporo. Because AC isn't really a thing up here because "we don't need it". Tell that to my apartment which likes to get up to 90 degrees (32 in the C). Any excuse to escape the sauna I live in is very needed.

Suntory is the least popular of the four brands, mainly because the beers are a bit more expensive. I personally like Suntory the best of the four because it has a bit more flavor, but I like being cheap more so in all the years I have been here I've never bothered going to their beer garden. Sorry!

 The most popular beer garden is easily Asahi. The block is covered in trees and just has a really cool feel. It fills up the quickest and is usually the loudest. This one is the one I enjoy going to the most, I think. Though the difficulty of finding a table makes it hard to bring larger groups unless you come at opening time!

Kirin is the third most popular and has the most interesting of the beer delivery systems: the beer tower. While the novelty of a meter tall tower of beer is nearly irresistible, the speed at which the beer warms in the heat of summer makes it a very "meh" experience once you get to the halfway mark. Or, I guess, you could just drink faster!

Sapporo Beer's garden is the one I have been to the most, two of my three visits have been spent here, and it may be my new favorite one to go because it is relatively easy to find a spot, not to mention they have upped their decoration game in the last couple of years and it now resembles a very Bavarian looking beer tent. Or at least what I picture one to look like because I've never been to one (next year??)!

The beers themselves aren't badly priced. You can get 500mL glasses for 550 yen. They also have larger sizes priced in the same value. Each area has their own version of a keg to share (like the toweres in Kirin) but I have found them to be over-priced when compared to the individual glasses (3,700 yen for 3L but 1,100 for a 1L glass). Yes, that's right. You can get a 1L glass of beer.

Even though it is called the "Handsome man" beer at the Sapporo tent I mainly see Japanese women guzzling these puppies down. Though maybe they are designed to attract handsome men? Who knows! If you find yourself in Sapporo in the middle of the Japanese summer, you definitely need to stop by the beer garden, you'll be sat at a table with the locals and they are generally really friendly. Last time I was there I was given a bunch of food by some older people seated next to us!

9 Reasons I Loved or Hated Being an English Teacher in Japan

As of Friday I am officially an ex-Assistant Language Teacher. It's a weird feeling to think about how I will never again walk the halls of a Japanese public high school, and maybe even never walk the halls of a school ever again. I was an ALT for four years, and in those four years I taught in three different locations at over 15 different schools. I have taught toddlers and I have taught teenagers. I've run classes by myself and stood in the back for 50 minutes doing nothing but trying to stay awake. I think I have a pretty well-rounded grasp of the process of being an English teacher overseas, so I wanted to share what I consider the best and worst parts of the job.

♡ The Students Constantly Compliment You

I wasn't born with a huge ego, I don't think I am awesome, beautiful, or too witty. Most of my humor and jokes comes from the awkward moments that pepper my life and I have struggled with body image for most of my life. Being an ALT in Japan, however, has really, really given me a lot in terms of self-confidence.

When I started teaching at 22 I was always the youngest teacher around, and even at 26 I am still really young and often the youngest teacher in the school. Add this to the fact that I am extremely pale with blue eyes and curly hair and Japanese girls fawn all over me. The secretive whispers of "wow, look at how blue Kaley's eyes are" and "she's so white" definitely are nice ego boosts.

Confessions of love from boys is common, I change my usual hairstyle and it is met with choruses of "oh how cute!" all day long. I wear contacts after weeks of glasses and it's like I'm a supermodel. My name sounds very similar to Katy Perry, so I am often compared to the gorgeous singer since we're both similar in complexion and eyes.

X There's Often A Lot Of Downtime

Now, this one varies a lot based on your location and how many schools you have. The more schools you have, the less downtime you will have. But in my experience you generally have at least one or two hours a day with no classes scheduled, and once you get the hang of making lessons and preparing supplies for those lessons you realize how much free time you have. My ability to read over 50 books in a year is largely due to just how much I am not doing anything, at all, at work.

