Long Days and Peaceful Nights

Well, it's been almost a week since my last post. That's a good measure of how busy I've been, I guess. Sorry for the delay, I'll do my best to make this one five times as interesting as the others.

Okay, so term is now well underway. Each day goes like so:

• Japanese language classes start at 9. We've been divided into ability groups, as I mentioned before, yet Level 3 is fairly big so is split again into classes 51 and 52. Rumours are circulating that 52 are the more skilled of Level 3, but as a member of Class 51 I adamantly deny that. I have a pretty good group, I'd say, made up of people at around my skill level which leads me to believe that I have been well-placed here.
  Each weekday we get a different teacher. This keeps things interesting but, well, the communication between teachers could be improved a bit. I mean, they all seem to know which page of the textbook we're on, but we had to explain the daily checkup tests to one of them. I mean, they're all fairly good teachers, but the differences between them are almost too great. That's not to say I don't enjoy myself...
  Anyway, moving on. We're working from 'Wakatta tsukaeru Nihon-go', a green and a yellow book that together should lead us through the semester. Work is pretty easy so far, though the pace is really picking up now that the end of the week has come.

• What follows differs between days:
  Mondays we have Intercultural Communication after lunch. In this we have thirty minutes of lecture on a certain topic to do with the course name, followed by an hour of discussion of that topic in small groups. This can get pretty complicated, especially when four of your six members don't speak English and only fragmented Japanese, and we're doing the topic of 'What does you culture mean to you?'. Homework for each week is a page of essay on the topic we discussed, which comes together to form a journal that becomes our full semester's assessment. Except this week. We got 2. Thanks, Professor...

• Tuesdays and Thursdays there's nothing after Japanese, which leaves me free to go home at the end of lunch! It's a good feeling.

• Wednesdays give us a loooong break of 3 hours between lunch and our last lecture of Japanese Society. Can't really say much about bit at this point, as this week saw us give a lesson-long self-introduction. Not to say it wasn't fun at all, our teacher's almost diabolically easy-going. Word on the street is that its a lesson of field trips and topic tangents. Sounds like a good lesson to me.

• Today is Friday, the last day. Unfortunately, I do have a lecture; Japanese Language Seminar B. This is something of a Japanese Plus course that prepares Levels 3 through 5 for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test - Level 2, a highly recognised certificate that we have been recommeded to get by the Edinburgh staff as well as people like the JET team. Pretty intense stuff, I can tell you, for today we learnt 7 brand new, highly complex (at least to our feeble minds) sentence structures, and over the course of the... course we will learn 100, and then be tested on them. Good, solid, meaty chunks of Japanese.

And now it's the weekend! Yeah!

Anyway, Doshisha life has a bunch of other aspects besides education. Lunch, for example. Lunch is very odd here. You grab a tray and head to one of 4 queues based on what you want to eat. There's a noodle queue, a curry queue, a salady queue and a posher food queue. One and three are my current favourites for the kitsune udon and spicy potato wedges respectively. You grab whatever you want and take it to the till and then pay. It's just the range of food that boggles the mind: whole fish on a plate, bowls of rice as big as your head, a veritable catalogue of parfaits all the colours of the rainbow! It's staggering sometimes. Average lunch for me comes to between 200 and 400 yen, that's £1 to £2, which I think is a pretty good deal.

Now, what else is there.

Oh yeah...

The bureacracy.

Every day we have to go to the tiny, crowded International Office and sign in, something I didn't realise until 3 days in... It's okay, I think I've been forgiven. On top of that, we have a pigeon hole each which is filled every so often with things like forms, forms, or if we're really lucky...

...money. I kid you not. They will refund you part of any taxi receipt you care to hand over, which kind of makes up for the bills they put in there as well. Rent bills, you see, as we do live in University accomodation.

Got a very scary note in mine today 'My. Swan, the bank called with something to say. Please call Mr. Amaza on this number.' Now, I'm not all that good at Japanese, so I hope you can imagine how terrifying it felt to be forced into discussing my finances, the means of my living here, in a language I don't understand.

