Dousanko is the name of someone who was born in Hokkaido and this is where we are at present, although it took us a 15 hour ferry trip to get here. The ferry trip wasn’t too bad but the beds were like small capsules. This is my first trip to Hokkaido & it’s beautiful. Reminds me a lot of New Zealand. Lots of greenery & animals (bears, foxes, racoons, dragon-flys, etc, etc). On Tuesday we had a look around the main city here, Sapporo (opens new window), & on Wednesday we went to the 2nd beautiful lake in Japan (sorry forgot the name).

Hokkaido-ben is the name of the dialect of Japanese spoken by people in Hokkaido & as I’m quite interested in this dialect I’ve learnt a few words. They are as follows:

• Namara = very. E.g. namara ii (very good).
• Tsupe = snot (this is probably not worth remembering).
• Hankakusai = stupid.
• Azumashii = comfortable.
• Menkoi = cute.