Elementary school is generally busier, as you're the full teacher 9 times out of 10 and there's just more elementary schools so you are likely to have more schools. And the lessons are usually very high energy and take a lot out of you. Junior high, on the other hand, is usually way more low-key. What you do is largely dependent on what the Japanese teacher who teaches the class wants you to do. You'll have teachers that want you to teacher full lessons, you'll have teachers who want you to do half, you'll have teachers that just want you to read from the textbook and stand in the back most of the class.

I personally prefer the more demanding and busy elementary school over the more relaxed junior high school. I don't enjoy having hours a day with nothing to do. I had schools where I was at 40 hours a week and only did 8 hours of actual demanding work a day (actively teaching or preparing lessons). The rest was spent sitting at my desk or twiddling my thumbs in class.

♡ You Get to Try Many New Foods

If you choose to eat school lunch (and you really should!) you'll be exposed to a lot of new foods that you likely wouldn't eat otherwise. I learned about so many new foods that I now love. I've posted before about my weird food anxiety, and Japanese school lunches really helped me in overcoming a lot of my anxiety issues.

While the lunches are generally very high in carbs, the dishes are usually interesting. Now, this largely depends on your school lunch centers. I've lived in places with VERY redundant menus (miso soup three days a week with fish!) and I've changed schools so often in a week that I've had four days of noodles in a row since Japanese school lunches are generally designed with one day of noodles, one day of bread, and three of rice in a week.

X Eating With Students in Junior High

Okay, I know I just said school lunch was awesome but the experience of eating with students is often very... depressing. Especially with junior high schoolers. In an effort to provide more interaction time with students the Board of Education has this great idea to make the ALTs eat with students. Students eat lunch in their classroom with the homeroom teacher, and the teachers without homerooms eat in the staff room. I've actually had a school or two where the extra teachers eat with classes, but usually the ALT is the only teacher forced to sit within a group of students and eat alongside them. 

Younger kids usually like this, but the older ones view your presence as an intrusion. If you're the type of person to just push through the awkward "what do I do with this foreigner sitting here?" vibes from students and force them to talk to you, this won't apply to you. I'm not this person. I've even had a boy I was supposed to sit next to refuse to sit next to me because I am foreign and sit at the front next to the homeroom teacher to get away from me, and the next time I was in the class and seated by him he forced a friend to eat next to me.

Usually it's just silence. I sit there and try to eat as much as I can in 15 minutes and the students try to convince each other to talk to me. If I eat in the staff room, which has happened at some schools, I get a relaxing thirty minutes to eat my lunch and relax. I much prefer the latter.

♡ Your Japanese Listening Skills Will Get Really Good

Since everyone at school speaks Japanese at a native level around you all day, you'll quickly learn how to listen to Japanese conversations really well. You can just sit at your desk and listen to conversations around you during your free time and learn a lot of very handy Japanese.

If you're doing nothing in a class and the teacher is explaining grammar, you can learn too! I did this often just standing in the back and paying attention to the grammar lesson, trying to make sense of the language from a backwards perspective. I'd even grab an extra worksheet the kids were doing and write along with it.

You can also learn kanji by just looking around the room and seeing what they are using, as it's usually pretty basic. 

X You're Often Not Taken Seriously

Since you're a teacher with very little responsibility it's very common for no one to really take you seriously. You'll be out of the loop for many things and you'll have very little control over how things are taught. You're told what to do and you do it how they ask. While some teachers may value your input as a foreigner with a different perspective, most will just want you to do what they ask of you.

This is also a good thing, because you'll have lower expectations for things and can easily feign ignorance in many situations. They don't expect a lot of you so your responsibilities are low. While this is great for a while it leads to the job not feeling very serious, as there's really very little motivation to be better at it unless it all comes from within yourself, and at times the job can be very unrewarding because you'll get very little praise or feedback on your performance. If you work for a contracting company the schools are literally prevented by law to give your company any sort of feedback on your performance at work. Yeah, they can complain about you but they can't actually say anything productive to what you do.

This fact leads to your job seeming very unimportant in the grand scheme of things to most people, I've found. Unless you have that great self-motivation to be good, you won't be. You have to want to make good lessons and that's what ultimately makes someone good at this job. And it just got to the point with me that I no longer had that motivation, which is why I quit!

