Well last night was definitely interesting. I had not gone to classes on Wednesday because of my cold, so I did briefly consider not going to the weekly gathering yesterday, but I felt fine so I decided to go – I was dressed warmly so it couldn’t get any worse, and I put away about 3 liters of tea, so def. had the fluids covered.
But that’s later. So yesterday I went to class as usual, despite having done none of my work, except what I had done for the Kyoto class on Tuesday afternoon – visiting the Houkoku Shrine, Mimizuka, and Teramachi. So I have a lot to catch up on tonight. Nick just mailed me asking ot hang out tonight, but I really have to work, because I’ll be at the onsen all weekend and god knows I won’t get anything done there. So I have three quizzes to study for, a 400 字 sakubun to write, and my 忘れられない食事sakubun to memorize. And that’s just for Japanese. Also need to catch up on two weeks of independent study and work for Reichert and Smith.
But that’s not yesterday. As I was saying, I went to my classes almost completely unprepared, which in Japanese isn’t such a big deal, but I literally had no idea what they were talking about and my head had started to hurt at the end of Smith’s class, so I just chilled in the back and listened while drinking the 1.5 liter bottle of tea I had bought. Trevor thought it would be awesome if I could finish it by the end of Kizuna, but I didnt manage until about 10. kizuna this week was more fun than usual. It was less crowded, for one and I met some really cool people. I talked with the other Bahai here, Ndimisu, who’s from S. Africa, and we’re going to go to devotions together for the Birth of the bAb next week – he’s supposed to send me the email with the info in it.
I also met a pretty cool 日本人の女- her name is Yumi, and she’s 24, and she goes to the 京大 public health school. She seems really fun – she’s from Okayama, where we went on our homestay, and we (and Eugene) talked about the ocean. Her English is pretty good, but she wants help with it – and she said she would help me with my 日本語。We exchanged keitai numbers, so hopefully we will go out sometime.
Ashley and I also met a guy named Kai – he spent some time in Britain studying – he’s a bio major. Seemed sweet enough, but he also seemed to apply all the common stereotypes to Americans. Like every Japanese person I have met, he was surprised by how much Japanese we knew, but it was the other things that we laughed about. We talked with him while we waited on Trevor to come back from walking Annika to her bus stop, and then we all went to “that place” – this ramen shop that serves cheap food and has a manga. Of course, Ashley, Trevor, and I were going back and forth like we always do, Ashley complaining about my supposedly incomprehensible speaking skills (in both languages), and insulting Trevor at every turn, and he and I with our usual responses of silence and some half-hearted, playful arguing, respectively. I have no idea how much we must have confused poor Kai – Americans are brutal to each other, so he was probably confused as to whether we are actually friends, I imagine.
“You’re so good with chopsticks! How long have you been in Japan?” he exclaimed.
“Four weeks,” I replied, slightly incredulous. “But I have been using chopsticks all my life.”
After dinner us gaijin headed toward the river – there weren’t many people as usual because lots of people had gone to see Emi, who’s a jazz singer, give a concert at a bar. It was apparently pretty awesome – Eugene let me watch a video of one of the songs, and Pink hat David was gushing about it, even tho he’s more of a hip hop person.
I finished my first bottle of tea around 10, and went to get another from Lawson’s. By that time everyone else had gotten back from the concert, and Ken wanted me to get him a beer, so I did. Then it was pretty much a normal Thursday night – chatting and such with everyone. It was getting kinda late, and Nick was wanting to go – the trains stop pretty early, so if we don’t leave about 11, I miss my connection at Tambabashi. Ashley had said something about it being okay for me to go with her earlier, so I checked again, and it was still cool, so Nick left by himself… he didn’t look like he had been having that much of a good time, but I was otherwise occupied with talking to people, so I just left him to his own devices.
It was getting later, and Eugene was pretty out of it – we went up to Lawson’s to use the bathroom, but they were closed for an hour, so we walked further down Sanjo and stopped at some random restaurant, the first place we could find that was open. When we got back, everyone was pretty much gone, except some of the guys who wanted Eugene to go with them to a bar, and David, who they were also trying to convince. The former didn’t look like he was going anywhere, and the latter wasn’t interested in the bar scene. We chatted for a bit while Ashley and Melanie cleaned up where we were, and then the four of us stood in front of Lawson’s, vaguely thinking we should go get food – Ashley always gets the munchies when she’s been drinking. Eugene wanted to go get his bike and leave, but Ashley and I silently looked at each other, and we got him to come with us, singing Red Hot Chili Peppers and dancing all the way down Teramachi. At one point he jumped on the back of a delivery truck, and Ashley told me to not let him do that anymore, since she was taking care of Melanie – as if I had any control over him. We got to the food place – it was the first time I had been to one like this. There’s a vending machine where you place your order, and then they bring it to your table. I wasn’t feeling well for some reason, so I didn’t get anything.
