Long post is loooooooooooong (4200 words @_@).
Let’s start from yesterday. What the hell did I do yesterday? Oh yeah. I woke up and ate breakfast. Then I slept some more. I slept for about 2 hours extra because I can’t go to bed before 10, so that gives me less than 8 hours of sleep. I can do that on a regular basis at Oberlin, but not here, because when I’m not in class, I’m walking around and doing something.
I got to Imadegawa fairly early and spent some time in the student lounge talking with people until it was time for my oral interview. In order to place everyone in a class that would allow to them to progress the most, our professors did one on one interviews with us in conjunction with a test the following day. Anyway, I was a little nervous, but once I got into the interview, it was very relaxed. I mean, there was nothing to do but speak to the best of my ability, which I did. I mean, it’s kind of like, you can’t fuck up an oral interview if it’s to assess your abilities, because if you fuck up, that’s just showing what your abilities are.
After the interview I chilled with some people and once a couple more people had their interviews, some of us went to go get food. A friend and I didn’t want to go to a cafeteria, so we went to a chain place that had donburi and stuff. It was actually very good, and extremely cheap. The place was called Nakau. After lunch, I had to go back to the AKP office fairly quickly so I could meet up with my class to go on a field trip to Nara. Cool, right?
Nara is south of Kyoto more or less, and you can basically hop on a special train that uses the Karasuma subway line in Kyoto and goes switches to another line that goes down to Nara. The trip is about an hour, and there’s some pretty scenery on the way, but I spent some of the time playing my DS and talking with the professor and the four other people in the class (it’s a small class, which is nice).
On the way to our stop, we got a look at the what I think was a reconstruction of a building of the Imperial Palace that used to be in Nara a long, long time ago. Our stop fed out into a tiny square with a cool fountain dedicated to Gozai, I think his name was (he was a monk largely responsible for funding the building of the todaiji, the biggest wooden building in Japan, or maybe that’s a different building. I think it is, but the todaiji has a giant buddha in it). We walked through an arcade for a little, then turned onto a small street that led up into some temple grounds.
This was where cool things started happening. I got some good pictures of a big pagoda along with some other buildings, but that’s when we noticed some deer sitting around. For those of you who don’t know, Nara is quite famous for having very outgoing deer. So outgoing that they will accept food from you without hesitation, sometimes fishing into your pockets if they suspect food is there, and crossing the street in broad daylight in front of oncoming cars (I saw it happen).
We went on a rather hot day, so the few deer that we did see were lying in the shade, not really doing much; one was rubbing his face in the mud to cool off, another sat under a tree while someone went right up to it and seemed to offer it some food. Others were walking in the shade and grazing. One was even sitting in the middle of the sidewalk when it decided to venture into a building: I kid you not. It walked halfway inside the doorway and stood there for a while, then went inside. It wasn’t a proper building; I think it was actually some kind of stand that sold food or touristy things which happened to be closed at the moment.
I got some good pictures of the deer, but what the field trip was for was to see an exhibition at the Nara National Museum. The exhibition was of Buddhist statues and sculptures. Many of them were “National Treasures” or “Important Cultural Items.” There were some very old and impressive statues of various buddhas and bodhisattvas, but definitely the most impressive part of the exhibition were two of the Kongo Rikishi that were maybe, 18 feet tall each. I couldn’t tell you what exactly the Kongo Rikishi are with regards to the Buddhist pantheon, but the statues were astounding. I was not allowed to take pictures in the museum, but trust me when I say that they were amazing.
The second part of the exhibition was all about the restoration of some of these really old buddhist sculptures and statues. Some of it was very impressive, especially the info about and models of a particular sculpture on which I wouldn’t come up to its knee. The trip was mostly intended to introduce us to various forms of symbolism in buddhist art and their meanings.
Now, the whole day, I had been carrying around an umbrella. I felt kind of dumb taking it with me since only one other person on the train ride in the morning was holding one, but it had rained something fierce the previous night, so I thought it wise to take it. On the way out of the museum, I noticed a large, gray cloud looming almost directly over us. I told my umbrella that maybe it wasn’t so useless after all, out loud, of course. What kind of crazy person would I be if I didn’t talk to my umbrella?
I noticed some drizzle and other people began whipping out their umbrellas. We went into an underground tunnel that led back to the station, and I felt sad, but the tunnel emerged back out onto the street. My spirits rose. Everyone in my group opened their umbrellas as the rain had graduated from a drizzle to a light patter of rain. “You’re not going to use your umbrella?” my friend asked. “This is not good enough.” I replied. The rain increased as we walked, getting me gradually more and more wet. “Still not good enough,” I said to myself, loud enough for all to hear.