♡ You Get to See the "Real" Japan

By being an ALT you are actually in a Japanese public school. Almost every Japanese person went through this system and you become very aware of a lot of things that make Japan what it is. You get to see Japanese people in their natural environment, and not out in public or in a specific setting geared towards foreigners.

I studied Japanese culture in college and I really enjoyed just being able to ask questions about certain things and learn about how a Japanese school works. It's very different from American schools and made a lot of aspects of Japanese culture make sense to me. I learned to appreciate things that had frustrated me in the beginning.

X You Will Just Be An "ALT"

In the staff room I rarely heard teachers refer to me by my name, usually I was just referred to as "ALT". "The ALT is leaving early today" or "The ALT is eating lunch with this class". My shoebox in the school entry is rarely labeled with my name, but just "ALT" whereas all the other teachers have a name there. 

On the program for the closing ceremony at my school nearly two weeks back it just said "ALT" next to the goodbye speech section whereas every other teacher had their name written. I'm sure this isn't meant as a slight to me, but it's insanely frustrating to be nothing but those three letters to people you work with on a daily basis. I was at these schools every day for months as well, so it wasn't like I wasn't a permanent fixture. 

X Teachers are Usually Afraid to Approach You

Since most teachers have very little grasp of English conversation they are nervous to talk to you. This is understandable. They don't not want to talk to you, and I've never been treated poorly by a teacher. Whenever I do add something to a conversation it is usually very encouraged, it's just hard because teachers often won't go out of their way to approach you.

On the other hand those teachers who do enjoy English will be all over you, but those are few and far between. Older ladies are generally the nicest, whereas older men want nothing to do with you. At least if you're a female. I imagine if you're a guy it's opposite.

This can often lead to you feeling lonely when everyone is talking and you're just sitting there hoping to understand Japanese to say something. Teachers are also often very busy so it may be hard to find the time to approach a teacher. Out of all the "bad" issues on this list, this is probably the least bad, but some people may not like the isolation of being the only person not included in things.

Little Known Japan: Furano-Biei Flower Farms

Two weekends ago I went on a trip with a few of my friends to a famous farming town two and a half hours north of Sapporo. It’s called Furano and its specialty is growing flowers. I had been there a couple years back, when I stilled lived in Atsuma and a friend had a spare seat in her rental car, but the weather was rainy and we had missed the lavender blooming, so I had always wanted to go back there.

A couple weeks ago I decided to try. I sent a message out to a handful of friends and organized a rental car and Saturday we were off. It was a great trip that went off without a hitch and the weather was perfect. I realized how much I enjoy roadtrips and it is now my goal to do more of them!

The day started at 9am and we got our rental car. I was the navigator and Allie, who I went to Vietnam and Cambodia with, drove us. I was planning on driving but I didn’t realize that my Japanese license expired back in March rather than the three year mark of me getting it. Nice job assuming, Kaley.

The drive itself was beautiful. We took the backroads to avoid the exorbitant prices of Japanese toll roads (only would have saved us 20 minutes) and the winding mountain roads and scenic farm towns we passed reminded me just why I love Japan and why I have stayed here for so long. It’s easy to forget when you spend your days in a concrete jungle.

The weather was so nice that I rode with the windows down. Until a carpenter bee decided to fly into my face and end up on Allie’s leg. Props to her for not freaking out and bigger props to Sevy for grabbing the thing with a tissue while I was frozen in fear and confusion.

We started about thirty minutes north of Furano in Biei, where we had lunch at a beautiful little cottage at a potato farm famous for their beef stew called Blanc Rouge then headed back south to Shikisai No Oka, a flower farm located on some rolling hills.

When I came two years back the blooming season for the flowers was in full swing, it’s a shame that the lavender and most of the other flowers aren’t in sync, but we can’t really expect to control nature now, can we? Regardless, it was still a beautiful place and there was something more exciting than flowers.

Alpacas.

I love alpacas. I think they are just the funniest and cutest animals. Their long awkward necks, fluffy bodies, and hilarious noises just get to me. And I have a collection of random alpaca cuteness all over my apartment and desk.

