May 11th is Great
I broke my habit! Just need to copy it into the notebook now...
May 11, 2006 (Thursday); Internet room, Fukuyama House, Kyoto, Japan.
Hah! I broke my habit. Now I just need to keep it up. And copy all of this into my cute little notebook - I want to bring it around with me again! (But can’t, since I want to leave enough space for all of this stuff.)
Last night I ended up doing about, oh, 116 kanji. Granted, some of them were ones I already knew, but Haruyo is incredibly nice and makes a copy of my article and writes the furigana for it. So then I just look up the translation and have hope. I need to bother Travis to have him help me tinker with my dictionary so I can look up kanji properly. It’s rather hard to do when everything is in Japanese.
We ate Tonkatsu! (What I was calling Katsudon before, durst my abysmal memory.) It was at my request and oh man. So good. I turned around my chopsticks when I went to grab more - this amused Shizuka a lot, since we’d all been grabbing things with our chopsticks in the normal direction. And we talked about Kansai-ben. Honma is “hontou” (“Really/truly”) and they didn’t know where Kero-chan’s (from CCS) “Kononachiwa” comes from. I’m still determined to find out at some point.
Said the prayer this morning in Japanese and didn’t totally slaughter it, though I think I asked to be blessed with a teacher…oh well. After that went and bought my newspaper for today’s homework - Kyoto shimbun. Got a chocolate custardy bread thing. So good. …and there’s still some left. *goes to snatch up the rest* We all managed to get through the rest of today’s article (did first half yesterday, second half today) and understood most of it, though I read the slowest. But I could read it! Sorta…had to reference all the furigana, but that’s better than before when I couldn’t read any of it. Progress is progress, ne? And we have a quiz tomorrow - but hopefully I should be okay. I do have very little homework and a lot of my afternoon left still.
Oshima-sensei had us talk about different things we’d noticed that are different in Japan. I commented about how the grandparents (they aren’t members) are always pouring their sake (alcohol, not salmon) from the huge bottle into a kettle thing and then into the cup. Had the hardest time explaining it and finally defaulted to drawing on the white board. We ranged from that to how small the toilet paper perforations are and how little kids are amazingly hard to understand. And then we talked about furos for a while - some people are too scared to use them, others love them. I’m more towards the loving side, though I’m too much of a wuss to stay in very long. My limbs start to feel funny…
Since NHK’s schedule changed on us, we’re going to carve the peppers tomorrow so today we had the afternoon off. We need to go see more sites, though, so we headed off in two groups (bus group and bike group) to Rokuanji - the rock garden place. It’s really a lot smaller than you’d think, trust me. The bike ride there was simple enough, it was just really far away. Probably only took a half hour, but there were hills. And my legs are still weak and tired from the other excessive rides. So I paused a few times, waited for Lauren to catch up (she had the map) and wished Meghan hadn’t rushed ahead of us. But I got there, with some help.
I ended up by myself and had to ask for directions - ended up doing it twice. First the road was curving - Lauren had said I’d need to turn right when we couldn’t go straight anymore and so I worried - and the school kids (12-14 years old?) misheard me at first, pulled out a book with maps in it and then an older woman helped out. She pointed me in the right way and I thanked them all. To get there, I had to pass Kinkakuji’s entrance and there’s a smallish hill with very small walkways on both sides of the road up to it, so I walked my bike up it. I wasn’t sure which way I was supposed to go afterwards, so I asked a guy on the way up and he directed me further (involving a long curvy road to the left and passing two lights).
There was a place to cross, but a bus was covering that so I was waiting to go and then I heard something peculiar. “Herro” or something like that. So I turn around and find about six or seven school boys in uniform. Not only that, but they were in the uniform I think is gorgeous, with the stiff raised collar. (Though I really wish I’d gotten a picture with them…) I said hello back, then they kept trying to speak in English to me. I switched to Japanese and asked where they were going, their ages (14). They said my Japanese was good (everyone does, but I still doubt) and were amazed that I’d been studying it for six years, then I ended up following them and crossing the other direction (it was easier to go that way, the bus wasn’t going much of anywhere). They said they were going to Kinkakuji and then Rokuanji afterwards - said maybe they’d see me there. I agreed and headed off again.