The rain started to thicken, the noise got louder, and I recognized a swell when I saw one. The rain started pouring, thick enough to see and loud enough to truly notice, and I unbuttoned my umbrella. “hmhmhmhmhmuahahaHAHAHAHAHAHA” I laughed maniacally, opening my umbrella in a flourish.
Us students parted ways with the teacher to go omiyage (gift) shopping, only to meet up with the professor again on the train, since shopping didn’t take too long. I read my book on the ride back and said goodbye to everyone as they transferred to a train that would go past Kyoto Station. I had no need to transfer since I was only going as far as Kyoto Station, and it was time to go home.
I headed home and spent a little time watching tv with my okaasan. Dinner was slightly depressing for me: it was just okaasan and I, and the tv program we were watching must not have been terribly interesting because okaasan asked me a bunch of questions. I did my best to answer and to make my own contributions to the conversation, but I had a lot of hiccups since my language is limited. It was the numerous hiccups that made me kind of depressed.
I went back up to my room and started to study in my depressed mood and thought a little. I thought about why I was depressed and the ensuing feelings about wanting to be able to talk thoroughly with someone and kind of wanting to be among lots of friends and not worrying about things like doing the right thing or breaking conventions or whatnot. Ultimately I reprimanded myself and told myself to suck it up. I mean, sure I’ve been making lots of mistakes when I talk to my host family and other Japanese people, but that’s part of learning, and having changes in your lifestyle and struggling with new things is part of life, and I’m sure to encounter these challenges again. The best thing I can do is find whatever ways I can to have fun and to learn what I can.
I switched between studying and trying to find a way to update the OS on my iPos so I could put a Japanese English dictionary on it. I found a way to do it, and thanks to my godly internet connection, I was able to do it much more quickly than would otherwise have been possible in America. I got through most of my studying, then discovered that it was around 11, so after preparing for bed, I feel asleep around 11:45, probably.
Today I woke up at 6, dutifully, ate, and headed to Imadegawa immediately, because this morning we had our placement test. It started at 9, so I got an hour or so to study the couple lessons’ worth of kanji I had missed last night. After half an hour, I realized that some of them I would never learn in time, so I left it at that and headed to the testing room.
Being sleepy, with no caffeine in my system, I did not feel like taking a test, but I tranned up (can I say that instead of manned up? Pointless gender role challenging!) and took the test. It started out with listening comprehension. I’m generally pretty good at it, in fact I’d say it’s one of my strengths, because even if I’m not familiar with the grammar being used, I can understand things based on a couple words and string together their meanings and guess at the question or statement that was made. This listening comprehension was different. It was basically 60 sentences from a tape, spoken rapid fire, like, a sentence in two or three seconds or less, and we had to fill in a missing hiragana character.
That section of the test was followed by the meatiest part, which was some multiple choice where we chose what best completed a sentence, writing kanji in hiragana, reading comprehension, and things like that. Ultimately I left about, half of the test blank, because they said not to guess if we didn’t know for most of the sections on the test. The last part was a composition, which went pretty well.
Despite the fact that I left half the test blank, and was the first to leave the room (not always a good sign), I left the room feeling good and ambitious. I mean, the test was meant to assess my abilities, and I completed the test as best I could. But more than, I was excited because no matter what class I am placed in, I’ll be learning things I need to learn, and I honestly can’t wait to learn more so I can get better.
After the test, some of us went to lunch at the cafeteria. I just want to say that tonkatsu is delicious, especially when it’s in curry. It’s one of my new favorite foods, because it’s so good. Lunch was followed by an excursion to Book Off.
Book Off is a used book/CD/DVD/game store, and it’s probably one of the best stores I’ve been to so far. We had to walk a little while to get there from Imadegawa, but it was well worth the trip. I spent like, 30-45 minutes geeking out at the Japanese games. Sadly they did not have Metal Wolf Chaos, a game I am intent on finding while here in Japan, but they did have quite a selection of DS games, and games for playstation, Nintendo 64, SNES, and Dreamcast. I was impressed.
I got what I consider to be quite a haul from the store. I walked out of Book Off with the following items: volume 1 of a manga called Hero Tales, which is Arakawa Sensei’s, of Fullmetal Alchemist fame, other manga series. The second item I walked out of the store with was an Ouendan game. Ouendan means cheerleader, I’m pretty sure, and it’s a rhythm game which I love because it’s hilarious. The reason I bought it was that on Thursday I discovered that despite the fact that I cannot change the laguage on my DS to Japanese, I can still play Japanese games! Hoorah! In a similar vein, I also walked out of the store with a copy of love plus.