I'm just thankful I've watched enough anime to understand the sentence constructions used when selling one's soul.

Anyway, turns out all they wanted to say was that the money transfer from home can't go through until Monday, as it's now the weekend and so everybody involved in that sort of thing is having a well-earned nap. Fine by me.

Phew.

So here I am, sitting at my desk, trying to tempt Ho-oh into staying in the Ultra Ball (actually called a Hyper Ball in Japanese, don't you know). Difficult stuff, let me tell you. I learnt from Diamond to not use up Master Balls (still called Master Balls in Japanese) so readily, so it's a long, bitter fight to claiming by giant flaming bird Pokemon. I'm just glad it doesn't have any recoil moves like Kyogre did...

And on that subject, tomorrow is Pikachu Day! Or so it shall be called in my diary from now on. Plan is to head to the Kyoto Cross Media Experience in Uzumasa with Polly and Mark...

2 shakes that time. Cheeky thing.

...where Nintendo will be dishing out the Pikachus to whoever has a DS with a Japanese version of Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, HeartGold or SoulSilver. 'Pikachu?', I hear you say, 'He was in the original 150! He's no big prize!' Maybe not, but...

Argh! So close!!

...this is a proper Event Pikachu we're talking about! It may as well have come from the hands of Mr. Miyamoto himself! And besides, this one has the super-secret, never-before-given-to-a-Pikachu TM of Last Resort, an ultimate base attack Technique that can only be used once the Pokemon has used each of its other attacks at least once. Sounds pretty cool to me, though I would have prefered a Volt Tackle.

Have to preorder movie tickets for that one.

Is there anything else? I can't think of anything. Currently also paused in the middle of the anime film Sword of the Stranger, which is alright but not as good as I'd heard people say it was. Oh, I made myself yakisoba tonight, and it was nice. I made an okinomiyaki the other day, and that was nice too. Google them, if you're interested.

Well, thanks again for reading. Sorry for the no pictures, there's not really been anything else to photograph. I shall try my utmost to get ace pictures of Pokemon tomorrow. Oooh, it'll be just like Pokemon Snap!

Anyway, thanks very much for reading!

Kakko-sugiru!

These have been a pretty cool couple of days!

So anyway, Saturday was a free day, so when Mark and Polly said they wanted to go into town to pick up some stuff I was glad to come along.

Of course... Polly changed her mind at the last minute... so it was just Mark and I.

But before that...

It was a beautiful, yet scorching day, and as I walked down to the Imadegawa subway station because I fancied a walk (read: because I'm a cheapskate) I figured this'd be as good a time as any to get some photos of the Imperial Gardens and the full campus, so here we go.


This here is the North entrance to the Gardens, the way I usually get in because it's right opposite the entrance to the University. This gate may look pretty impressive, but you see them all the time in Kyoto, sometimes even in front of normal, if slightly old-fashioned, houses.


The roads here are massive, like they were built for Gundams (more on that later). As impressive as the size of the place is, you do end up feeling a bit dwarfed by the size of it in a way that makes me feel like I shouldn't be here. Feels very artificial. Which is what it is, I guess.



This is... umm... some kind of temple enclosure. I don't actually know, as with a lot of the complexes in here, what lies within the gates, as they are permanently sealed. But yeah, these are the sort of walls you get here in the Gardens.


But this is what you want to see, right? This is the north gate to the Imperial Palace, where the Emporer used to live. It's open to the public, but you have to pay, and you clearly don't get in this way. I've not been in yet, but I hear it's pretty impressive.

Anyway, those are the more interesting photos of the Gardens. Didn't have a great deal of time, and I wanted to split that little time between here and the campus. And I'm glad I did, for as I entered the gate at the south I noticed something was different. People, everywhere, kitted out for some kind of party. Turns out it's graduation day! Tried to get some pictures of the pretty kimonos and jovial atmosphere, but I kinda felt like I was intruding on an event I was underqualified for, so I got a few shots from the distance.