Turns out the map didn’t show a lot of the stop lights and it was a lot longer than I thought it was, so I followed street signs, worried, and eventually Lauren caught up. (I got stuck on a side without a good cross walk and had to back track.) We walked our bikes a little - she was exhausted - and then took the downhill stretch to finish it off. Got to Rokuanji, found Meghan who had been waiting for about ten minutes and then found the rest of the group after deliberating over whether the bus group was there or not. They got there a little later and then we headed in. We kept splitting up into different groups, I forgot to take off the slippers after using the Western style bathroom there, and it was generally good. This one Japanese man kept talking to us in English and while his accent was definitely there, he really was very understandable, shook our hands and all. There was a dispenser with little pins of different places that only cost 100 yen each and Travis said “This is worse than a slot machine”, to which I replied “But at least you get something out of it.”. I got about six, and Lauren gave me one that she had gotten a duplicate of.
Lauren, Julie, Travis, Andy and I ended up together for a lot of it and it turned into a “Lauren, Julie, and bel/bobo Photo Shoot Exclusive”. I jokingly said “Up Close and Personal”, which turned it into a chat about how we’re all corrupted and say things that sound very, very wrong. We agreed to exchange pictures (though I’m wondering how chaotic this event will turn out to be) and then found everyone again. They were going to go to an electronic store to get dictionaries and power plug converters, but I didn’t need that and I didn’t want my bike ride to be any longer, so I headed home by myself. Managed it without any help this time and indulged myself with giggling about how amused I was with the people I’d talked to today.
Got home and showered - Haruyo always offer if I look tired/sweaty or say I’m hot and who am I turn down getting grid of my sweat? - and then came up here to type this up. So now I need to copy over my journal, read a supplement article for this week, read the TV listings and study for the quiz tomorrow. Then it’ll be Friday. And we’re eating Yakisoba tonight.
Tsuba would be jealous of me.
Lots of love,
bel/bobo
And I forgot to mention another discussion at Rokuanji -- Julie recognized a maple leaf thing which turned into how it was actually marijuana and that was how temples funded their upkeep.
...and if that doesn't make you read the above part, I don't know what will.
May 11, 2006 (Thursday); Internet room, Fukuyama House, Kyoto, Japan.
Hah! I broke my habit. Now I just need to keep it up. And copy all of this into my cute little notebook - I want to bring it around with me again! (But can’t, since I want to leave enough space for all of this stuff.)
Last night I ended up doing about, oh, 116 kanji. Granted, some of them were ones I already knew, but Haruyo is incredibly nice and makes a copy of my article and writes the furigana for it. So then I just look up the translation and have hope. I need to bother Travis to have him help me tinker with my dictionary so I can look up kanji properly. It’s rather hard to do when everything is in Japanese.
We ate Tonkatsu! (What I was calling Katsudon before, durst my abysmal memory.) It was at my request and oh man. So good. I turned around my chopsticks when I went to grab more - this amused Shizuka a lot, since we’d all been grabbing things with our chopsticks in the normal direction. And we talked about Kansai-ben. Honma is “hontou” (“Really/truly”) and they didn’t know where Kero-chan’s (from CCS) “Kononachiwa” comes from. I’m still determined to find out at some point.
Said the prayer this morning in Japanese and didn’t totally slaughter it, though I think I asked to be blessed with a teacher…oh well. After that went and bought my newspaper for today’s homework - Kyoto shimbun. Got a chocolate custardy bread thing. So good. …and there’s still some left. *goes to snatch up the rest* We all managed to get through the rest of today’s article (did first half yesterday, second half today) and understood most of it, though I read the slowest. But I could read it! Sorta…had to reference all the furigana, but that’s better than before when I couldn’t read any of it. Progress is progress, ne? And we have a quiz tomorrow - but hopefully I should be okay. I do have very little homework and a lot of my afternoon left still.
