On Friday after a grueling first exam the afternoons’ entertainment was provided by the front office staff. At one Fujii-san, the Shiga Prefecture bureaucrat in charge of the front office gave the student body the safety lecture. We are to maintain our “composure” if there is a fire and leave without causing a “commotion”. There are defibrillators in both the dormitory and the academic building, and Fujii-san instructed us that in the event of a person losing their “conscience” we were to defibrillate the person. Afterwards the municipal fire department visited the center with an earthquake simulation truck. We sat around a table and the truck vibrated up to the highest level earthquake the Japanese have experienced. Hikone is pretty safe as far as earthquakes are concerned, yet the locals take earthquake prevention seriously here. At three representatives of the American Consulate-General for Osaka-Kobe came by to offer us ballots and give a recruiting speech. Since I ought to have a ballot on the way from Lyon Township, I skipped most of the forms they brought. Friday night was relaxing; we hit Yabus’ bar and I nabbed a few Heartland beers before we took off at midnight to get some sleep before Kyoto.
Kyoto is still awesome; while not as big as Osaka or Tokyo, Kyoto is much more manageable. Nate and I guided twelve other students around Kyoto, which was a mistake. I took everyone to the Seibu Burger restaurant on the tenth floor of the Kyoto station. After two weeks in Japan that was a mighty good burger. Once everyone had made it through lunch we went through the station to get a good view of Kyoto, and the off to the Temple of the Golden Pavilion. I’ve decided that before I leave I need to see the Pavilion during a snowfall. The building is stunning in person; pictures do not capture just how neat the Golden Pavilion is.
By the time everyone was through the Golden Pavilion grounds the sun was starting to go down, so we made our way to the Teramachi shopping arcade. The bus ride was long since we had to go from the north-west corner of the city to the south-east, but I found another fencing store in Kyoto on the bus ride. At Gion the group slit up and I took my group to Sukiya, a donburi restaurant. Sukiya is basically a diner; there are only a few items on the menu but everything is tasty. After dinner the shopping arcades were closed but we walked around a bit and enjoyed a few beers on the banks of the Kamo River, listening to a jazz quartet that had setup nearby.
When I came out of the Lawson convenience store with a beer in hand I ran into a friend of Megan’s, an Australian named Jerame. Jerame lives in Hikone and teaches English for a private company. Jerame had a friend of his from the same company with him on Saturday, and both the guys really seem to hate Japan. I met a guy at Yabus’ like this as well. I’m really thrilled to be here, but I’m not contractually obligated to stay in Japan as these guys are. Still, I continue meeting foreigners who don’t really appreciate what being abroad really means. We’re definitely going to be seeing Jerame again, so I’m going to have to pick his brain about why he’s in Japan.
I’d like to say something interesting happened on Sunday and Monday, but I pretty much wasted time and did some work. Nothing remarkable happened. Everyone has formed cliques and after a few weeks I am not surprised. There are a lot more odd people at JCMU this semester than the last, and I’m disappointed. I cannot escape the feeling that the anime freaks bring down the Japanese image of Americans. The summer had a lot more interesting people, but at least the core of my clique is made up of some rather awesome people.
Sayonara
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