Here's where I'll be spending most of my time. The building on the left in picture 1 is the Shiseikan, where we had our placement test, whereas the square one is the Shingakukan (the divinity school) which I have never been in. Then, on the right, is the Kofukan, where I found out today I have about 80% of my lectures. The girls in front of it were wearing saris. Not kimonos. Saris. Wonder why...



Here's the Meitokan, with its lovely cheap convenience store, copy shop, cafeteria, stationary shop, Doshisha merchandise shop and Starbuck's knockoff. This is also where notices for events are posted. The other photo is of the chapel, which I have never been in. They do services at funny times: Monday at 3, Wednesday at 8 and 1, Thursday at some point as well. Want to go in at some point, but again I feel I need a reason.



Library, front and back. Massive building with those bookshelves that move to save space. The ones you squash people with. Or... not. Impressive collection, and with the Linguistics essay (urgh) on top of whatever work we get in Uni I may end up here a lot.

But that's not what I really want to talk about. What I want to talk about is this:

Teramachi! Cavern of Wonders! This is where Mark and I spent most of our time on Saturday; having lunch at a quaint little noddle restaurant, gazing longingly at the model guns, looking at Japanese CDs that had until now been a painful import away. Going to the Karasuma area is really interesting, there's a shop for near everything. Shops for clothes, food, phones, cameras, CDs, DVDs, instruments, manga, accessories, books, souvenirs...


...Gundams...


...Gundams...


...Gundams!!

Well, admittedly that's not a Gundam I'm holding. That's an RPT-007K-P1 Gespenst MKII, quite possible the coolest robot ever illustrated and then turned into a plastic model. Cost me 4000 yen, that's about £20. Worth it, most definitely worth it. Spent about 8 (non-consecutive) hours putting the little guy together in the end, and he's come out perfectly!




Anyway, that's all of note for Saturday, so let's move on to Sunday.


Church in the morning, this time with Mark coming along too. It was nice to walk through the doors to be greeted by familiar faces, it's starting to feel like a more comfortable place these days. Back away from all-age services this week, returning to the difficult vocabulary of an adult service. Today as James 2:8-13, on adultary and murder. Good stuff. Oh, interestingly, the book of James is 'Jacob's Letter' in Japanese. Curious.

Right after, as I may have mentioned, was a young member's event; a meal of kitsune nyuumen (very thin noodles with some kind of tempura bread stuff, very nice) and chat. Talk was on Britain and British culture, megachurches, the environment and essay topics. I've been given the name of a Japanese language professor in the church who apparently I should talk to on keigo in a religious context, awesome. We alos planned two events: a softball game on the 25th of next month (come if you can, gaijin who don't suck at sports!) and nabe (stew) and prayer on the 22nd November. There's also a Doshisha Christian circle we might go to if only the university would tell us where clubs are held...

Then back home, via the supermarket and (closed ><) post office, where I say the creepiest spider known to man...

...and now here I am writing this and putting the Gespenst in awesome poses. Very tired, so I think food, film and early sleep tonight. Tomorrow's an early start for the first day of class.

Thanks for reading.

P-1 Granprin

So yeah, now I have a phone.

It really surprised me that even the 0 yen phones like mine come with TV as standard, but this is Japan. Also, the worst camera you can get is 3.2 megapixels, which is better than any Western camera I've ever had.

But you know what that means: the wait is over! It's photo time!

Unfortunately, without a specific goal in mind the best I could do for today was 'Things that took my interest on the way home from the phone shop'.


This is the view to the north and south (respectively) of the bridge that connects Shimogamo with the rest of Kyoto, seperated by the Kamogawa river. The river is a great landmark for people like myself who live just off its banks, as in a worst-case scenario I can just walk upstream as far as is needed. It's a great walk, usually populated by many doing the same thing as well as having some superb views, but it can get really far too long. It's very odd having such a natural overgrowth in the middle of the city, but the neighbours don't seem to think so, often congregating in large numbers on the banks on Sunday afternoons.


This isn't really anything special. This is the view from a bench a few metres into the south gate of Doshisha's Imadegawa campus. That's the way I'll be getting to class pretty much every day from Monday on. There's an ace-smelling curry house just to the right of the gate, but Japanese curries have a tendancy to be anti-Pete so I've not tried it yet. There's also one of hundreds upon thousands of bikes that litter the streets of Kyoto, but that one has no special significance.