Though, the saliva warnings scared me a bit.

They’re animals and you can’t expect everyone to be perfect. Even an alpaca.

After we finished up in Biei we headed down to Furano itself and the main stop, Farm Tomita. This place is very busy as there’s only really two weeks in a year where the lavender blooms, so the Chinese tour buses were out in full force. I can confirm that Chinese tourists are the worst tourists. They’re just loud and rude and travel is large herds.

I got some ice cream, cantaloupe and lavender swirled together into perfection, and as I was waiting in line an old Chinese lady just shoved me out of the way to look into the drink cooler before walking off. There was a line of ten people behind me as well. Rude.

Farm Tomita was beautiful, the lavender were perfect and the weather even moreso. Though it was hot for the first time since, well, last year. I realized that Sapporo has removed any ability I have for heat adaptation and my move back to Florida will be a warm one. Though we have air conditioning in Florida and springs and beaches so I guess the heat really won’t matter too much.

After we got done looking at the flowers we headed over to the melon house where I bought the tiniest melon smoothie for far too much money. Melon in Japan is beyond expensive. A cantaloupe will cost you $15 and a honeydew $8. The only time I eat it is if I get it for school lunch, which happens a few times a month in season and I actually got some good cantaloupe this Monday.

By 5 we had to head back to Sapporo, to drop off our rental car by 8. The drive back was much the same as the drive there, though the windows stayed up and the setting sun was in our eyes. We got the car back with a full tank of gas ten minutes before it was due, so I consider it a success.

One of the main reasons I love living in Hokkaido also makes it difficult to enjoy living here. The island is largely farm land and nature, and the train lines go to only a few major cities. If you want to go anywhere it will take you ages (Furano is only 120km away from Sapporo), but the drive will be beautiful and a large part of your journey. We only spent four hours total in Biei and Furano and six in the car, and it was nice to just enjoy the beautiful mountainous country of Japan for a day, and really appreciate the country I have called home for the last four years.

I highly suggest renting a car and spending a few days driving around Japan, rather than sticking to the main cities. Japan actually goes from urban to rural really quickly, and you can experience the more rustic Japan easily in a day trip outside of Tokyo or Kyoto or Osaka. To me, that’s the real Japan. That special part of Japan that lets you really understand the country.

All photos are taken by me. Please don't use without permission. I hold all copyrights.

10 Reasons Why I Am Leaving Japan

I’m going to take a break from my Vietnam and Cambodia posts to write an entry that I think is pretty important to my life as it stands now. The last few months have been an emotional rollercoaster for me and it has led me to do a lot of self-reflection, which has led me to make a pretty huge decision for my life.

I’m leaving Japan.

For the last four years (nearly) I have lived in Japan. I have spent all of my “adult” life here. I came here when I was 22, fresh out of college, and still not really sure who I was. I’m 26 now, and I feel as if I have just been playing house, in a sense, rather than really making a life for myself.

It’s been a difficult thing to deal with, I have people on both sides of my life giving me very mixed reactions and I have had to explain many, many times why I have decided to leave. A lot of people have considered it sudden, but anyone who has really talked to me about how I feel living in Japan will know that the unhappiness and displeasure with my life here has been for roughly the last year, I was just too scared to really do anything about it.

Just to clarify, I’ve not been unhappy with Japan, but rather the way in which I live my life here. I think it would be a good idea to write out my top ten reasons for leaving Japan, starting with the least important to the most in an attempt to make people understand why I’m leaving, and maybe help some people who may want to live in Japan (or overseas in general) as to what they can expect from long-term expatriate life.

10. Pizza

This may not seem like a good reason to leave a country, but bear with me. I love pizza. It’s the best food, and I ate it multiple times a week in college. Which may explain my weight-gain/weight-loss in my 21^st and 2^2nd years… Anyway, pizza makes me happy. I like the ease or ordering a pizza, I love how cheap it is. It’s the perfect food.

