Alrighty!!! It's been a great while. Reason? I officially ended my first semester of Intermediate Japanese (covering material normally learned from September through January at Princeton) with a big ol' final! I worked for the three hours straight, with a short ten minute oral final in the middle of the written test, so it was a MARATHON. Not so fun at all. I couldn't speak English nor Japanese after the final, so nonsensical gibberish was rolling out of my mouth for the rest of the day.
Now for the fun stuff...
Naka Yasumi!
(Naka, meaning inside, middle, center etc, and yasumi, meaning vacation or rest)
Time to take a trip to Kyoto!
I woke up to this great breakfast my mom made before heading to the train station. I met up with about 15 other PII students at 8:20 am to take our reserved bus ride to Kyoto!
On the way, we took quite a few bathroom/food stops. The mini markets and bathroom stops are way way way cooler than any Burger King, Taco Bell/Pizza Hut mash up truck stop I always pass when I'm on a long drive in the US! Just look at this vending machine! It sells takoyaki, grilled onigiri, taki yaki, AND it calls it "casual frozen foods." Ya know...keepin' it casual.
After about four hours of jammin on my iPhone, we arrived in Kyoto!
This was Marina Kaneko's MK Tour bus. We roll in style.
The Kyoto Station is an architectural amalgamation of AWESOME.
More pictures of the interior to come...
Our first order of duty was to drop off all our nimotsu at the hostel,
a short walk away from the train station.
TA Daaaaaa!! I was really surprised how nice it was!
I stayed in a Dormitory-style room with 7 other people. Our PII group shared three rooms total (I think), so we were a large traveling pack!
Here was the cafe/ bar inside the hostel. Nice, amirite?!
After our quick hostel pit stop, a large group of us walked around Kyoto.
We walked along the Kamo River until we found a cheap place for lunch.
I love these restaurants! They are basically fast food taken to a more efficient level of deliciousness.
Step 1: Look at all the signs. Lot's of promotional specials and pictures to help out the Gaijin.
2: Insert a certain amount of money into the machine. The item choices that you can afford with that amount of money will light up.
3. Press any one of those options to order.
4. Take the ticket. It's your important order!
5. Bring the ticket to the counter, sit down, and a few minutes later, your order arrives at your table! Magical stuff.
I order the cold udon. It was only 150 円! Nommmm.
After lunch, we went shopping in the downtown area. Our first stop was a multilevel bookstore in a department store with stacks and stacks and shelves upon shelves of colorful books!
Lucas, who is quite the experienced chef, and I were pretty dang impressed by the cook books. The photos and page layouts were unparalleled. Lucas's face says it all.
One of my favorite books that I looked at was a book dedicated layout designs of magazines/ads/ business cards/ signs/ etc. Of course the Japanese would have a book solely dedicated to layouts of books and other bound stuffs.
Then we made a quick stop in the bazillion storied gaming center before more shopping!
A Japanese stationary/home goods/ awesome unnecessary Japanese chotsky store. It was great.
So many stores. Kawaramachi and Teramachi Dori = an endless arcade maze of stores and restaurants everywhere. EVERYWHERE. I had no idea Japan was such a consumer haven.
The weirdest part is that most of the clothing and accessory stores sell almost the exact same merchandise! I don't get it. They are all the same.
Shin Kyogoku Shopping Arcade
Rage. Always. With Hugh's awk squat in the middle.
There was also a very strange hippie town flower child explosion of a store playing Reggae Whitney Houston. Interesting. I smell some incense!
Here was our shopping group! Left to right: Hugh, Adrian, Grace, Marina, Lucas, and me! Peace.
I love the stores that specialize in one item. This one was dedicated solely to handkerchiefs. Adorbs.
We ended up shopping to the evening. I actually think that you get a great sense of the Japanese culture through wandering through the streets, shopping and looking at all the styles and trends at the moment. Definitely a consumer culture. The stores are crammed with stuff everywhere.
After we completed out fare share of shopping exploration, we met up with some other PII students for dinner! I split off from my shopping group and had ramen with the rest of the peeps.
While Kyoto isn't necessarily a specialty of Kyoto, we are students on a budget, so some cheap ramen got the job done!
And it was quite nommms.
Ume shio ramen with char siu pork slices.
After dinner, it was a beautiful night, neither hot nor rainy, so we popped a squat along the river and enjoyed the night together!
After our fun by the river, we returned to the hostel for a good nights sleep! I missed sleeping in a dorm like room with other people to hang out with! I miss college! Princeton, come back!
Great start to the Naka Yasumi.
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