Oshima-sensei had us talk about different things we’d noticed that are different in Japan. I commented about how the grandparents (they aren’t members) are always pouring their sake (alcohol, not salmon) from the huge bottle into a kettle thing and then into the cup. Had the hardest time explaining it and finally defaulted to drawing on the white board. We ranged from that to how small the toilet paper perforations are and how little kids are amazingly hard to understand. And then we talked about furos for a while - some people are too scared to use them, others love them. I’m more towards the loving side, though I’m too much of a wuss to stay in very long. My limbs start to feel funny…
Since NHK’s schedule changed on us, we’re going to carve the peppers tomorrow so today we had the afternoon off. We need to go see more sites, though, so we headed off in two groups (bus group and bike group) to Rokuanji - the rock garden place. It’s really a lot smaller than you’d think, trust me. The bike ride there was simple enough, it was just really far away. Probably only took a half hour, but there were hills. And my legs are still weak and tired from the other excessive rides. So I paused a few times, waited for Lauren to catch up (she had the map) and wished Meghan hadn’t rushed ahead of us. But I got there, with some help.
I ended up by myself and had to ask for directions - ended up doing it twice. First the road was curving - Lauren had said I’d need to turn right when we couldn’t go straight anymore and so I worried - and the school kids (12-14 years old?) misheard me at first, pulled out a book with maps in it and then an older woman helped out. She pointed me in the right way and I thanked them all. To get there, I had to pass Kinkakuji’s entrance and there’s a smallish hill with very small walkways on both sides of the road up to it, so I walked my bike up it. I wasn’t sure which way I was supposed to go afterwards, so I asked a guy on the way up and he directed me further (involving a long curvy road to the left and passing two lights).
There was a place to cross, but a bus was covering that so I was waiting to go and then I heard something peculiar. “Herro” or something like that. So I turn around and find about six or seven school boys in uniform. Not only that, but they were in the uniform I think is gorgeous, with the stiff raised collar. (Though I really wish I’d gotten a picture with them…) I said hello back, then they kept trying to speak in English to me. I switched to Japanese and asked where they were going, their ages (14). They said my Japanese was good (everyone does, but I still doubt) and were amazed that I’d been studying it for six years, then I ended up following them and crossing the other direction (it was easier to go that way, the bus wasn’t going much of anywhere). They said they were going to Kinkakuji and then Rokuanji afterwards - said maybe they’d see me there. I agreed and headed off again.
Turns out the map didn’t show a lot of the stop lights and it was a lot longer than I thought it was, so I followed street signs, worried, and eventually Lauren caught up. (I got stuck on a side without a good cross walk and had to back track.) We walked our bikes a little - she was exhausted - and then took the downhill stretch to finish it off. Got to Rokuanji, found Meghan who had been waiting for about ten minutes and then found the rest of the group after deliberating over whether the bus group was there or not. They got there a little later and then we headed in. We kept splitting up into different groups, I forgot to take off the slippers after using the Western style bathroom there, and it was generally good. This one Japanese man kept talking to us in English and while his accent was definitely there, he really was very understandable, shook our hands and all. There was a dispenser with little pins of different places that only cost 100 yen each and Travis said “This is worse than a slot machine”, to which I replied “But at least you get something out of it.”. I got about six, and Lauren gave me one that she had gotten a duplicate of.
Lauren, Julie, Travis, Andy and I ended up together for a lot of it and it turned into a “Lauren, Julie, and bel/bobo Photo Shoot Exclusive”. I jokingly said “Up Close and Personal”, which turned it into a chat about how we’re all corrupted and say things that sound very, very wrong. We agreed to exchange pictures (though I’m wondering how chaotic this event will turn out to be) and then found everyone again. They were going to go to an electronic store to get dictionaries and power plug converters, but I didn’t need that and I didn’t want my bike ride to be any longer, so I headed home by myself. Managed it without any help this time and indulged myself with giggling about how amused I was with the people I’d talked to today.
Got home and showered - Haruyo always offer if I look tired/sweaty or say I’m hot and who am I turn down getting grid of my sweat? - and then came up here to type this up. So now I need to copy over my journal, read a supplement article for this week, read the TV listings and study for the quiz tomorrow. Then it’ll be Friday. And we’re eating Yakisoba tonight.
Tsuba would be jealous of me.
Lots of love,
bel/bobo
And I forgot to mention another discussion at Rokuanji -- Julie recognized a maple leaf thing which turned into how it was actually marijuana and that was how temples funded their upkeep.
...and if that doesn't make you read the above part, I don't know what will.