Now here's a sight I love to see. This is the 'almost home' part of the trip, with the Shugakukan just a little to the right at the end of the road. That's a stream running alongside to the right, and one of the many neighbourhood event boards in this area that demand that we Beware of Children that 'Fly Out' at Unexpected Moments.


And here we are, the Shugakukan. That door rattles loads when you open it, the glass panes are in a bit loose. A rule to be remembered: you have to take your shoes off inside. Under pain of death. And that's the stream now that it's a bit bigger. I saw a stork there a few times. Fantastic birds, them.


And that's my room. It will never get any cleaner than that. Beds are futons on wood, curtains are paper sheets set in frames of wood. Yes, though the laptop is abnormally small that is a very big can of Coke, the size of a can of lager in fact. This is one of the things I am really glad I came to Japan for: 500ml of Coke for 120 yen (about 70p). Is that disbelief I sense? Disbelieve not, reader, for that really is a gargantuan can of Coke on my desk. Here, look:

Like the Tower of Isengard, so it is. "Refreshing and Uplifting" doesn't begin to cover it.

So yeah, those are the first pictures. Tune in next time to see Gundams and cafes with names above their rank.

Thanks for reading. Or looking, I guess.

Bureaucracy Day

A couple of very important things on the menu today, the first day back from the holidays.

First and foremost was the acquisition of the Alien Registration Receipt, an elusive A5 piece of paper with which I could do the rest of the day's activities. Pretty simple, actually, especially as the form was one I had taken away last time and completed, so all I had to do was show the completed form to the receptionist and she pointed me in the right direction. 700 yen for 2 receipts, just in case. Easy peasy.

The bank account was next, and was anything but. Again, getting the ball rolling was pretty easy, as I had all 4 bits of paper needed, and just needed to hand them over and ask for an account. The form here was pretty easy too, with the exception of the phone number column. Still don't have a phone, you see, and the dorm's phone number elluded me. Never again, not after the hassle it caused... Luckily there was another form handed in earlier with the dorm number on it, so I was able to copy that. Added to my missing of one kanji off 'Higashikishimoto-cho' and my saying my birthday was in Nothing 88 rather than Showa 81 as it should have been (... I think) I got the impression that the teller thought I was pretty useless. Especially as my request followed a veritable mob of Chinese exchange students who all at least put up the impression that they knew what was being asked of them with perfect clarity. But you want to know the best bit?

I now have to wait ANOTHER

WHOLE

WEEK

before I'm allowed to buy a phone!!

Ridiculous!!

This is because Cash Cards take a week to process, you see, and one is needed (or so I hear) to buy a phone. This also means that I'm going to have to keep these stupid Traveller's Cheques hidden around for a bit longer, or their cash alternatives. Either way, a bit risky for my liking, bit I guess it will have to do, because a week from now puts me past my rent payment deadline, so cash is the only way to go.

...

Speaking of Traveller's Cheques, my next port of call was the post office to ask about trading them in. I'd had a pleasant experience with them before when I was retrieving the GPS, and had high hopes. After a shambolic start where I got all my vocab mixed up asking the reception which desk to speak to, I had another, mercifully short form to fill in, before I handed in my cheques to be cashed.

While the cash was being counted, I was approached by a clerk from a couple of desks over, who asked me for help. It turns out a young Arabian man with no Japanese but fluent English needed help arranging matters concerning a late payment of rent, and the clerk wanted me to translate. I tell you, I felt very proud of myself, though looking back I was a bit useless. I was able to let the man know that the post office didn't know whether you could pay a late rent along with a current one or not, and that he'd have to ask his landlord if that was okay, but when it came to the matter of how to fill in the automatic transfer system form to amend this I was a bit lost. There were diagrams with arrows, that's how bad it was.

Anyway, after much apologising from both myself and the post office, I strolled back here to read up on bill payments in Japan and phone plan services from Softbank, and now I'm really tired.