More specifically I like the New York, thin, lightly sauced, meaty topped, wonderful pizzas. I like the huge slices that you can get at places around Florida, I like the random toppings. It wasn’t until I moved to Japan that I realized how different pizza in America is compared to the rest of the world.

Japan does have Pizza Hut all over the place in most larger cities. They deliver, they have online ordering, it’s much the same as the American counterpart. But… it’s insanely expensive. As in a basic small cheese pizza will cost you close to $20. However, they only have two size options (medium and large) and the medium is personal pan sized and the large is smaller than an American medium. Here’s some examples of their pizza for you to look at.

Needless to say I never order it. I’ve only had it twice. In four years. It’s this lack of American comfort food in general that has influenced my desire to not be here. I enjoy Japanese food, don’t get me wrong, but I like my American staples much better.

9. I want a pet.

I spend my free time looking at shelters online and seeing what dogs they want, picturing my life with this lovable pet, and crying over their sad little faces. Growing up I always had a dog, and my childhood dog actually passed away while I was over here. I just like having a little companion around. It’s something I have always wanted. Cat? Dog? Either is okay with me at this point.

Having a pet in Japan is definitely possible, and I have plenty of friends with cats (none with dogs). The only issue is that your options for housing once you get a pet goes down considerably, and most places that will allow a cat won’t allow dogs, and I want a dog more than a cat at the moment. Not to mention I don’t really want to put my pet through the stress over moving back overseas. So the days and weeks pass and I look longingly at all my friends with pets and I just want one. It will be one of the first things I do when I have a place of my own.

8. I like cooking.

Japanese cuisine is very different from how I was raised. For starters ovens aren’t really a thing here (along with dishwashers and clothes dryers and air conditioning and the list goes on and on). While I have a pretty decent microwave/convection oven it is really limited and doesn’t really retain heat very well, so cooking takes forever. Imagine a step up from an Easy Bake.

Ingredients are also hard to come by, Japan is a small country and nearly all their food is imported, so things get expensive. I enjoy cooking shows and looking at recipes, and more often than not I have to adjust recipes to suit Japanese availability or just not be able to make things. It’s difficult. Not to mention the cost of fruit (8 strawberries for $10! An apple for nearly $2!) or the cost of meat (a small pork tenderloin is gonna be over $10 and half a pound of ground beef is over $6) has limited me to using mainly chicken breasts and ground pork. I’ve mentioned before about my weird food anxiety that I’ve nearly bested since moving here, and I feel like I can’t really explore my new food options like I want to.

Don’t even get me started on cheese. That can have its own post.

7. “Basic” things are really difficult.

So I have an upstairs neighbor who a horrible human being. I’ve never seen or met this person, but I know that they are. You want to know how I know that they are this devil-span? For the last nine months I’ve been woken up nearly weekly (usually during the weekdays) after midnight by the sounds of their washing machine. If I were in America I would have called my apartment company after the first night and filed a complaint. I would have gotten the police involved when it didn’t stop. I know how to handle these things in America because, well, in college I’ve had it done to me.

In Japan, though, I don’t really know what to do. Let me correct that, I know what to do but I don’t really know how to do it. When you live in a country that has a completely different language from you, you realize that communication is difficult (oh hey blog name!) most of the time. And making a phone call in a different language really, really sucks. I don’t even like making phone calls in English.

Anyways, I struggled for a long time as to what to do, suffering for a few months, then a few months of it not happening, and then when it started up again I got so fed up I asked a friend to help me out, he called for me and they called everyone on the fifth floor and sent letters to the entire building telling them to stop. Which didn’t work (hence the evil part of this person, because they clearly don’t care) and led to me asking a different person for help. This week it happened again (because they are evil) and I found myself too shamed to ask for help again. I’m 26 years old, I should be able to handle this easily. So all day I planned what I would say, hoping that since they had been called twice about the issue it would be easy enough to get my point across. Sadly, I called and the woman on the phone had no idea what I was saying. After struggling for five minutes to get her to understand, all while trying not to cry out of frustration (and exhaustion) I snapped and broke down into tears, hanging up the phone and spending the next ten minutes hating how I can’t even do simple things. And this is a daily struggle, really.

