Easy as a,b,c,1,2,4

Well howdy buckaroos,

Ahh yes. It's that time again. A time where I'm hanging out in a coffee shop and just can't take in more Japanese vocab (4 words is my per hour limit...I'll get there someday). Well what better a time than when relentlessly studying vocab to drop a little note about vocab fun and adventures.

Nah. No fun and no adventures. Sorry to disappoint, but I -have- been constantly working on my rep in Japan as a bumbling idiot. Oh I know! That it is surprising for most of you to learn that I could so much as utter an out of context word or much less one of ambiguous meaning, but it happens to me right here in Japan. Must be something in the water. But before I write a well and strongly worded Japanese letter to all municipal water services in Japan, I'm gonna tell you just a folly or two of the Japanese language which causes even the best to fall down sometimes. And we're off to the races.

No it's not been an easy ascension to greatness. That is, how can it be when thank you and good morning seem so much the same??? No no no. You see, when you're making a language, just like the between 2 and 4 people made the modern Japanese language in just under 3 hours about 1 million years ago, you can't just make two of the most basic introductory words sound almost the same. In Japanese:

Good morning: Oh ha yo go zai mas....say it fast....ohayogozaimas.....say it 5 times fast..no don't

Thank you: A di ga toe go zai mas....say it fast...adigatogozaimas......yeah


I mean sure, the first parts are completely different, but the second half of the word is just the same. Well that's actually cause they're both two words and the second word is the same word which means "there is" or "I have" or "blah blah blah exists." Basically for thank you you're saying "there is thanks" or "I have thanks" or "thanks exists," whichever you think sounds the most natural. I personally think "thanks exists" is the most natural because I say that all the time in English. Regardless, good morning is kinda the same....except with early, as my perfect understanding goes.....thus.....for good morning you're saying "there is early" or "I have early" or "early exists." This time I personally like "I have early." Anyways that's neither here nor there. The second half of the ding dong phrase is the same and that makes it hard if you're a really cool foreigner who is trying to throw out Japanese off the cuff like he is Japanese himself.

And ohh did I prove myself when I got here. I distinctly remember arriving in my teachers office on the first few days of teaching and someone hitting me with a good morning and I'd hit back with a thank you. But it didn't stop there.

But let's stop there for a second. It's time for an aside. Japan, folks, is not a morning country. This is quite apparent when thinking about some greetings in Japan that in spite of one popular image of Japan as being quite straight laced, Japan is really not a morning country. Think of your three basic greetings for the day:

Hello: Kon nichi wa.....konnichiwa

Good evening: Kon ban wa....konbanwa

Good morning: Oh ha yo go zai mas.....ohayogozaimas

You already got one of those, so this is review, and fluency is that much closer for the freaks and geeks. Just please don't confuse the words, amateurs. Anywho, hello, or good day, basically, in Japanese, translates very simply to "today" or "this day" or "about today." Good evening translates the same, "tonight" or "this night" or "about tonight." Then you have good morning, see the difference? As I said earlier...it means "there is early." And how apparent does it become that waking up early is not a Japanese thing when basically hello is "This day," good evening is "This night" and good morning is "It's f***ing early." The greetings are not all around positive in the first place but boy does good morning really drive it home.

But ya know what, for a country that never accepted daylight savings time, I can kinda understand where those between 2 and 4 people were coming from on this one. Because this country doesn't accept this lovely technology we call daylight savings time, the sun quickly becomes a rude aspect of every morning that leaves you begging for coffee or something to break. In the summer, you're talkin about the sun coming up in the range of 430am. And this sun isn't like the Finnish sun which comes up in a calmer manner, no it's boom and it's there! DarkJUST KIDDING LIGHT. And for some reason a beam always seems to make it straight into your eye. It's not oh wow I'm sleepy this room sure did light fast; it's more like retreat the sun is attacking!! And you know your first thought when you wake up? Ohayogozaimas.