Oh, I cooked fish today. Like, a proper slab of fish, not a whole fish. That might be forever beyond me. But it tasted good, if you're wondering. Good enough to balance out the burning of my hand on the rice cooker moments before, anyway. Tomorrow I might be getting a phone. But that's a long, painful might littered with conditions like a bureaucratic No Man's Land.

Anyway, thanks for reading.

We are the World

Embarrassing Moment #4

Whilst at Kyomizu-dera in Gion, Mark, Connor, Polly and I came to the best view of all of Kyoto I think you could see (Mark disagrees, but I wasn't in the mood for climbing the mountain proper), and I felt the need to say something cool and anime-ish to show my awe.

"Bokutachi no Kyoto da yo." (This is our Kyoto) I said in a superbly gruff and heroic voice, only to have the young Japanese couple just in front of me turn around and snigger. I tried to stumble out something of an apology or explanation, but the words wouldn't come and I had to watch dumbly as they chuckled off, no doubt off to inform the rest of the nation.

I mean, thinking back, I wasn't even that embarrassed about saying something cool in Japanese in front of Japanese people. But what really gets me, as I was reminded later, was that bokura would have been a better choice of first person plural than bokutachi, but those are both a bit weak compared to the much more appropriate oretachi, which is far more manly.

Uuuurgh.

Still, could have been worse. Could have used atashi, which is used solely by girls.

-----

So yeah, busy times. Sorry I haven't been on for a bit, but I've been stuck in bureaucracy and sightseeing so internet time has been a bit lacking of late. But I have lots to talk about, fear not!

Okay, let's see. Three events worth mentioning come to mind. Firstly was Sunday, my second Sunday at Doshisha Church, and this time I made a much better impression. Turned up with a full 5 minutes to spare, greeted friends and remembered names appropriately, found my seat and got started. This service was an all-age service, which suited me fine, as Japanese kids are cute as anything on God's Earth, and the language was tuned down so even I could understand, which was great! Service was on Exodus 45 1-8, about Joseph and his spectral coat, and though it didn't hit any spiritual chords per say, it was still a cool service. At the end, those over 70 were given cookies and a postcard that the kids had made. I was also asked to stand, as a new member of such, and bow so everyone could see me, which was nice. Apparently next week is some sort of student thing after the service, and it's also the first week Mark can make it along, so it should be a good one.

Okay, next is last night, and the Cosmopolitan welcome party. Cosmopolitan, I learnt not long ago, is a Doshisha society for Japanese students hoping to befriend foreign students in order to make firm friendships and learn about other cultures, and eventually, in the words of President Kazuhiko, lead to world peace. It's all very Babylon 5, if you ask me. We met at 3 in the before-unexplored Shinmachi campus about 5 minutes from our Imadegawa campus, and chatted with a few of the other foreign students. Yesterday was the day I learnt of a third visiting program alongside our Nichibun and Bekka: the AKP or America-Kyoto Program, which draws students from America to Kyoto, strangely enough, where they stay in Japanese homes for the duration of the year. Some nice people on that program, let me tell you.

Events kicked off with a superbly well-made video about the sort of things Cosmopolitan did last year (it's first year, I believe), followed by a Photo Rally. Never done one before, but it was really cool! We were given a set of 12 photos of the Cosmopolitan members in funny poses around the campuses and nearby temples, and were asked to head out with a camera and take identical pictures with our own team members. With the progidy-level leadership of fourth-year Sora-sempai, we got all our photos done in record time, and even won the competition. We all got some funny prize; mine was a plastic Hallowe'en hockey mask, which now hangs above my door. A moment of pride, that. Afterwards there was more chat, then off on the subway to Karasuma to have a dinner of 'okinomiyaki', a kind of rice omelette thing, which is really very nice. Then down to the riverside with convenience store-bought alcohol to drink, which is not only allowed in this crazy county but also done by hundreds of young people every night. Didn't stay for long, as the last train was at 11.30, but we were around enough to play Duck Duck Goose in the sand.

Now, today.

