“Toto, We’re Not In Kansas Anymore”

• August 15, 2019
• Antoinette Bodeau
• Activities
• Tags: adventure, Hokkaido, Japan, life in Japan, Woman travelers

I arrived into Sapporo airport fairly late and my new boss, Paul, picked me up and we went into Sapporo town. The company paid for that first nights stay at the hotel. It was nice to not have an additional 1 1/2-2 hour drive on top of all the travel. Needless to say, I was exhausted and sleep a solid 7 hours.

We headed to Kutchan/Niseko about mid-day and the drive was beautiful! Very, very green with so many different trees. Kutchan town is where I’ll be living and it is a small town; population about 16,000. It has all the things you need;   grocery stores, banks, home stores (a cross between a Target and Home Depot), restaurants, public pool and more. The office where I’ll be working is right on one of the main streets. There are some amazing views of the ski areas and Mt. Yotei which is one of 100 famous mountains in Japan. The elevation is 6,227 feet and can be climbed.  I will definitely be hiking it at some point! The ski area is referred to Niseko United and consists of four different ski areas; Hirafu, Niseko Village, Hannazono and Annupuri.

A view of Niseko ski fields.

Natural spring water in Niseko. I go by it all the time when I’m working. It’s a nice perk of the job!

My official ‘Hanko’. It says Antoinette.

Outdoor coffee roaster in Kutchan. It’s called Sprouts and has great coffee!

This watermelon weighed about 10 pounds and cost about $18.

Sunset over the Niseko mountains.

I loved listening to these woman drummers. This was at the Kutchan festival

To sum up my time so far, it has been many things; uncomfortable, challenging and fascinating all at once. I know very little of what’s what in the grocery store, aside from the produce section (many of the vegetables are foreign to me!), since nearly everything is written in katakana or hiragana. Some of the food is very expensive, especially some of the fruit, even when local.

The Japanese are very polite (perhaps a bit too much!) and no-one really looks you in the eye. I’ve been told that it’s a cultural thing and considered rude. That said, they are very nice and helpful IF they understand. If they don’t, they try to find someone who can help.

I started my job in the middle of last week. There is a lot to learn but not really difficult. I’m learning the many different facets of this property management company. We manage 47 rental properties and an additional 80-90 owner properties. It is a lot to keep track of. I’ve spend quite a bit of time driving around with one my Japanese co-workers, Keiko. We have been going to some of the different properties and I’ve seen the many tasks required in a work day. The nice thing is that there will be a fair amount of time spend out of the office to break up computer work. (I say that now when there isn’t a ton of snow on the road!)

I am official in Japan. I have a residence card and had to register it at Kutchan town office. They are VERY strict about their recycling and a women at the town office spent about 20 minutes going going everything….Keiko translated. Even she didn’t know the half of it. To open a bank account I had to get a personal seal made called a ‘hanko’. It is required for quite a number official  documents such as opening a bank account.  I could choose which name I wanted to have put on it; in either hiragana, katakana or kanji. These are all the different Japanese lettering they use here. I could TRY to explain it but that would make this blog post really long!

To sum up to past couple of weeks; it has had many adjustments and changes and I’m learning a whole new aspect of patience.  Things are extremely different here . They measure things in meters, liters, kilograms, and celsius….yikes! Oh, and did I mention….driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road?! Yes, I am driving and no, I haven’t driven on the wrong side or hit anything. It does take a lot of concentration though. 

The food and culture is very different as well. I’ll touch more on that in my next post. Until then….Sayonara!