Back in Kyoto

Sorry I once again failed to update for several days. I’ve been busy having lots of fun, as usual. I won’t be able to update for a couple of days again because I was just invited today on a two-night trip to Kumano with Kimura-san, the cool guy who I met randomly at Amherst several years ago and who lent me my shamisen. I don’t know exactly what the plan is, except that we’ll bring my shamisen and his sanshin and we’ll jam, and I’m sure whatever else we’ll do will be fun because he’s a really cool guy. Unfortunately, it means I’ll have to leave straight after Sawa and I try on our Japanese-style wedding clothes tomorrow and it will be kind of a hurried goodbye when she might not be back in a month if her interview goes well. However, that’s what it is, and we’ve spent so much time together these last few weeks it’s not too bad.

Anyway, here’s a day-by-day update of the last few days:

8/1
Sawa and I went on a day trip to Kamakura, a former military capital during the feudal period before the Shoguns unified Japan. It was good that we waited to go, because the weather the day before was not great, but it was amazingly warm the day we went. We went for a hike in the hills (the first I’ve been on for quite a while) and it was warm enough to just wear a T-shirt.

In addition to the hike, we saw the big, famous Buddha

and went to the big shrine. It was a very interesting blend of commercialism and tradition, encapsulated well in this vending machine where you can buy omikuji (fortunes for the new year)

That night, Sawa and I made dinner after many days of being spoiled by Sawa’s mum’s great cooking and being taken out to delicious dinners. We made our own Italian specialties: my eggplant & mozzarella pasta, Sawa’s garlic bread and my Caesar salad. They all turned out pretty well (especially the Caesar salad).

That night we took the night bus back to Kyoto for the first time. We were a little worried about it’s being sketchy, but the sketchiest thing about it was trying to find it: there’s a big not at all well-marked area with lots of buses randomly parked and it’s hard to figure out what’s going on. Also, the toilet in the bus was so small I had to bend almost in half and I was pretty much wrapped up one wall and against the ceiling while I used it. Oh, and the heater was on ridiculously hot for some reason. Other than that, though, it was quite nice, and it was about 3 times cheaper than taking the bullet train. It would be especially useful for people traveling, because it simultaneously functions as transport and a night’s accommodation.

9/1:
After arriving back in Kyoto at 6am in the morning, we went back to sleep for a few hours, woke up and had a nice latte from our espresso machine for the first time in about two weeks. It was so sweet.

The final ryousei, Rambo, had returned from Canada a couple of days before, and I made him some coffee too and we chatted and I went with him to this cool ethnic instrument shop on Teramachi douri. He seems like a great guy, and I was very glad I was able to spend a lot of time with him when I first met him, because I felt a little bad when I didn’t spend so much time with the ryousei when I first arrived in Kyoto. Later that evening, Andre Deckrow also happened to randomly be in Kyoto, so he, Rambo, me and this other former Amherst House student Chinkovsky (don’t ask about all the weird nicknames…) all went to a café and chatted.

Afterwards, I finally graded my students’ Christmas raps (very cute) and got some good sleep (I’m trying to start the year off well and have a decent bedtime like I’ve been meaning to do. I want to get in the habit of sleeping around midnight and most importantly, using my alarm clock as a safety device and trying to just wake up naturally if possible.)

10/1:
We had our first English club meeting of the new year. Sadly, there were only me, Sawa and the two others who are always there (Takada-san and Fukushima-san). I think most of the others might not have remembered it was on, because I don’t think anyone sent out any emails… oh well, it was still fun.

Afterwards, we went to the wedding place to meet with the planner person and discuss lots of details. So many details! Honestly, I really don’t care that much about a lot of the small details, but fortunately Sawa does and she’s taking care of most of that stuff, while I’m going to worry about our American wedding celebration stuff, which is good, I think.

The other day, Junpei mentioned this cool photography exhibit of the “Best of the World Heritage Sites.” Since Sawa and I both would like to see lots of cool places in the world, we went to Osaka to check it out. It was really really cool, although I wouldn’t have gotten much out of it if Sawa wasn’t there to translate the captions and explain what was cool about all the places.

Afterwards we had delicious but overpriced drinks from a café in the department store and then met up with Reiko for Okonomiyaki dinner. Oh yeah, on the way out there I suddenly got a hankering for Haagen-Dazs and we had some to tied us over until dinner, but then after dinner Reiko suggested we go to Haagen-Dazs for dessert and I gladly had my second Haagen-Dazs of the day. The other day, Sawa’s friend Hiromi told us of what’s an apparently new word among Japanese youth: “hageru,” meaning “to eat Haagen-Dazs” (“hage” from “Haagen-Dazs” and “ru” being a usual verb ending). I think it’s a wonderful word, except that it also means “to become bald,”” which could be awkward if people get confused.

11/1:
Today was a pretty usual Friday. I taught my first class after the break. It was also my second to last class. Since for the final class I’m having them all present a short essay out loud (from memory), we spent today reviewing all the stuff we’ve done in the semester and showing them how I want them to try to frame their essay. I’m having them explain which movie they felt best used music to enhance the rest of the movie, and compare that with the ways at least one other movie used it. I’m not sure how well they’ll be able to do, because it’s kind of complicated, especially in a language they can’t speak that well, but they all seemed to be positive about it, kind of like “wow, that seems hard, but I think that from everything we’ve done so far I might be able to do it”, not “wow, that’s way too hard, what are you thinking, assigning us that?”. I guess we’ll see next week. Incidentally, since I didn’t give them any homework over the break (I hate it when professors give homework over breaks! It’s not a break if you have homework to do!) I don’t have to grade anything this week. Yes, everybody wins!

Apparently, my usual 1.5hr of peer mentoring isn’t needed during these last two weeks of classes, so I left early. Since Sawa’s heading back to Yokohama tomorrow, we decided to have a nabe party tonight, and I got back just in time to help Sawa with the shopping and preparations for that. We also made takoyaki (fried octopus balls). Here’s me chopping up an octopus.

It was really delicious and it was good fun to eat with everyone.

Having Rambo back now it feels like we’ve got a good critical mass and things have been very fun. After dinner we taught them how to play Celebrity, a great game Sawa and I loved back at Amherst. It worked very well. My team lost, so we had to do a “batsu geemu” (punishment) and we had to make a up a skit and it was all good fun.

There you have it. Now, I’m off to sleep.