Japanese class

At the Kyoto International Community Center I am taking a second level Japanese class twice a week for 2 hours at a time.  The other students are from China (2), Korea (2), France, and Canada.  The teacher is doing a good job -- Japanese only.  We have to stand in front of the class with a classmate and present dialogues, write answers on the board in hiragana (one of the phonetic alphabets), and complete written homework.  What is amazing is that it is working!  Each of us is getting better with our Japanese.

Volcanologists, Peg as tour guide

Volcanologists, Peg as tour guide

After the volcanology conference in southwestern Japan, I had a visit from 3 researchers who were sent my direction by daughter-in-law Liz.  They had a short stop in Kyoto between their conference and the old capital Nara.  We had a really nice several course lunch at a low table in a tatami mat room.  Featured was a warmed soft tofu dish served with a soy sauce-type sauce that is typical of Kyoto.

Then we went to the Kyoto food market – maybe more like Eastern Market in DC than a farmer’s market.  Lots of pickled things, strange seafood, dried fish, and other oddities.  One of the more strange items was a small octopus on a stick, with a note that the head had been stuffed with a quail egg.  I did not try it. 

They were also able to find a good assortment of souvenirs – hand painted fans with bamboo stands and chopsticks engraved with their names and those of their friends. They selected katakana – the writing system for foreign words – for the engraving.  And there is an awesome knife shop where they got a handmade fish knife.  It was sharpened right as they bought it  -- with the front 4 inches very sharp, then the back of the blade not so sharp – so that the back would be stronger for cutting the bones as needed. 

The flier from the knife shop says, “For over 4 centuries, the Aritsugu family has been creating Japan’s finest quality cutlery and cookware.  Since 1560, 18 generations of the Aritsugu family have continued to pass along the forging techniques preferred by the Imperial family.  Located on nishiki Market, known as ‘Kyoto’s Kitchen’, Aritsugu provides Japan’s leading chefs with hand-crafter knives and cooking utensils, especially those used in preparing traditional Kyoto cuisine.”

Following up/Picturing Peg

So are you still picturing me crouched on the floor of the cable car with my head down avoiding the bat?  Perhaps bats here do not get rabies, and that is why others were not particularly concerned.  Maybe they are even good fortune.

Are you still picturing me bumping into people in the lanes of the pool?  I seem to have this worked out better.  I was so eager to get back to swimming that at first I probably did not take the prudent step of spending time just watching.  Now I have spent more time just watching, and asking the lifeguard before I choose a lane.  The pool is shallow enough to touch bottom, and the lifeguard does not sit and watch, but attends to small duties, like changing the lane signs and advising foreigners.  

Perhaps you can add to your set of images of me -- picture me on the floor studying my rice cooker and a cereal box.  I think that the cereal is a whole grain rice cereal.  I finally have been able to find uncooked brown rice, and am trying to figure out how to cook it in the rice cooker that comes with the furnished apartment.  I more or less matched the kanji on the cereal box and the rice cooker to choose a setting.  And the rice came out OK.  So why am I on the floor?  My kitchen has an appliance cart with 4 shelves -- top is a hot water heater for making tea.  On the next level is a combined oven/microwave.  On the third level is the rice cooker, and an the bottom is the toaster oven.  It took me a minute when I woke up this morning to remember why the cereal was on the floor.  

"Solar World"

“Solar world” was written on a t-shirt of a young man on the street near my gym/pool.  So what am I seeing?  A couple of new housing developments have solar panels on almost all the roofs.  And in older sections of housing, there is as much as 5% of retrofit solar panels.  Because the roofs are sloped, the panels are mounted parallel to the roof and just a short distance above its surface.  Some of the panels are much smaller than we are used to seeing – maybe 15 or 18 inches square.

Interestingly, at the edge of some of the smaller town, where there are usually rice fields, I have seen sections of solar panels mounted on the ground for an area about the size of a couple of rice fields.  What is the subsidy system for home solar?  What is the subsidy system for the arrays at the edge of town?  Which is the bigger return on investment – solar electricity or rice? Why am I not seeing very much solar on industrial buildings? 

Some roofs have the traditional solar hot water – maybe 5%.  Because I am studying this from the shinkansen (bullet train) window, I make no claims to have any sort of a scientific sample.  Why don’t we see more solar hot water on homes in the US? 

I think that greenhouses probably count as a form of solar too – and there are a lot of them at the edges of the smaller towns.  Since there is plenty of sun and heat now, they are not being used, but I am sure that they serve to extend the season.  What are they growing in the fields near these greenhouses?  There is rice on the flat parts, and some vegetables including lotus, and then tea going up the hillsides.

Heming Sports Club/Swimming School

After swimming almost daily in Washington, I really needed to find a pool here. I asked for suggestions at the Kyoto International Center, which has been very helpful, and they suggested that Heming was a gym that also had a pool. The 1st time I went by, it was closed, probably because it was  a holiday weekend.

The next time I went in and began to put my Japanese to use.   I asked for a tour, and was able to see the small gym, large exercise classroom, and 25 m pool. I asked about hours and air-conditioning, and decided to give it a try for 3 months.  I paid for the 1st month in cash, and they asked me to come back with my bank card to set up automatic payments.

