Sapporo Rainbow March 2008

I just returned from being in Sapporo all weekend.  Mainly, I went to participate in the parade and festivities associated with Sapporo's gay pride celebration.

I had soooooo much fun.  I had no idea there were so many gay people in Sapporo or that the community would turn out to celebrate with such positive attitudes.  Usually, in the states, while gay pride is really fun, you also have to contend with protesters on the sidelines or busting through shouting and being real party poopers.

But since Japan is not a hugely religious country and because people are generally well-behaved, there was none of that.  We marched for like an hour and a half all the way from Nakajima-koen (Nakajima Park) through Susukino and back again.  The police were there in full force and the people we passed were really awesome.

There was both a pre-party the Saturday before the march and two major after-parties Sunday night.  Kae's bar, Bar Orb, also turned one year old on Sunday so there was lots of partying happening at her place too.  The bar was packed out!  And so many customers came and paid Kae homage.  It was amazing.

Too bad I won't be here next year to enjoy it again, but I'm sure when I come back to visit Hokkaido, the Rainbow March will be one of the reasons I do.

Back Again In September

For crying out loud, there's been a long time in between updates.  I guess once again, I can do a very quick round up.

In April, my mom visited me in Japan.  That was very awesome.  It was her first trip out of the country.  I was a little nervous as I didn't know how she would adapt to the food and language stuff, but she did alright.  She tried a lot of new things.  I was proud of her.

Then fast forward to July-August....I went home for three weeks.  This was way to little time to see and do all of the things I wanted to do.  I STILL never made it by for a bison burger from City Range!  But overall things were very fun.  A few of my friends are buying new houses which is awesome.  That's such a grown-up thing to do.  Mostly everything was the same, except that my dad and step-mom bought a new house.  So, it was my first time to see it.  I might post some video on Vimeo of the walk-through tour of the new house.  We'll see.

Right now, I'm preparing for the Yuki Matsuri (Snow/Ice Festival) tour that we JETs in Hokkaido do every year.  I'm the Social Coordinator for the Hokkaido JETs Association and that is my duty.  I really kind of hate it, because it's a lot of work, but hopefully the final product will be worthwhile.

I also have a new HD camera, the Canon XH A1.  I'm planning on making a few movies while I'm here -- at least one documentary and one narrative piece.  It's all tricked out (not as tricked out as I want it to be) with a 35mm adapter and such so I think the footage will look REAL good in the end and be a lot of nice things to add to my reel which will hopefully help get me work when I move to LA during the fall of 2009.

Other than that, things are cool.  Loving Japan.  Loving the people I'm here with.  New peeps just arrived a few months ago.  One cool guy is from Ireland and we're going to do ballroom dancing together!

Ciao!