Why would I do such a thing? Why would I walk out of the store with a game that leaves countless men convinced that a real girlfriend isn’t as good as the game? Why walk out of the store with a game that is currently married to a man? Because it’s fucking hilarious is why. And it was like, 20 bucks, a pretty good deal in my honest opinion. I cannot stress enough that this game is purely for the amusement factor and I am under no delusions as to whether a real girlfriend is better or not. Later I tried starting a new game of love plus, but I couldn’t read the second sentence that popped up…so there you go, no love plus for me…for now.
The final item that I walked out of the store with was, brace yourself, a copy of the Japanese version of Starfox 64, case and all. Ok, maybe not a collector’s item or anything, but that game kicked ass, and the Japanese box art is so cool. Plus there’s a boss on the back cover that I have never seen before in the English version of the game.
That was all I bought at the store, but I’m seriously considering going back to the store because they have a Famicon/NES on sale for 950 yen, I shit you not. I don’t know if it works, but it’s a fucking NES, and it’s like, 12 bucks. Come on, people, how awesome is that? It’s also is really good condition, or it looks like it. Some of you will probably scream at me to buy it, so I’m going back as soon as possible to buy it.
You can see why Book Off was such an adventure for me. We returned to the AKP office in time to go on our journey to the Natural Disaster Education center, or whatever it was called. Basically it’s a center which teaches you the basics of what to do in disasters, and it’s lots of fun.
We trained to Kyoto eki then took taxis to the center. There was an orientation then we started doing things in the center. The first thing my group did was go upstairs. A couple of us went into a room with one of those vehicles that moves around so it feels like you’re moving, but the vehicle is only jerking around, and were given 3D glasses. The video we watched was a simulation of a real disaster…except there was a robot. Also, a bookcase fell on us, we got set on fire, and huge chunks of concrete fell on us. Not to mention the vehicle that we were moving around in, the virtual one that is, crashed through a van’s canvas convering and eventually into a tree. So we would have died many, many times.
After the 3D ride, I played an arcade game with a professor where we were firefighters fighting a fire, and our weapons were hoses. It was really fun. After that we moved down to the second floor (we had been on the third), and saw a video explaining how we should always know our exit route in case of a fire, and what the proper procedure was. Then we got to go through a simulation fire, where cooking oil smoke (it smelled sweet, it was weird) got piped into a small maze and we had to navigate our way out. It was fun, but I walked right past a door that was supposedly on fire. If it had been a real fire I obviously wouldn’t have walked right next to a flaming door, but whatever, it was still fun.
After that simulation, we got to practice using fire extinguishers, which was tons of fun. There was a huge, waterproof, screen that would show a video of someone being dumb and causing a fire, then five of us would use fire extinguishers to try and extinguish the virtual flames, and somehow the screen would know where we were aiming with the hoses and if we were doing it right, the flames would die down. Mostly it was fun because we got to use fire extinguishers. After using them, I blew the invisible smoke from my hose and put down my fire extinguisher.
After the fire extinguishers, we went downstairs to watch a video, a somewhat pointless video, about Kyoto and its history of natural disasters and how people don’t expect one, but need to be prepared for one. It was hilarious because we were watching it in English, and the video ended with the announcer saying “Oh, looking at the time, I have to go home now,” and he sounded so sad when he said it.
The video was followed by a wind room where we got to experience what the fastest recorded winds in Kyoto have been. Only four at a time could go in; when it was my turn, I put on the goggles that were given to us to prevent stuff from going into our eyes, and let down my hair: since when I have ever backed down from a bad idea?
The wind started at 11 meters per second, which is pretty strong, then it went up to 23 meters per second or so, until it finally topped out at 32 meters per second, which is really strong. Most of the time my hair was flying in the wind behind me, but it would sometimes fly in front of my face, and I had to keep my mouth closed so it didn’t go in my mouth. I came out of the room and must have spent a good four or five minutes untangling my hair. Another AKPer got a photo of my hair in motion and she commented, astutely, that it looked like it would if I had been riding a stallion in the old west, hair flowing behind me.
