Sapporo Summer Festival

I like beer.  Fortunately, so does my city.  In fact, Sapporo likes beer so much that it holds a huge Summer Festival just to celebrate beer, especially the many varieties that are brewed right here.  

The festival is in Odori Park, a HUGE park which is one block by twelve blocks long, marking Sapporo's downtown area (more on Sapporo and my surroundings in a later post).  Each square block is transformed into a beer garden sponsored by a different brewery (Sapporo Beer Garden, Kirin Beer Garden, Premium Malt Beer Garden, German brews beer garden, etc.).  In addition to beers, each garden serves up a variety of delectable foods on which to chomp the night away.

Gotta love Japan...yukatas and beer towers:

Eri and I enjoying the festival and some incredibly rich takoyaki (fried balls of octopus and other goodness):

I'm sure I was forever branded the wierd gaijin (foreigner) stalker at the Sapporo garden...I just couldn't get enough of the radioactive hats.  Plus, I was secretly hoping that someone would read my mind and give me one:

KAMPAI (cheers)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We are currently having our Hokkaido region JET orientation here in Sapporo, so this past weekend and this week also brought me my first guests, both fellow JETs from other towns in Hokkaido!!!

My first guest was Ross from Australia.  This is us trying to be Japanese-y:

Currently, Jennie from Wisconsin is enjoying my tatami room.  She's a fourth-year JET and good times galore:

I'm starting to feel like a local-yokel...community fun, guest-hosting, and work (school...which begins this week) are my life now!  School should be interesting...I have to give a speech to the entire student body (1000 kids) in both Japanese and English...terrifying account to follow...