A Japanese Graduation and More Raw Horse

This past Saturday, the 21st, I went to the graduation ceremony for my friend Yui with Adam and Kevin, my roommate and Yui’s boyfriend. Yui majored in Spanish at Kansai Foreign Language University, or Kansai GaiDai in the Japanese. Although my friends and I could not sit in on the ceremony (neither could the parents of the graduates), I was able to see Yui afterwards wearing a very expensive kimono.

The trip to Kansai GaiDai from Hikone took over an hour and three different train lines. Once we got out of Shiga Prefecture and into Kyoto Prefecture the trains and the stations uniformly improved. The difference in affluence is striking, and several of our friends who are not natives of Shiga Prefecture bring up the disparity when I gripe about Shiga. However, the suburban sprawl extends all the way between Kyoto and Osaka to for a colossal urban area whereas Shiga has plenty of nature. Kansai GaiDai is located south of Kyoto, and we went to the Nakamiya campus, which is in the city of Hirakata.

I arrived with Kevin and Adam a little after noon, and the bus and train station were crowded with young ladies in kimonos. The campus was full of students, and unlike my graduation in America, there was a distinct lack of families. The kimono were strikingly unique and after spending the week in drab Hikone seeing all the bright clothing was a real treat. About five minutes onto the campus a pair of girls approached our trio and asked to take a photograph with us. I think I speak for Kevin and Adam when I say the two girls totally won us over to Kansai GaiDai.

After walking around and texting, Kevin found Yui along with her cousin, Megumi, and a few others of their classmates. Once we had taken droves of pictures, Yui pushed us off on the free food offered in one of the cafeterias so that we would not meet Yui’s mother. At first, the food looked picked over, but with the help of Megumi, we located food at the back of the cafeteria and staked out a place near some tempura (fried) chicken and shrimp, along with assorted deserts.

Afterwards we left the girls to change into less constricting clothing while we grabbed a train to Kyoto. The weather on Saturday was clear and warm, and with a few beers in hand, we trekked along the riverbanks of the Kamo River until Megumi and then Yui showed up. For dinner we at an izakaya, a restaurant where everyone at the table shares appetizer-sized plates assorted Asian and Western food. I had raw horse sushi again, and I maintain that raw horse is the best tasting red meat ever.