Today was Connor's trip from Kansai Gakuin (...right?) to Kyoto to see the sights, and that job fell to the aforementioned Mark, Polly and I. His... unfortunate choice of arrival time meant I had less sleep than I perhaps would have liked, but I couldn't be bitter because Connor had even less sleep than I and still managed to survive the day. And it was a full day indeed! First stop was Teramachi, my favourite spot, for a late breakfast of udon and ramen at a cool noodle bar, and then a bit of exploring.

And then...

I got to experience a Japanese arcade.

That's a life ambition fulfilled, that. I mean, it's not like they weren't around until today, but I've never had the courage to play alone. Feels awfully sad, you know? Also, I felt that if I got into the habit of spending a couple hundred yen on machines every so often the cost would soon rack up, as would a very uncool addiction. But that didn't matter! Because that arcade only charges 50 yen a game (about 30p).

And even if it didn't, when you're blowing each other up in Gundams you really don't care about how much it's costing you!

The game, incidentally, was an aforementioned Gundam Seed Destiny Rengou vs Zaft II Plus, current top of the Pete Japanese PS2 wishlist. I enjoyed playing as Lunamaria's Zaku Warrior, a ZAFT Dom and the big boss guy's Gundam from the first series, and I didn't like that stupid, fat, squiddy one that has, like, no range in melee combat.

Then we had silly, girly photos taken in a silly, girly photo booth. Expect pictures as soon as Connor can find a decent scanner; they are not to be missed!

Oh, and then there was the hobby shop, which I had originally believed to be just a plastic model museum. Another gem I had in my cowardice not yet explored. And what a gem! Gundam models in boxes stacked to the ceiling, all priced so much better than in the UK! Take this example. A box of two Gundam Seed Destiny Zaku Warriors (one Athrun Zala custom, one Deaka Elfman custom) costs about £50 anywhere I care to look online. This shop had them for 2,500 yen, which comes to about £13!! Thirteen!! I think I'll be taking another trip down to Karasuma on Saturday when I've turned the traveller's cheques into proper money! Oh, after I pay my first 2 months' rent. Oh, and bought a mobile phone...

Then to Gion, the traditional south-west of Kyoto, and the big temple district. I managed to get in line and do the whole prayer routine thing, and there are pictures to prove it. It was also a time to learn that Maplus on the PSP is great, but only when the poor thing has enough batteries to sustain a trip the length of ours. We also checked out the Ryo...something Kannon, a "giant Shinto chappy" made of stone; two pagodas, one a fair bit more impressive than the other; and the tourist shopping area, with some sweeeeet imitation swords and, strangely, Sgt. Frog keychains. Bit of an odd combination, I thought.

Darkness decended, and we headed for dinner. Though finding a good place for dinner was harder than it sounded, as a lot of Japanese eateries look a little shady when you have to go down a dark alley to get to it, or through what looks like someone's house. After much debate and much walking we descended upon 'Tarow', a very friendly Italian place on... some street off the main street. Very nice place, that.

And so here I am, just convercing via email with Aki-sempai about help with mobile phone purchase. Tomorrow is going to be a fun day, with the collection of an Alien Receipt thing and then a bank account and hopefully, the last I'll see of those silly traveller's cheques. Exciting stuff...

Anyway, thanks, as always, for reading.

In the event of getting homesickness, the best medicine is to WORK HARDER!!

The Japanese people are meant to be unparalled in their efficiency, right?

Right?

Well why is it that after filling in so many, many forms about address confirmation and prior banking details and whether or not I like cats*, I still have to fill in I-don't-know-and-don't-want-to-know-how-many more before I can get a flipping bank account!! I was told this would be easy!

Okay, so banks close at 3 here. That's odd, but I can live with it. After all, we have so little to do these days that's not a massive problem. So I thought: hey! Now I have my Alien Registration Request form I can get a bank account! And I have a lot of time this morning so let's do it then! But oh-no, when I got there I realised that I needed my medical insurance information, a little green card I didn't bring with me because I didn't think the bank would care if I'd been ill and claimed on it since YESTERDAY! So I trundled all the way home, picked it up, and got the subway back (because I was tired), whereupon I went on a compulsory library tour with the rest of the class until about 1.45.

