Today I made myself some breakfast. I woke up with a headcold and I don't have any tea, so teriyaki noodles was the next best thing. The teriyaki sauce I bought at the kyu-kyu shoppu (dollar store) ended up being really good. The kyu-kyu shoppu actually has good food. Produce! For 99yen! Amazing! (Actually the sprouts were 39yen. That's like 30 cents!) My wonderful pan was less than $3 and I was very excited to try it out. While this is only the first time I've used it, I can tell that it will last a long time. Also, you can't tell from the picture, but it's magenta. I have a magenta frying pan (and matching pot). While I'm talking money, and I may have mentioned this about 80 times by now, but I have hardly spent any money, considering the reputation of Japan as impossibly expensive. I came here with 30,000 yen in my pocket (about $275) and I still have 8,500 ($75-80)and some change. This is after five days of eating, buying a bike and stocking up on necessities. The rest should last another 3-4 days, presuming I don't go shoe-shopping (which I should do because it rained the first 2 days I was here and my sneakers got all messed up).
Anyhow, I have the day off and I think I'll try and go into the city later and explore. I hear it's a bit far (45 minutes by train), but also very cool. Then again, maybe I'll just take the trash out and rest today. Look how official my trash is. I'm a geek.
So yesterday I went to make my schedule at osaka-geidai, which was the most stressful day I've ever had. Our translator has a cold (probably where I got mine from), so she couldn't come and none of the guidance councelors spoke any english. One of the guys and I sat in a room with several of these people for over an hour trying to make sense of anything. We didn't. I'll be sitting down with the schedule of fine arts classes for the next 4 days trying to make sense of it so I know what classes I should go to on Wednesday (suiyobi). As far as I can tell, I'm taking three days of printmaking (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) and maybe basic Japanese, although it's during one of the printmaking classes and the man in guidance tried to sign me up for english class, pointing at the Japanese class saying "no, no, no". I found this out later, when I found someone who did speak english and looked at the schedule for me. All that time I thought I was choosing between basic Japanese and advanced Japanese. I almost cried in the office. Also, I felt really stupid because they kept asking me what I wanted to take, but I had no idea what they offered. I'd ask for anatomy, or papermaking and then they'd look at me like I had somehow shamed them by pointing out that they didn't have that class. Basically, I embarassed myself a lot. I was really tired from Ice-Hokeh Club the night before and my Japanese skills went out the window. I could go on for pages about that, but it's embarassing.
2 comments:
I love the cherry-blossoms and that weird thing that looks like it might be a playground. If its not, you should make it one... it looks fun to climb on. I am increasingly impressed by your ability to actually write a blog in english when everyone around you is speaking japanese. I think i'd get confused and start writing nonsense. I suppose you need a little more time for that. So proud you cooked breakfast! (Yes jealous of your magenta pan). Oishii! (I don't know what that means, but you wrote in an email to me, so I figure it should go in here somewhere... place it where it makes sense at your convenience) oxoxoxoxoxoxo ps one day you will look back and laugh at how awful your japanese is and come home speaking fluent japanese and perhaps adopting a little japanese accent when you speak english too. I'm excited for that ;-)
caitlinnnnnnnnnnnn: you are such a geek!
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