6. Money

This is a huge issue, and I could really spend ages talking about all the issues I have with money in Japan. The biggest issue is that I don’t really have much. When I first moved to Japan and National Health Insurance and city taxes were near zero, I was able to save plenty. But once you get a full year of pay in Japan be prepared (if you’re not a JET) to lose close to 30% of your income to these two things. Yep, that’s a 3 and a 0 before that percent sign.

I have a second job, which means two days a week I work until 8pm when I have to be up at 5:45 every day. If my neighbor decides to do laundry at 1am on a Monday (like this week) I spend most of my week exhausted. Now, Japan is known for its insane working hours and I would venture to guess that the majority of Japanese workers are usually working 8am-8pm like I am, but I’m not Japanese and I refuse to live like this just to have money.

Then, things are really, really expensive. If you ignore the food issue that I mentioned there are still plenty of things that are expensive. Japan has an outrageous import tax on leather (why???) and so anything that’s imported with even a tiny bit of leather has a huge price increase (most backpacks, shoes, purses, jackets, etc.). Then there’s makeup. I don’t know why makeup in Japan is so insanely expensive, but a Maybelline lipstick costs about $15. That’s like buying a Mac lipstick back in America (which are $30 at least here). And Japanese brands aren’t any cheaper, so it’s not an importing tax issue. It’s just a Japan-has-expensive-makeup issue.

5. I am not Japan Size

This kind of goes along with number 6 in the sense that it’s really difficult for me to find anything “extra” to get myself. Now, I realize that I am not average size even in America, but I’ve never had an issue back in the States when it comes to clothes shopping. And yes, Japanese women are much smaller than I am in general. In Japanese stores, though, there is just a very limited variety of sizes available. Usually all you’ll find is a small, medium, and large option which is like a 0, 4 and 8 (US women).

I’m basically one size too big for anything here. Granted I’m roughly six feet tall so I can’t really blame them. But it just really stinks when I want to buy a sweater or a skirt or pants or anything, really. Don’t even get me started on shoes. If you have feet larger than an 8 you’re out of luck.

4. Job options are very limited.

Japan is the land of the Salaryman, a husband who goes to work in a black suit and tie and works endless hours and comes home to his stay-at-home-wife and kids half-drunk at 9pm every night of the week. This isn’t a 100% fact but my 8:30pm subway rides say that it’s definitely more common than not. I don’t want this life, at all. I want a job and a career and a family. I don’t want a barely there husband while I raise our kids alone. I don’t want to work so much and not have time for my friends or family.

Not to mention, women in Japan are still very much behind as far as fair treatment is concerned in a lot of aspects of equal rights, even when compared to America which hasn’t even had a female President yet (please let this happen, US!!). When I go into the principal’s office at my schools you’ll see over a dozen pictures of all the past principals. I’ve seen a woman up there maybe three times. Out of 15 schools. That’s hundreds of principals and only THREE have been women.

Add in the fact that I am a foreigner and my options are even more limited. I just don’t have a lot of choices where work is concerned, it’s basically teach English unless I have fantastic Japanese (which I don’t – see crying in my apartment after trying to make a bloody phonecall).

3. My family.

Now we’re getting into the meat of why I am leaving. My family has had a rough year, maybe even couple of years. I’ve missed out on weddings and births and deaths while I have been here. The former two are the hardest for me, mainly because the deaths have been of more distant relatives, but it’s still loss all the same. I’m reminded that my family won’t be around forever, and if something were to happen to an immediate family member while I was here, I’d never forgive myself.

My family needs me, and I am tired of being that distant relative off in college or overseas. I want to be more present. At least for a little bit (since I’ll likely move to the West Coast, sorry Mom!).

2. There’s no real reason for me to stay

When you add in the lack of job opportunities, the fact that I can’t fit into clothes, that I can’t get my favorite things, that having a pet is difficult, I am faced with the fact that I have no reason to stay. I have friends here, and I love them to death and I consider myself so lucky to have the great community that I have, but… they will always be there. They’ll always be a reason to stay. And it’s sadly not good enough. I need more than that.

