Thoughts from Kyoto - January 10

I *love* Japanese toilets, and will be completely spoiled by the time this is over. Heated toilet seats in the winter? Yes please. I swear, I you don’t have heated toilet seats then you are not yet a truly technologically advanced society yet. Also, the one we have here is the kind where you wash your hands with the water that is used to refill the toilet tank, so you save water. Did I mention that Japan appears to be very efficient?

So today was the first time we had to make the commute from our respective living locations to the Kyoto University campus, and man am I lucky I left early. Although it’s Saturday, we’re coming to school because we’ve got to take a Japanese placement exam to determine what level we will be placed in for the Intensive Japanese program. I thought it was scheduled for 9:00 – turns out it was 9:30, which was a blessing. Overall, it took me about an hour and a half commute, though probably 30-45 minutes of that was simply because I got lost and/or didn’t know what time the trains arrived. At any rate, we all arrived successfully in one piece, which was a pleasant surprise. I dunno, somehow I was expecting people to just… get lost and show up hours later.

I’ve got to say something about placement exams. They tend to be ridiculously difficult because it helps no one if everyone gets full marks – you’re supposed to flunk on questions that you’ve never even studied before because… well, you’ve never studied them before. The test was combined, so there was no distinction between the Japanese ability you’d reached back in the States, so there would be advanced 3rd and 4th year material… you can probably guess how that went. There were so many grammar forms and vocabulary that I had simply never seen in my life before – suffice to say, the test was extremely humbling, and would have been quite depressing if I didn’t know I was supposed to flunk.

I think as a form of consolation, KCJS provided sushi for lunch. It was *niiiiiiice*. Afterwards, we realized that you can actually draw using soy sauce, chopsticks, and paper plates. I can’t believe I never figured that out before – perhaps it’s because I rarely ever use paper plates. At any rate, I’m going to have a lot of fun with this in the future. Maybe I can create a real masterpiece, let it try, and then put it on my wall as a hanging or something. Hopefully it doesn’t attract bugs.
Also, something I noted today – apparently, on some trains/stations there are actually special compartments that are women only. I haven’t really made up my mind yet regarding whether or not this is a good or bad thing.

In addition, it suddenly just got a *lot* colder today – this will be a long winter, especially with all the walking I expect to do.

It’s kind of hard to teach younger kids how to beatbox, partly because their voices are still higher. I have to say, Japanese TV is quite interesting – at least, the channel that we’ve been watching has shown off lots of interesting things from around the world, one of them being a familiar French beatboxer named Joseph who can produce 6 sounds at the same time. Upon seeing that, I taught the kids the basic beatbox sounds, but it was a bit hard for them to imitate… but still, lots of fun regardless.

In other news, I am officially a dumbass. So when I first arrived at my host home yesterday, apparently the kids had a tutor over for homework, but I actually thought he was the Dad. (I figured maybe he just looked young for someone 39-40 years old) Then in the morning I *think* it’s a different guy that says, “Aa, Takeshi desu. Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu” but I’m NOT SURE. In hindsight, it should have been perfectly obvious because he looked significantly older than the tutor from last night, but like I said, I am not an observant person. Still, what I said about the family earlier still stands – they’re still awesome.

And on that note, Haruna (the daughter) made a cake today, complete with strawberries and cream – it was delicious. I know I was nowhere near that awesome when I was 13.