Hey guys.  This is just a quick post, since I really only have one thing in mind.

When I got to my host family’s house, one of the first things I did was take a bath.  I mean, I unpacked stuff, figured out the internet, etc, but I had to take a bath before going to bed, so that’s what I did, after my otousan had explained a couple of things to me.

In the sentou I had been to during orientation, we were given tiny towels, which we used as washcloths, and I figured that I’d be doing a similar thing at home.  However, my otousan never mentioned any such thing, so when I first used the ofuro at home, I was a bit confused.  Shampoo and conditioner were easy, but when it came to soaping, I didn’t know what to do.  I saw something that looked absorbant and like something that you would use to clean your body, so I put some soap on it and used it.

I kept on using this thing with no complaint from my host parents, who didn’t seem to notice that anything was up, didn’t ask me not to use it, etc.  Cut to…two weeks ago.  I got home before anyone else did, so I was up in my room doing stuff.  My imouto gets back so I go downstairs to do homework in her company.  She began telling me what I should do if I’m the first one home and no one else had returned by 5 or 5:30.  She told me to wash out the bathtub a little and start the ofuro, and to measure out some rice and how to prepare it and get it cooking (it’s pretty simple since there’s the automatic cooker.  I really want to bring one home, because the rice here is just so much better than in America).

To get the rice cooking, I had to wash out the pot that we put the rice in, and my imouto was showing everything to me as she explained it.  So, when she washed out the pot for the rice, she explained in Japanese (I didn’t really know the vocabulary, I could just tell by her actions) that occasionally it would require a little scrubbing.  So what would you use to clean out a pot or pan or dish?  A sponge, of course.  So, she pulls out the thing I’ve been using for the past two months to clean myself.  Before you recoil in horror, she was using a different sponge from the one that’s kept in the ofuro, but it looked exactly the same, aside from the color.

So, yes, I used a sponge to clean myself for the first two months of my stay in Japan.

Yup.

Oh, and in other news, those deoderant wipes?  Totally don’t work.  My armpits stank quite a bit by the end of the day.  So, I have a choice of useless deoderant, or deoderant that makes me wonder if I’m a masochist.  Thanks, Japan.

Oh yes, one final interesting tidbit is about my day today.  There was a thanksgiving party which was fun.  I was forced to carve one of the what-I-suspected-were-chickens-and-not-turkeys, which people said I did a good job of, probably thanks to all those dinners at my friend’s house and watching his dad carve up a chicken in front of me.  Also in the tradition of Thanksgiving, I overate.  If there had been Kahlua Milk I totally would have drunk it, because that shit is delicious, but since the party took place on campus we weren’t allowed to have alcohol.  They probably only would have had beer and sake, which is pretty gross, in my honest opinion.

Anyway, this was not the most interesting part of my day.  The most interesting part was accidentally trespassing in someone’s house.  I decided to walk around an area of Kyoto that I hadn’t been to much: the area north of Imadegawa.  I took the subway up to a stop that’s right in front of botanical garden, but refrained from going in, and instead walked over to the Kamogawa and kept going.  Mostly it was houses and stuff, but it was fun to explore; I hadn’t done it in a while.

After an hour and a half or so of walking I made it to what I thought was a shrine on a hill, because there were stone steps surrounded by trees and such.  So I went up the stairs and saw what looked like a small entrance to a temple, a suspicion which was confirmed in my mind when I saw a statue of Jizo outside the entrance (Jizo is a bodhisattva).  I walked through the entrance into small courtyard with a bunch of shrubberies, a cordoned path, and a small building which I thought was probably a lecture hall or a prayer hall or meditation hall or something.  I walked on the cordoned path and into a different area of the temple.  As I walked I saw that some odd buildings were part of the temple.  They didn’t look like temple buildings.  I walked around them a little, then I noticed a gate.  Not like, a temple gate, I mean a residential gate.  Yup, I was trespassing on someone’s property.

I quietly went back the way I came and left without anyone seeming to notice me, and went on my way.  In my defense, they had left what appeared to be a temple entrance wide open, with no indication that it was private property.  Maybe they owned a business or something and had the door open for customers; I don’t know.  Well, it makes for an interesting story, doesn’t it?

With that, I think I’m gonna go to bed.  Maybe I’ll read this Stieg Larsson book.  Thank god someone in AKP has the second book with them; I only have the first and third.

~Shimon