I’ve given up on finding love here, that’s a bit more personal and I really don’t want to open that can of worms yet (in short, I don’t think Japanese guys take me seriously, and the type of foreign guys that usually come to Japan only want a Japanese girl). And I want that. Maybe not now, but someday, and I don’t think I am going to find it here in Sapporo, or Japan in general.

And finally, the last reason, which is the biggest reason of all:

1. I never planned to be here forever.

When I moved to Japan I expected to be here no more than two years. But things happened and I ended up staying longer. I would have honestly left earlier, I think, if not for a couple of factors which, until recently, made me want to stay. But I’ve always known, deep down, that Japan wasn’t going to be my forever home.

I love Japan a lot, it is a second home to me, but it is second. I don’t want to raise my children without my parents being in the same country. I don’t want to miss out on all of my cousins’ life moments. I want to be able to go home for Christmas. These things are just too difficult in Japan and I always knew they would be.

It’s never been a matter of “if I leave Japan” but “when”. And Japan has honestly done nothing to make me feel like it wants me here long-term. The Japanese people will never accept me as Japan, even if I live here longer than I did the States (because once I were to hit 45 that would be the case) and I have taught too many mixed-raced children to want that life for my kids.

So, Japan isn’t the place for me. I don’t want to assimilate into the country, and I don’t want to be stared at because I just so happen to be having a cup of coffee in public or be buying groceries. I don’t want the first thing someone says to me to be, “welcome to Japan!” when I’ve been here for years. I don’t want servers to look stressed when a table of foreigners (who all speak Japanese) sits down and wants to order. I’m tired of being “gaijin” and I just want to be “Kaley”. 

Holidays Abroad

I played around with different titles, from more melodramatic ones like, “The Truth Behind Holidays Abroad” and less serious ones poking fun at my dramatic tendencies, “Holidays Abroad: Kaley Whines” but decided to settle for something a bit simpler. As a preface, this may come off as emotional nonsense to a lot of you but this is my blog and my emotional nonsense, so I’m sharing it.

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It’s easy to forget that you’re living in a foreign country. You get used to being constantly surrounded by a foreign language, eventually just toning all of it out unless someone acknowledges you directly, shoving the sounds into the background with the heater or the clicking of keyboards. You get used to the characters on signs and storefronts, your eye easily drifting to the English option written underneath. Visits to the supermarket become routine and after a while you forget what it is like to buy anything in your native language, replying to the same set of questions over and over so that they become engrained in your mind. Moments of anxiety still happen, you need to visit a bank for some money transfer, you need help finding something in a store, announcements about train delays are spoken in deep, muffled voices you know even native speakers have a hard time comprehending.

But, you adapt, life goes on and the thought of living in your native space, in an area where simple questions don’t evade you, where ordering a hamburger doesn’t require practice, where you can walk up to anyone and just say exactly what you’re thinking sounds like a nice dream you had Once Upon a Time.

There is a time, however, when the feeling of being away from home really gets to you, and that’s during holidays. Every country is partly defined by its holidays, you ask someone what makes someone in Canada different from someone in the US and, outside of a borderline obsession with hockey, it’s that Thanksgiving is on a different day, they don’t have the Fourth of July, etc.

Japan itself has a smattering of national holidays, random Mondays or specific dates that everyone gets off, once a month on average. Most people don’t really keep track of which holiday is which outside of a specific few, Golden Week in March/April (which is more like Golden Random-Days-Off-In-A-Week-Or-Two), New Year’s Day, and the August vacation. The other days include “Respect for the Aged”, “Culture Day”, “Day of the Sea”, and the Emperor’s Birthday.

Japan has adopted Western holidays as well, stores will sell Halloween candy in October, girls confess their love on Valentine’s Day, and Christmas music is played in every shopping center for the entirety of November and December. But, these holidays are not the same as they are back home, they are mere adaptations in a country that doesn’t really grasp the meaning behind these days, that has taken a basic idea and shaped it to suit their culture and their desires.

