Thoughts from Kyoto - January 14

Yum Yum Udon for lunch. Japanese food is surprisingly cheap, if you know where to look.

I think Enrique and I enjoyed "Book-Off" too much. We're definitely coming back.

... what do those kanji say?

Yes. SOYMILK DONUTS.

Hannah and Mia enjoying the soymilk donuts.

They tasted amazing. SO CHEWY.

朋友!朋友!朋友!

Such an extravagant dinner. Probably the one time this happens in my entire life.

It’s nice not really having to bring my laptop around with me, contrary to my original expectations. The downside is that I forget interesting things during the day that I probably should have written down somehow. So my entries will probably be overall a bit disorganized, since I’m basically adding things as I think of them. Slowly, the winter students have been getting their phones – apparently, here’s only one model available so we all have the same phones, down to the color. I probably mentioned this yesterday, but it’s really shocking to me how much functionality Japanese phones have – maybe I just haven’t been very aware of the technology advances in cell phone technology because I’ve always been using the free ones.

KCJS has basically given us 2 classes on networking, which is the process in which we communicate with other people regarding joining clubs or volunteering and what not – since you’ll oftentimes be speaking to a person in charge, it’s strongly advised to use keigo (polite speech), which is something that I have been really struggling with, because we spent roughly 1-2 weeks on it back in Michigan, and since I never practiced it in conversation back then, I basically forgot almost all of it and was essentially on a crash course over the past few days trying to remember what I had learned earlier… sadly, I don’t have my Genki II Japanese textbook with me, which covers all of that stuff. Overall though these few days have been nice, despite the difficulty I’ve had with the language; I think it’s because the rest of the KCJS kids have been nice, and that’s really given me a good feeling about the upcoming semester.

The commute officially takes one hour – I kept saying it was that long before, but I had never been completely sure since each time something always happened to delay me, such as getting lost, or not transferring when I should have, or walking when I should have stayed on the train. This time though, everything went as I was supposed to, and I got there basically 10 minutes before class starts. Now this is a problem because when I have 9AM classes at the jPod (a KCJS building on the Kyoto University campus), that will be another 10-15 minute walk in addition, making so I will have to catch an earlier train from my home station, making so I have to get up earlier, which in of itself isn’t really a problem, but it probably would inconvenience my host mother. Maybe I’ll make breakfast for myself, which really isn’t a big deal at all if that works out.

I want to rave about lunch at one of the Kyodai cafeterias again. (for some reason, it has a French name) It was all I could do to not get Curry Udon again because I knew that there were other almost as equally delicious dishes waiting for me, and that I might actually possibly albeit improbably get sick of it.

In the afternoon our activity was to go on a scavenger hunt, which was… interesting, and probably quite different than it was for the full-year kids, since at that time they really didn’t know much about Kyoto at all, whereas since we were paired up with these veterans, everything went very smoothly, and they showed us around, explaining which places to go for what. One of them was I store called “book-off”, which absolutely blew my mind in its vast selection of manga – and I’m not even sure it was a manga store – for all I know it was just your everyday bookshop. Now I truly understand why Japan’s manga industry is light-years ahead of other countries. It’s because there’s a market for lots of different genres and experimentation, and the market is there in part because it’s convenient and affordable to actually by volumes of manga. I thought manga was relatively cheap in Taiwan compared to the United States – on average, slightly less than $3 dollars per volume, depending on publisher compared to maybe $7-8 dollars in the United States. Well in Japan, for newer stuff it costs maybe $350 yen (about $3.75 USD), which isn’t all that bad, given that Japan’s cost of living is high. 

But what really got me was the pricing on the semi-old manga, which wasn’t even all that old – it had relatively recent stuff that I had read before such as Cross Game, Death Note, Inu Yasha… I think they were quite liberal in their definition of “old”, or maybe in the Japanese perception that’s just the way it is. I bought a volume of Cross Game, since I really want to support Adachi Mitsuru, but his stuff just isn’t available in the States. In addition to that, the first volume of Hikaru no Go, since Reed really recommended that, and it’s hard not to be a bit curious about it, given how passionate he is. My total was $220 yen, which is about $2.40 USD. Seriously? That’s less than one volume in Taiwan. I’m in otaku heaven. Seriously, it’s good that I have such a strict luggage weight limit or else I would buy too much manga.

There is some variety in Japanese theaters, similar to Ann Arbor in how we have State Theater and Michigan Theater which tend to show either older films or more experimental/arty/avant-garde types, and outside you can go catch the latest Hollywood flick or catch 2^nd round movies for 50 cents. What I found particularly awesome was the fact that they (obviously) have the Japanese anime adaptation movies, live action or animated that don’t get released in the United States – apparently, 20^th century boys is coming out with a live action movie, and I feel that it will be awesome. I think my brother would be quite excited too…

Since the scavenger hunt was ridiculously easy given the abundance of veterans in our group, we spent time going around the shopping area, pointing out good restaurants and marking them on our maps for future reference – here, I learned about something that I REALLY wish we had in the States – maybe we do. Soymilk donuts. Hear me out, it’s not as nasty as it seems. In fact, the texture was amazing, and slightly sweet though I don’t think they really added any sugar. Now, there’s a difference I’ve felt between American style donuts and Japanese style donuts – while I enjoy American Krispy Kreme donuts, it’s mostly because I like sweets, and there’s a crapload of frosting on top of them. In contrast, Japanese donuts don’t tend to be flavored very strongly, and the texture and chewiness seems to be paramount. I think this is the case for Mr. Donut, if that’s the place I went to shortly before leaving Taiwan. (tip of the hat to T-Dubbz)

Dinner was absolutely amazing. KCJS took us to this really nice restaurant that used to be some noble man’s home before he died, and the it was the home of some huge company’s president, and then when he died this other dude turned it into a restaurant. It’s not as morbid as I’m describing it. Everything was just so detailed and awesome. That’s something else I realized as I went through one of the shopping districts today – the area wasn’t all sterile and sanitized like some places in Japan are – but it was very neat and well displayed, which was very attractive. I’m just really impressed with Japanese attention to order, though I’m curious at to how much the law goes into it, and how much is culture.