Subways, Singing, and Spontaneity!

Wow, this post is going to be pretty epic as it is going to cover my Thursday through Saturday. I can't believe everything is just happening so fast; it feels like I've been here forever yet simultaneously it does only feel like a week and a half. Japan is just beyond belief wonderful and I'm so so so glad I'm here.

On Thursday I had my "Religion and Culture" class, which has a good eighteen to twenty people. Somehow though, being in a small classroom with an interactive teacher reminded me of high school a little bit, in a really good way. The lecture she gave was actually really interesting; it wasn't just "an introduction to the course, here's the syllabus, we'll do serious stuff next time." It was rather "Hi everyone. Can you name the religions of Japan?" And then we made a collective effort to put together a list, from which she gave short explanations of each item, proceeded to go over the syllabus with us, and from there she started lecturing on Shinto. Note: this is also a three hour class. But she was nice enough to give us a five minute break since she planned to end early too! :) There are also some auditors in the class; this girl named Mo-Mo (I believe...) sat at my table; she's a senior of Doshisha University majoring in PoliSci/IR, currently living in Osaka (she makes a daily commute of 2 HOURS on the train -- INTENSE much?). New goal: be best friends with MoMo.

Cause class ended so late, I assumed I would go back, find Nancy, and then we would scavenge for dinner. However, I got back to the dorm and found an email from Nancy saying she went off to explore but she wanted to meet up between 7 and 7:15 in front of the Hankyu Department Store at the Shijo-Kawaramachi intersection. I figured I could just make it if I got to the subway then. So I made the subway, and got to the Shijo stop by 7. Of course, from here...I didn't know where to go or what exit out of the subway to take. So, I ended up outside, somewhere, trying to remember the map in my head...and ended up going the completely wrong way. Direction Fail. I ended up walking from the downtown district though to Kyoto Station (kind of a long walk) but it was actually really fun! Then I proceeded to get on the wrong subway, ended up at the end of the subway line, realized I was probably not in the right place, and found the right one. Subway Navigation Fail. I compensated my failures by getting back to Kyoto Station and getting Starbucks (which I successfully ordered in Japanese).

Friday. I have no class on Fridays (isn't that AMAZING? I don't even have that luxury at school!) so I slept in a little bit and got to school by 10, because Austen and I decided to walk the Kyoto Imperial Palace Grounds (which opened for the week to the public!). So I went and hung out at Doshisha until Austen got there, we peeked into the E40 lab, and were joined by Matt, who had finished the lab early. David decided he'd also like to see the palace so together we headed off down the street to go see the inside of the Imperial Palace.

I can't believe that it's only open to the public once a year and we were lucky enough to be here to be here when it was open! The ground were very very pretty, but there was a sad quality to it at the same time though considering that the cherry blossoms are dying. You can actually see the flowers drooping and falling. But it was awesome.

After we headed back to Doshisha for lunch and Nancy, Austen and I proceeded to the bus stop near school. Our plan for the afternoon was to do some shopping at the mall near Austen's house! The bus ride itself was 30 minutes, but buses, no matter where you're going in the city, cost a flat rate of 220 yen. That's such a good deal as you can get off anywhere. I guess it's only a bummer if you're only going one stop...but then I suppose that you should probably just walk then considering the bus stops are not actually that far apart. Anyway, we stopped off at her host family's so she could get something and I proceeded to have a conversation (in Japanese!) with her host mother. And then we went to this FABULOUS mall. I won't bore you with the details of shopping and atm searching etc. but I came out with a cute skirt and three tshirts in engrish (:-D) -- all of which I got at a wonderful deal (I promise, Mom!).

Nancy and I headed back to the Dorm and I planned to meet up with Austen at 7ish at the bus stop next to school to pick her up. We got a small, quick bite to eat, came back to the dorm, and got a little bit dressed up to go out. The night itself was a lot of fun as the three of us just ended up hanging out, cracking jokes, exploring, and carousing.

Saturday was also filled with activity. First off, Nancy and I decided it was time to do laundry. It took us about an hour to figure out how to work the washing machine since it was all in japanese. You'd think they would have instructions in another language considering this is supposedly the international students dorm (despite the fact that Nancy and I appear to be the only occupants...as we have seen no one else so far). I was trying to find kanji symbols in my dictionary, Nancy was looking online for a manual that she could google translate...it was a mess, but we ended up figuring the majority of it out and then asking an attendant at the gym for help.

Later in the day, Austen bussed over and the three of us decided to walk to the downtown area instead of subway it (good exercise!). On the way we stopped and saw a small taiko/flute performance at this shinto shrine. We walked by the Kyoto Museum of Manga and saw a bunch of cosplayers, so we sat and watched them for a little bit. Then in the downtown district we encountered a protest against the American base on the southern island Okayama.

However, we were all so hungry that we headed to the Sushi conveyer belt restaurant and had an early dinner since we all missed lunch. Austen was amazed by it and we proceeded to learn about the restaurant a little bit more when we discovered the hot water dispenser at the table and the green tea instant powder. Ingenious. On our way out though we ran into some of the guys from Stanford and made plans for Karaoke later. So Nancy and I raced back to the dorm because our laundry was still in the dryer and made it back. And proceeded to have an AWESOME 3 hours of karaoke.

We proceeded to MacDonald's after (totally my suggestion since they are 24 hours here) and all got food for our tummies. Then Nancy and I proceeded to head back towards the dorm, having a wonderful heart to heart. Lucky for us the weather was so nice today that it wasn't cold at all going back. All in all the weekend has been amazing.

I plan to do homework today actually (considering this is a study abroad program -- I've done the abroad thing very very much and will proceed to catch up with the studying part now). Nancy and I plan to walk up to Nijo Castle later today and see the evening lights show that they have during the Sakura Blossoms season.