The final room was the earthquake room, which simulated an earthquake of maximum magnitude 7 or so. We went in in groups of two or three and our objective was to get under the table when it started, wait until a lull, during which we were to turn off the fake heater, the fake stove, the fake water heater, and open the door (I don’t see the reasoning behind opening the door). It was fun, I guess, but it’s hard to accurately simulate an earthquake, I mean, the vibrations in a real earthquake are much quicker than in the simulation. I can speak from experience since I have experienced some smaller earthquakes (I realize now that when the earthquake simulator started around magnitude 2 or 3, that I should have shouted “I’ve SLEPT through bigger earthquakes than this!” because I have).
That was the last room, and afterwards (it was about 4:30 or so) we all headed back to Kyoto station and then to Imadegawa. Why head back at that time? Because we were supposed to hear about our Japanese class assignments by 5. The assignments had not been posted by the time we got back, so I talked to people, lounged etc. I ended up playing a little Ouendan and eventually the assignments came out.
Apparently there’s some sense of competition in that people want to know what class they’re in and whether it’s the “best” one, as in being the highest skill level. You could pay me to care less, but you’d be wasting your money because I already don’t care at all. I think it’s bullshit, because they’ve already told us that different classes focus on different things that the people have in common in terms of what they need to improve, so there is no “best” class. And even if there is, it’ll just be all the sweeter when I surpass them by the end of the year. I can see it now; I’ll be talking Japanese with them, I’ll whip out some fancy grammar and vocabulary, and they’ll be left speachless. “You just got outclassed by a ninensei (second year), bitch.”
Just kidding, and indulging the darker side of my fantasies. I seriously don’t care. I mean, I have only had one year of Japanese, so wherever they put me is where I need to be, and whatever they assign me, I’ll do. In fact, part of me hopes they’ll pile on a bunch of work so I can learn it and utilize it in conversation. I just want to get better, and I want to push myself to learn as much as possible.
Anyway, so yeah, I found out who I’ll be studying under and who my classmates are and such, then I headed outside to meet up with a friend who I said I’d hang out with that night, the same friend I went to lunch with on Thursday (damn, that was this same post that I talked about that. Looooooooong). First I tried calling my okaasan to let her know I wouldn’t be home for dinner, to no avail. We headed to Sanjo the shopping district.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but Sanjo is cool in that during the summer and early fall, before it gets cold, there are restaurants that have patios that look out on the kamogawa, the river that runs through Kyoto, and you can dine out there at night and it’s probably really pretty. I told my friend about this and we decided to try and do it. We got to Sanjo, found the Book Off there (our other mission while in Sanjo) and started looking for food.
All those places on the river? at least $30 for dinner, going up to $100 or more. We quickly decided against that, and my friend had the great idea to get food from a convenience store and eat down on the banks of the river. Ok, so the thing about convenience stores in Japan, unlike in America, where you don’t trust convenience store food as far as you can throw it, the food is very good. I mean, not stuff that you should eat terribly often, but it’s a good way to go if you’re low on time, on the go, whatever. I ended up getting some onigiri, some pan (bread), some dango, milk tea, and a nikuman (steamed meat bun).
We headed down to the bank of the river (it was dark by that point), where lots of people were eating and hanging out. we found a nice empty stretch of bank and sat down and ate. The nikuman was awesome. I love nikuman, they’re just so good. If you’ve ever had steamed pork buns at a dim sum place, you know how delicious they are. Well in Japan, nikuman are like that except it’s not barbecue pork, it’s just some kind of pork, but it’s so good, and convenience stores carry those steamed pork buns with the barbecue porn inside; I can’t wait. The salmon onigiri I got was delicious, the katsu onigiri (that’s what it said it was) was…interesting. The pan was a delicious dessert item, and by that point I was too full for the dango. It’s in my mini-fridge now, waiting to be devoured; tomorrow probably.
After the scenic dinner on the banks of the river, we headed to Book Off. My friend looked for some stuff, then we went up to the second floor where the CDs, DVDs, and games are kept. Oddly, despite the fact that the Sanjo Book Off is much bigger than the one we went to in the afternoon, its selection of gaming equipment and games was not impressive at all. I gave up and found my friend again. We looked at anime DVDs for a little, then departed without buying anything.
We headed home and split ways at Shijo station. I headed home, took a bath, then started writing this long fucking post.
The only general thing that I have to mention that I can think of is that Apple products seem more popular here than I thought they would be. Most people have iPods, and quite a few people seem to have iPhones; I know my oniisan does. I’ve even seen office workers with iPads.
Ok, I’m tired and I’m meeting people tomorrow to go to the Manga Museum, so I’m going to go to bed. Sleep, yayyyyyyyyyy!
-Shimon