Children don’t go trick-or-treating and costumes are mainly worn by people going out drinking for Halloween parties, and even those are usually just very basic cats and devils and men in strange full-body suits. Valentine’s is usually just a school tradition, where girls will slave away on chocolates that they will give to that boy they’ve had a crush on, hoping that he’ll return his affections on White Day a month later. And Christmas is purely commercial, where people may exchange gifts and eat a bucket of KFC (due to a clever marketing campaign in the 70s) with some Christmas Cake.

Christmas is what gets to my emotions. I can handle no Halloween, as I grew out of trick-or-treating years ago and can easily enough find a Halloween party to go to. Thanksgiving I can easily find myself surrounded by friends and eating familiar foods, Valentine’s Day is a nonissue, since in the States I never really had anyone to celebrate with. Japanese people are more than willing to try out a Fourth of July barbecue on a weekend, and New Year’s Eve is still New Year’s Eve.

Christmas, however, is not Christmas. There are not roads lined with houses covered in lights. There are no elderly white men in red suits in the mall, there is no holiday cheer and people wishing you “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays”. There is just a stark reminder that you are outside.

This year, I’m working on Christmas; something that in my 25 years has never, ever happened. This fact alone has formed a gray cloud over my entire month, a looming reminder that I am out of place and that Japan is not my home. I need Christmas, I don’t need to sit in a gym for two hours listening to speeches I can barely understand and then sit at my desk feeling depressed for hours with nothing to do.

I’ve tried to explain to Japanese people just what Christmas means. Why is it so important? What makes it special? Why is working so bad?

It’s something I can’t put into words, it’s a feeling that I can’t express. For my entire life it has just been Christmas. I don’t expect understanding from people who didn’t grow up with a traditional Christmas. I don’t expect my job or my Japanese friends to feel the same way that I do about Christmas. It’s not their holiday, it’s mine, and living in this culture, living in their country, I need to make concessions to be like them, to push my feelings aside, suck it up, and do what is asked.

I realize I could have taken the day of Christmas off. Many of my friends have done it this year and last year I even took four days off to go home for Christmas. When I received my yearly schedule and saw that my last day before the official start of winter vacation was December 25^th my heart sank, but I thought it wouldn’t be so bad. I could spend the time teaching my students about Christmas. This week I am doing nothing but Christmas lessons. Yet, Christmas Day is a closing ceremony, an aspect of Japanese culture I don’t understand the value of just as they don’t understand why Christmas is important to me. So I will sit in a gym for a couple of hours, and then sit at my desk waiting to leave.

But as the day draws nearer and my Christmas lessons are met with nearly zero enthusiasm, with children who don’t care about how a different culture does this holiday that means next to nothing to them, I feel more and more dragged down by the weight of having to come in on this day that I value so much.

Some Christmas gifts from home.

It’s a hard spot to be in, and when living abroad it is a situation you will be forced to deal with constantly. You will always be torn between two places, two countries, and two homes. I can’t just pop home for Christmas for a few days. I can’t just hop in my car and go to a friend’s wedding for a weekend, I can’t be there when someone I’ve known my entire life gives birth, I can’t be there when my dog dies.

With all of the great and wonderful things that comes with living abroad, all of the things I have learned about myself and what I am capable of; I’ve become more accepting of things that are different from my normal, I’ve learned to adapt to things that scare me, I’ve seen places that people only dream of visiting, comes a special weight that you will never really understand until you’ve been there. You never hear people talking about the stress of living overseas, of family and friends telling you how much they miss you, asking you when you’re coming back. Of looking at your life that you have and knowing that it can never be permanent, that at some point all of these people and places will be in your past.

I am not writing this to complain, though I do feel better having typed my feelings out, I am writing this to paint the full picture. It’s so easy for us to show only our perfect, cookie-cutter, edited lives to the world. But, that’s not life. Living abroad is great and wonderful and life-changing. It’s the best thing I have ever done and I regret zero moments of it, even the bad ones. But, it’s not always happen. In fact, it’s often very stressful. It’s often putting your own self aside in favor of a culture different than yours. It’s often about sitting in a gym for two hours on Christmas.