“You should eat, something, Siobhain. The food will absorb the alcohol,” she advised. I looked at her quizzically – I was the only one there who wasn’t drunk. I ended up eating some of Eugene’s food. We walked outside, and Melanie, who hadn’t eaten anything recently, threw up all over the sidewalk, and afterwards seemed fairly sober. Eugene threw up too, but still seemed rather out of it. Ashley was in a hurry to take Melanie home, so I said I would take Eugene back to his place and then go to Ashley’s from there. I felt like walking anyway – I was slightly restless. We got there pretty much without incident, and talked for a bit, listening to music and such. Even though I had been restless before, I became extremely tired, and depressed. I didn’t feel like walking all the way to Ashley’s – it was 2:30 in the morning, and the trains started at 5 anyway, so I asked if I could just chill there for a few hours until I could leave. It was fine, but he insisted I sleep on his bed, and I couldn’t persuade him otherwise, so I just let it be, and he curled up on the floor. I woke up around 4:30, and he had pulled the cover off onto the floor. I got up to get some water and realized that it was freezing; it seemed stupid to make him stay on the floor, so I told him to get in the bed, and, being half-asleep, he didn’t protest. It occurred to me that, being shy as he is, he would probably be hatsukashii when he woke up, but I figured it would be better than either of us freezing on the floor. I curled up on the edge of the bed, but somehow ended up squished against the wall. -shrugs- who cares, I was warm.
I slept longer than I intended, so I left about 8:30. Eugene woke up, and before I left we talked a little bit. Aside from being a bit confused and asking me how long he had been in the bed, he seemed fine. I had to rush back home, change clothes, and get back to Nishiki Ichiba, where I was meeting Irene and Adam to finish up work on our presentation. After we had finished bothering the poor people in the okashi shop we had chosen to work on, it was time to meet the other people in the Kyoto class, to go out to the Lake Biwa Sagawa Museum.
It was a llloooonnnggg train ride – it took about an hour, and we had to switch trains. When we tried to though, the man told us we had gotten off at the wrong stop and that we had to pay 160 yen to get off there. At first we had been just walking through, but Fabian stopped to ask the attendant what was wrong, and as Ken later commented, were it not for his mad Japanese skillz we could have probably just gaijin-smashed and walked right through without paying the fee. Other than that the ride was uneventful – we got off the trains, got on a taxi, and went to the museum, though we were squeezed a bit because there were 5 of us in one cab.
The museum was pretty cool, actually. We went for the Kyoto class, to this special museum at Lake Biwa (which was pretty gorgeous) to see a raku exhibit by the current raku master, who is 16th in the line, but who is supposed to be not very good.
I enjoyed the museum – I really liked the architecture. It was a gray concrete building, but made to look like wood, with a reflecting pool around it, which contained bronze statues done by one of the artists featured in the museum. The whole place was quiet and textured, and I really enjoyed simply running my hands over the walls. The other people in my group weren’t as impressed. We toured the chaashuu (tea house), which I actually really enjoyed, except for the tour guide who insisted on talking through the whole place. It sounds so weird, but I really just wanted to stay there and run my fingers over the entire building…
Except for pulling the muscle in my foot while trying to sit seiza (and doubling over in pain in front of everyone, but I think only a few people noticed), and the ridiculous scroll (it was a pencil drawing – a black area scribbled thickly, with a white space in the middle, that had a red light shone on it) that was hanging in the alcove, I enjoyed the tea house – it looked out on the reflecting pool, planted with marsh grass, and surrounded by rocks. There was glass that separated it, but so clean that I had to look very closely to make sure it was actually there. The walls were the same concrete, ad of course the floor was tatami, so it gave the impression f being a cool, smooth, quiet place. I’m no expert on tea rooms, but most people seemed to agree that it was not a good one. Still, it was a beautiful room, and I would definitely live in it.
Next up, we went to see the pottery itself. It was very gorgeous, but I’m not sure about drinking tea out of it, nor paying that amount of money for a pot, not matter how beautiful it is. They were still pretty awesome to look at though. We had to get back to the Kaikan for the lecture, so we rushed through the other artists, who I didn’t like as much anyway, although I did buy a postcard for Julie-chan with a camel on it. I still need to send that to her – and Matthew’s birthday present and Reinders’ Hello Kitty Notebook…
I got to talk with Ken a bit on the way back – he’s very interesting, but I don’t actually get to talk to him that often. Fabian fell asleep on the train – he was really exhausted, and so we talked about him, and how sweet he is, if so very innocent, despite that he’s 22.
“Would you want to be like him again?” I asked Ken. He shrugged, then thought about it and shook his head with a laugh. “I’ve enjoyed the path to corruption, and I’ve gone too far down it to go back.”
A little later, I mused to him, 「けんちゃんはいつも遠いね？話しにくいだなあ…」He laughed a bit, “I know, I know. We’ll talk more, sometime.”
We were late for Donald Richie’s lecture – not just late, but pretty much missed the entire thing except for the question part, but that was interesting. They had coke in glass bottles at the reception afterwards – which was awesome, and I explained to Nick the differences in taste between various bottling techniques. I got the feeling he thought I was a little crazy, cause he smiled when I was lecturing, but he still seemed interested. -shrugs- Wine buffs do the same thing. For some reason I was feeling restless again, but I had to get home to do work before the onsen trip the next morning, and I was also extremely tired, since I hadn’t slept the few nights before.
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