They use the pool for teaching  swimming lessons to students until about 6:45 PM. At that time the kids leave the pool and file into the sauna. Picture about 30 late elementary school swim suited Japanese kids piled into a small sauna. I guess this warms them up after the two-hour lesson. This means that the pool is not free for me to swim in till almost 7.

 We are having some trouble communicating about which lane to swim in and how to do it. It now appears the first or first and second lanes are used for adult classes.  Last night we had difficulty communicating what the sign with one arrow pointing up meant. Obviously we were not going to hop out of the pool and run around to swim that way again. After we tried communicating, and I still was really not quite clear, they just went ahead and changed the sign to  free swim lane.  So what's the problem?  Actually I can speak some Japanese and I can read some of the two phonetic alphabets, but I'm basically illiterate.

 I went back to the pool with my bank book (since my cash card has not yet arrived) ready to make arrangements for withdrawal. But that was not going to work without my also having my hanko. So I went back an additional time my hanko (this is a stamp that is uniquely mine). This time we are able to set up the automatic withdrawal, however it will not take effect until September -- when my 3 month membership will run out. 

Japanese English t-shirts

Find your poetry where you can.  Each of these was written on a t-shirt that was being worn. 


You will get there.

What is FAT to you?

Just love. Graduate. Walking sharper.

Don't forget travel checklist.

Nertral color. Noise and scratch.

Strength. Curiosity.

Why sunflowers?

Joy is a net of love.

Light of a day.  Blue moon blue.

See a friend 3.

Garden Museum Hiei

I set out in the late afternoon, for the "Night time special light up garden at the Garden Museum Hiei."   First I took my own train four stops to the end of its He line. Then I got on the Eizan Railway, which is more of a one-car streetcar, though it does not run along a street. At the end of the streetcar line, I walked across a stream, and up a hill, to get on a cable car, going up a steep mountain. At the end of the cable car ride, I walked a short distance to the "cable ropeway" (gondola).   I really didn't expect all these different modes of transportation, but as each one took me higher, and further from the center of Kyoto, it got cooler and cooler.

The museum was billed as having a theme of French Impressionism. What this meant was that there were sturdy easels with reproduction paintings scattered throughout the garden. As my guidebook suggested, the paintings were by "Monet, Renoir, and Gogh."   Aside from this oddity, it was a lovely garden, indeed sometimes reminiscent of Monet's own. As it became early evening, the frogs were particularly noisy.  What was spectacular were the views out over Kyoto, and in the other direction, Lake Biwa, the largest lake in Japan.  From the elevation, the city lights twinkled.

Reversing the process to get down the mountain, I had the advantage of knowing where I was going. In the front of the cable car, over the head of the driver was a long pole and a net that I noted as I boarded. Part way down this section of the mountain, there were some fairly loud noises, but no one was alarmed. I moved down onto the floor for a better view of what turned out to be fireworks below us in Kyoto. After the fireworks, I felt something brush my hair lightly, and looked to see a bat!  Now, my mother taught me that bats will tangle themselves in your hair.  Even though I know that is not true, I was still not happy to see the black bat flying inside the the train car. I guess that's what the net had been for.

Geisha and Maiko in Gion

My apartment is in the Gion District, Kyoto's traditional entertainment district. The guidebook puts this is one of the 10 best places to see in Kyoto. It suggests that this is, “the best place in the city to catch a glimpse of old Japan. With no fewer than 3 geisha districts scattered about, As you stand a good chance of spotting a geisha scurrying to an appointment."  A couple of blocks from here is an old street largely dedicated pedestrians. Sometimes I see the owner of the small liquor store driving his scooter to make a delivery, but otherwise it's largely pedestrian. Some folks seem to be Japanese  students and parents who live here, others are Japanese tourists.

 A few nights ago I had dinner at a small place near here; by small place I mean 4 tables with 4 chairs each, and 4 seats at the counter. After I finished my tempura udon (noodles and broth with green onions and a large battered shrimp),  and was heading home, I spotted a geisha or maiko (apprentice geisha)  ducking into a doorway.   She had on the very fancy kimono with very long sleeves, a white painted face, and hair ornaments.

Thinking this might've been a fluke, I wandered back on that street subsequent evenings, and have seen geisha a handful more times. This afternoon, in broad daylight I saw a geisha coming out of one door and into a door couple doors down. Then tonight a woman in a regular kimono was bowing deep to a geisha who walked down an alley and disappeared. This is why it really does feel like I'm living in a movie set of old Japan.

Less than two weeks into my stay in Kyoto

I have been here less than two weeks, and have learned the bus, subway and train systems.  It is a huge cit of 1.5 million people.  Mostly I think about breadcrumbs -- like Hansel and Gretel, I need to find my way back to the office and to the apartment.  So every time I go exploring, I look at the map every few blocks, and turn around to see what it will be like returning.

Amazing

It is like being in the middle of a movie set about old Japan!  Except it is all real.  After my first week in the guesthouse of the Shunko-in Temple, I have moved into my own apartment in an old section of town with Shrines, Temples, old houses, and even women in kimono all over. 

http://shunkoin.com/