Shopping, Bonding, Mountain Climbing...and Studying

Apologies for not updating for the entire week! I've been on a whirlwind of activity this past week!

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty normal days, heading to school, managing to stay awake through Japanese. On Tuesday I engaged in retail therapy and contributed to the Japanese economy, though keeping my budget at a reasonable level! I won't bore you with the details of my shopping excursion, but it was nice actually to wander the arcade shopping streets of Teramachi and its parallel partner (whose name escapes me at the moment) by myself, choosing which stores to check out and which to ignore. It's so strange; even if you've been down the street millions of times, you will inevitably see something new each time. Stores open and close at so many different times; it's essentially impossible to see everything at once. This is not taking into consideration all the shops that are hidden on the upper levels of the buildings that line either side of the arcade.

Thursday afternoon, after religion class, a group of us decided to head out to an izakaya. Of course, we had a huge group of both Stanford students and Japanese students, creating confusion and chaos. While the organization of the evening was lacking, the izakaya itself was located just next to the river, giving us a lovely view in the evening. After dining and carousing at the izakaya though we decided to go to karaoke for a bit (which I actually haven't done for many weeks now, so I was in need of a few hours of singing -- or rather shouting -- my lungs out). Of course, the evening had to end earlier than I would've liked as I needed to catch the last subway train home.

Friday felt like Saturday considering I a) had no class, and b) had gone out the night before. But it was still Friday!! In the morning, I attended Church with my host mom and Kenji's school (he goes to a private catholic school), where she introduced me to all her friends. Apparently I didn't get the memo on attire though: all the women wore black, white, or pink (light pastel colors). I was wearing a conservative, Jackie Kennedy style dress. However, it was red (it's a tadashi actually!). Basically, I rolled into this catholic mass with my host mother attracting attention because I am a) a gaijin, b) not a middle aged woman, c) I was wearing red. Win, Saroya, win. I felt like I was wearing a scarlet letter or something throughout the entire hour of the service (which I understood very little of as it was given in entirely Japanese). After the service, when she introduced me to her friends, they did talk as if I understood nothing of what they were saying at all, which was quite amusing. Mostly they were talking about my language ability, where I was from, things I didn't understand, and that I looked like a doll. I've introduced myself so much now, I could probably do it in my sleep now!

After the service, my host mom asked me if I'd like to see Kenji's school. Reminded of my days at a private, single sex school, I allowed my nostalgia to take hold of my senses and I supported the excursion. First though we had to find out if it was okay for us to walk through the school (generally non students and non staff that are of the opposite sex are prohibited from single sex school grounds during session hours -- it was the same at my school). However, after explaining the situation to the receptionist, we found out that the principal was going to give us a tour of the school. My host mother got really excited and nervous and I just got nervous. Remember, this is a single sex school and I'm a gaijin, in a red dress. Literally, everywhere we went I got stared at. Now I feel like I know what the male substitute teachers felt like whenever they came to my high school (haha!). But the school itself was huge! It's a junior and high school combined, numbering around 400-450 students total. Anyway, the tour was neat, I got to see Kenji in the cafeteria (after when he went back with his friends, they were all elbowing him and such...oh boys), and then my host mom and I peaced.

My host mom (who was still reeling from meeting the Principal), dropped me off at home because she had a lunch meeting with her mother and her mother's friends. I changed my clothes, skyped with one of my friends, then headed to school, books and computer and other study materials in tow as I planned to get homework done this afternoon. By the time I arrived, Austen and Matt were starving, so we got lunch first at the cafeteria and then settled down to do some homework. At around 5:30, Yan and Matt (another Matt, we have lots of double names in the program), arrived and we set off to get dinner at this small "Asian fusion" restaurant. It was an "Asian fusion" of thai and chinese and tawianese food...interesting...I ended up ordering "banana french toast" (typical dinner food, I know) -- it was totally delicious! After dinner, we made our way downtown to a British Pub and basically hung out there for the rest of the night. The Hub (the name of the pub) has a really relaxing atmosphere, and is actually a central place for foreigners in Kyoto to go and chill. And they have tasty drinks too.

Austen told me I would regret this expression later...

Saturday, my religion class had a field trip to Mt. Hiei, the historical center of Tendai Buddhism in Japan. We met at 9:00 a.m. (so early...) and took both the subway and local trains to get to our destination. Upon arrival, we ended up taking a cable car to get to the top of the mountain (which, by walking would've been a 5 hour trek...blarg) and then we visited various temple sights and halls. Mt. Hiei is absolutely beautiful and must be visited if one ever goes to Kyoto. The views are spectacular and the Buddhist halls are so neat to visit. I'm really glad though that we had had lecture on Thursday about Tendai Buddhism, so I actually knew something about the structures and layout of the complex.

In the evening, a bunch of us went out on the town again, but only stayed out till three and then taxied back, as we were all pretty exhausted.

Today, I just stayed at the house, basically doing the 'study' part of my abroad experience. I've got my religion class midterm quiz on thursday and, as per usual, bunches of Japanese homework. This Friday though, we go on our Bing trip to Hiroshima and Miyajima, so I'm super excited about that!