Truly the Daughter of Direction Man

Yesterday, since I ended up not having class in the afternoon (for some reason "Political Economy" was canceled), I decided to see if I could find my way back to my new house on foot. The distance (after looking it up on google maps right now) is around six kilometers. So I knew the general direction in which I was going, but I was without a map so I kind of had to rely on my knowledge of how Kyoto is structured. Disclaimer before I continue: I DID NOT DO THIS AT NIGHT. I may be into exploring, but to allay all your fears (if you have any), I did this in the middle of the afternoon with plenty of time before sunset. Granted, I don't have a cell phone yet (crossing my fingers that I'll finally be able to get one tomorrow afternoon -- the wonders of Japanese bureacracy) but I felt that if I stuck close to popular and highly trafficked streets I would be alright. And funny thing, I was! There was a point in time when I was unsure which way to go as my main street had reached a dead end (I'd been using the subway stations as markers of going the right way as I live right by the end of the subway line), but I found the nearby station, looked at the subway map, and inferred from that which way I needed to continue on. I won't lie, the entire thing took me about an hour and forty five minutes (long to most people, fine by me), but I successfully found my way home! That was my big accomplishment for the day.

Today, I had my oral midterm exam in Japanese. Yes, I do have work. Japanese class is a little bit out of control. I've had a quiz/presentation/test every class day since two Mondays ago. It never ends and it's actually starting to get on my nerves. My friend Matt and I calculated that we've learned between 200 and 250 vocab words since starting class (though the percentage of those retained is debateable...). And that's not including the kanji characters for some of these words. But the oral exam actually went just fine. It was actually surprisingly quick, basically consisting of me answering questions about myself, my plans for Golden Week, and a few "role playing" scenarios (e.g. if a person is sick what should he/she do? etc.). After, we reviewed for our written midterm that is tomorrow (well...considering what time it is I guess it's later today, haha) and that ended up being pretty amusing. Generally around 11:30-11:45 I start to develop ADD and other fidgety symptoms because class is an hour and a half long RIGHT BEFORE LUNCH. I'm sorry...that's just not fair. Today though I managed to focus for the rest of class.

Since I didn't have class this afternoon, I decided to head down to the International Manga Museum despite the rain (yesterday was a wonderfully warm and beautiful day -- apparently the weather here in Japan is bipolar because it was torrential rain and typhoon winds today). The Museum itself is rather new, only opening in 2006. However, it's HUGE. Actually. They have bookcases filled with different genres of manga, ranging from the earliest Japanese manga of the 20s to today. They don't have every single manga ever issued (From my understanding, quite a few of the manga have been donated to the museum by private owners etc.) but the collection is impressive as it covers bookshelves on three floors. Besides, they have manga not only in Japanese, but also in English, Italian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Tawianese, Polish, etc. It's pretty intense. I couldn't really take pictures because of copyright issues, but let me tell you, these are impressive. And you can just pick them off the bookshelves and read them, though obviously returning them once you're done. There was also an exhibition basically detailing the history of the 'manga' in Japan, how it turned into 'anime', the differences between 'anime' and American animation, and so on. It was actually pretty educational. And I got to see lots of pretty covers. :)

(So this was mounted up in the Museum...I don't know what it is but it's pretty impressive. It took me a while to get the entire thing in my picture frame)

From there I headed home. I decided to walk again just to see if I remembered the way and I did. I actually did the walk in a shorter time span though there were many times I thought I would be swept off my feet because of the wind. I stopped in a CD store on my way home and bought another CD. I PROMISE I'm making good choices! It was only 500 yen (equivalent to 5 or 6 dollars -- CHEAPER THAN itunes!!). The pictures below are from my walk home today.

When I got home, I hung out with my host mom and Kenji. We had yakiudon (literally "grilled" udon) -- delicious -- and then I spent the rest of the evening studying. Except for the interval when I met Kenji's english tutor. Surprise: I'm pretty sure my host mother was trying to set me up with him. I didn't catch his name (way to go, Saroya), but he's the captain of the soccer team at Kyoto University. We talked a bit about soccer (he couldn't fathom the fact that I'd played keeper in high school), some about my stay in Japan, basic info about ourselves (school year, major etc.) and then he and Kenji went to go study. My host mother made sure to tell me that he was planning on becoming a doctor. Too bad he wasn't cute.

Okay, I need to get to bed. One day till Golden Week!