Then: a dilemma! I had an hour and a quarter before the bank shut, but I was very hungry, so maybe I should get lunch first... I'm glad I did.

Whilst at lunch with Matt, Matthieu (yeah, confusing), Michelle, Coco, someone I'd never met before but who apparently lives here in the 'gakukan: Yuuka, and a fifth year student Mari, we got to discussing stupid paperwork matters, including the banking details. Turns out, and this really cracked me up, the Alien Registration Request wasn't even an official document! I had to go back and ask for an Alien Registration Request Receipt and pay 350 yen! I then would get a one-shot gaijin form that I could use to make my account, I would have to buy a new one each time I needed it before the card comes through in October.

But here's the really funny part. As of 3 o'clock today, the country has started a PUBLIC HOLIDAY!! So the banks and Ward Office where I get my Receipt are all CLOSED until THUUUURSDAAAAY!!!

AAAAAAARGH!!

So now I have to wait until THEN to get a RECEIPT to get a BANK ACCOUNT to get a PHONE!! I really should have taken up Mark's offer and gone to Kobe with Zack, Mae and Na...Naomi? I don't know, I've never met her.

On the upside, my GPS is plugged in and looking for satelites, and I caught a Dratini today.

Thanks for reading.



*I do!

Pete's linguistic capability data has been added to the DoshishaDex!

Pete Level 3
LINGUIST-Type Pokemon

Special Ability: Kyoto City Health Insurance
(Battle prize money increases as the Pokemon is injured)

Anyway...

So yeah, Level 3. Can't say I'm 100% thrilled, I was kinda gunning for a 4, but by the looks of the class this is where I belong. I also have a lot of friends in this group, which is a good surprise.

But with a Level of less-than-4, I can't do the anime course this semester...

...

Yeah, not happy about that. What, they think I don't have the Japanese required to appreciate manga? Hah! I guess I could force the point if I really wanted, but I trust their judgement, and I get the feeling that a University course on manga will, despite all obstacles against it, make manga dull.

That and I'm scared to confront the staff.

Speaking of scary confrontations, I got a notice today saying that a package couldn't be delivered, the long-awaited GPS for my PSP. Not that I really need it anymore, eh? But hey, I'm sure I can find a use for it. But I have to call the mail service and book in a new time before the 22nd, which is going to be difficuuuuuult. I'm also NOT free until the 21st, which is cutting it a bit fine. Maybe I can get Ono-san to do it for me... but I'm a bit scared of talking to her, too, after last night's raucous nomikae.

Ah yes, I should talk about that. Started off very quiet, with just three gaijin and three Japanese fellows from 'Cosmopolitan', the Doshisha circle for Japanese people wanting to befriend foreign students. All three were really great people. Can't remember their names, though. Anyway, Kevin soon arrived with friends, lugging a box of cheap beer, and stuff started to kick off.

Ever played Beer Pong? I have now. A great game it is, too. Shan't explain here, it'd take a little while, but it was a fun game. We were then joined by the Chinese, Korean and Taiwanese students from upstairs, and we watched Kevin's two friends attempt a Power Hour. Something else I won't explain here. Neither succeeded.

Back on track, we got a speech about course details, and were taught how to apply for the additional courses available. I'm going for Intercultural Communication, a course on communicating well between cultural gaps; Japanese Society, which is recent history and traditions; and a Japanese Language Seminar, which trains us for JLPT level 2. Then there's 3 hours of language coursework every weekday, plus Japanese Culture lessons on Monday afternoons, which'll be fun. I think there's something else, but I can't remember.

Other things of note today include the acquisition of an Alien Registration... Request card, which is as good as the real thing until the real thing arrives in October. The banks seemed to be shut today, so I couldn't get my account sorted, though I did get the name 'picce' from the Nichibun office for a phone rental company. Going to Google it. Also got a 5%-off-Uni-services card!

Now I'm hungry, and Gym Leader 4 calls. Thanks again for reading!