Whoops I haven't made a post in a couple of days. So I guess this one had better be extra long to make up for it. Well, on Friday I got up and made it to campus for the homestay meeting just in time. The guy who's been giving the meetings is soo long-winded, I can't stand it. He just goes on and on and on about every little thing and makes me want to scream. But in any case, I did learn some important information about what you should expect from your host family and what your host family should expect from you. There are little things, like you can't put anything wet on tatami mats, because they'll rot. And there are the bigger things, like not taking showers in the morning - I can't do that!! I need my morning shower to wake me up. I hope they let me take showers in the morning instead of baths at night. But we'll see. I have yet to meet my family - I'll be meeting them in about two hours, and I am excited.
But I am not looking forward to the commute - 90 mins each day, an hour walking and half an hour on the bus. Sam and Haley are talking about getting bikes, but that scares me more. I really don't want to have to deal with bike laws, learning different traffic rules, etc. Riding a bike here can be scary - there's poles sticking up from the sidewalk, little room on the edge of the road, and that whole driving-on-the-other-side thing that would take a lot of getting used to. I'm not nearly confident enough to be able to do that. So, long commute, here we come.
Continuing on - after the homestay meeting, we went on the school-sponsored trip to Kyoto. They had us break up into small groups of 6 or 7. I went with Haley, Sam and her boyfriend Jake, a girl named Kate, and another guy whose name I can't remember. We had a student who had been at Kansai Gaidai before show us around. He showed us how to use the bus system to get from the university to the train station, and then we took a train to Kyoto. Bus is 220 yen and the train to Kyoto was 340 yen. Not too bad. But without our guides, we would have no idea where to get off in order to come out at the right place. I didn't even really know where we were going, but they decided to take us to Tourist Hotspot #1: Kyomizudera, or Temple of the Pure Water. But walking there was tough. We went thru Gion, the geisha district, but of course failed to see any geisha. It was kinda dead actually. Must have been the time of day. But i've been there before, when I went to Japan 3 years ago, and so it wasn't new to me. But we continued on, passing many smaller temples on the way. One of them had a big Buddha in it, and I managed to snap a picture. Finally we made it to Kyomizudera. I took some video, mostly of the walk up to get to the place.
It's on a hill, and that means stairs. MANY stairs. I felt like i was doing a marathon. I suppose its good for me, but my feet felt like they were going to fall off. At teh top, you come to the multiple spires of the Chinese-style construction of most Buddhist temples. It's a pretty big, impressive place - very old, wooden, got lots of statues and bells and antique-y things.
We wandered around, but it was getting cold and dark, so we began our long descent back to the train station. On the way I bought some mochi- Kyoto style, triangular. But i was tired and cold and hungry and not much interested in staying around Kyoto.
You may be able to tell that I was not very impressed. The problem is, when I was here 3 years ago I saw all that stuff - each day on the tour we managed to see at least three places of historical interest. I saw so many temples that I would be glad to never see another one again. But here I am, seeing temples again, and being in some of the exact same spots I was before. This stuff is no longer exciting to me. Everyone else may have been excited, but I was just ho-hum. I'll be far more excited when I find myself in Akihabara or Harajuku or DenDen town in Osaka. That's the Japan I love - the modern, fast-paced center of style and technology. Not the old Japan of temples and nature. Others will of course disagree with me, and that's their perogative.
We took the train back to Hirakata-shi and ate at a place near the station. It was all you can eat nabe (hot pot) for 15 bucks, which so far is the steepest price i've paid for a meal in Japan. But, its all you can eat. Eating nabe is also an experience. There's an electrice stove in the middle of the table, upon which the waitresses put a bowl filled with water. Then they come out with plates of vegetables, raw meat, dumplings, whatever you want. You throw it all in the pot, and wait till the water gets hot and it cooks. Then, with chopsticks or a strainer, you fish out what you want and put it in your small individual bowl. There's all kinds of sauces to put on it for flavoring as well. It's all you can eat, so you just keep pressing the call button and ordering more stuff to dump in. Finally we finished and got on the bus and went home.
Both Haley and Sam went to their host families on Saturday, so I had no one to hang out with and nothing to do. I was very tired from Kyoto and wanted, above all, NOT to walk anywhere. But, when you've got to buy your own food, you have to go somewhere. I'm so used to having a cafeteria two steps away, or at least some food in my room that I can eat when I don't want to go anywhere. But here I have not that luxury. So at around 5 pm I roused myself and went out the door in search of food. I found a small grocery store about 10 mins walk from the dorm. It surprised me how busy it was at that time - do Japanese people wait till after dark to do their shopping? But I took my time in looking around, for there was many things to look at.
Not knowing what half the stuff is puts a damper on things, but there are some things that I readily recognized. I was able to get ready-made sushi and tempura for under 500 yen, and I consider that splurging. I wanted something other than instant noodles, which I've been having all week. But you can get one, a whole dinner's worth, for only a dollar. There are also many snacks that you can get for a dollar. They have entire sections of the store which are like a tiny dollar-store. Except here the magic price is 105 yen - that's 5 yen for tax. And considering that the dollar is worth ~120 yen, its' a deal. I think I've figured it out - Japan truly is expensive. However, you can eat cheap if you want to. If you can survive on instant food and pre-packaged snacks, you can save a lot of bucks. However, if you want to do your own homecooking, you've got to buy raw veggies, fruits, meat and eggs, and those are VERY expensive. Melons can go for ~$15 apiece here, and as to everything else - if you add one or two dollars to the american price for produce, you'll get the Japanese price. So, I am lucky so far. I won't be cooking anything, and soon I'll be getting breakfasts and dinners for free from my host family.
I went back along the road, avoiding bikes and mopeds and cars along the way. Its very awkward, you know, trying to pick a path among so many moving things. Did you know there's a cultural taboo against eating or drinking while you walk? It's getting a lot more lenient, but still its strange. I went back to my room and ate while marathoning Kamisama Kizoku (anime) and finishing it too. This morning I moved out of the room while my roommates were still sleeping. Had to move all my suitcases down by myself, as well as all the bedding to be cleaned. Then I watched Anpanman for an hour (equate it to Bugs Bunny). Now I'm just waiting to meet my host family. That'll be an adventure in of itself.
Well, goodbye dorm room. Goodbye heated toilet seats and showers in which you have to push a button every 10 seconds to make the water come out. I'll miss you - or maybe I won't, depending on what my host family's house is like. More information as events warrant.
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