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.