So anyways when you mix any small complication in with this language word confusion, you get a circus. Me and my buddy used to do a little unserious Japanese class every Wednesday, then try to go out to a bar or two after to try and get to know some locals and practice our Japanese. Problem is, if you don't know how to read, like your illiterate heroes, then it becomes pretty difficult to figure out what kind of institution you're walking yourself into. What's worse, Japanese people are super shy, so even if the place is itself conducting a wholesome business, the windows and doors still have curtains over transparent or translucent areas of the building...or there's just no windows. Either way, we couldn't get the feel for a place until we walked in. This certainly lead to mixed results from employees, patrons and owners, generally the reaction being "Holy s*** it's the ********** apocalypse." I'm convinced that most of them had never seen any of those with complexions as pale as our own. Japanese folks are completely thrown off by mundane things far more than earthquakes. But that's for another day. Either way, early on we were looking for a normal everyday bar....well those are not so common in the countryside we came to learn, and trying to do your best to hit closest to the mark can put you in places where you're not appreciated for your inner person.

Well we walked into one of those places first thing, after Japanese class, and I still don't know exactly what this place was. I think it was a kind of snack bar, which is generally a place staffed by young women which serves old men snacks and alcohol. Anyways this bar-looking place was mostly empty at 10pm, about when we walked in. We came in the door, there's a girl behind the counter and two girls sitting at a short booth beside the door - both of which immediately locked their eyes on us. The lady behind the counter said something we didn't understand and we said in Japanese something like "uh....food? drinks?" It was at that point the lady behind the bar walked over to us and said something...to which we said "is there food? can we drink?" then she said something else which was followed by a "......" At this point it was like okay.....I have no clue what this place is but we did something wrong. I immediately try to say okay well we'll go somewhere else or something to that tune since I super sucked it was the first or so month in Japan. She said something else, again that we didn't understand and I decided to just cut our losses and politely leave whatever just happened. I tried to say thank you, but in my nervous, turned around confusion I said "it's f***ing early," bowed, and left. It wasn't until about ten minutes later that my friend and I were talking and I realized, "did I just say good morning and leave?"

Well it's about that time freaks and geeks. It's been a hard fought blogging experience, and I know you must be tired. So I'll hit you with a good night, which rings of a more positive tone in Japanese...something like "the honored rest," "please politely rest," or just simply "rest." So to all of you out there - Oyasumi!

This is the category of apartment they call falling apartment

Well some time has passed between my saying yo here are the apartment pics and actually posting. I blame the blogspot app!! Oh I tried to post those pics in due time, but they were in "posting" status for an extended period of time and then just said ya know what this isn't gonna happen, and not only that, don't even try to update your blog via me ever again. And for the moment, that was all she wrote for the blogspot app. To be continued. Anyways so I just did this the old fashioned way and I'll throw up some pics phone > comp > blog style. Will I be thwarted? We shall see....


Anywho here it is, the worst share house viewing ever.

Ahh yes, nothing says rustic like the unrenovated war time 1945 build.

One perk: seemingly free cardboard boxes. Hard to walk away when you throw in the cardboard.

Ah yes, built in 1945 and decorated in 1975. Makes me feel young again.

Kill two birds with one stone by washing your hands in an industrial kitchen sink.

Hey at least urinals are convenient in the common bathrooms!

oh.......

I'm a real sink variety guy, and this stone sink is just like the one my grandpa, who lived to be 115 and was born on Feb 29 of a leap year, used when he was a kid.

I generally hate to see the bottom right-hand corner of things anyways, and this mirror in the hall doesn't disappoint. 

This sink is useful for washing ones hands just before jumping off the roof.

Ah you're back. I know you clicked the x and then came back due to your passionate curiosity. Well research is a noble endeavor to make use of such a trait, but I also think a good healthy blog viewing is a legitimate substitute. And now you know. That was no good son! Over and out! And not back to this place! Peace!

Aparting is such sweet sorrow

Hi-z,

Yeah. It's been a day folks, a day for finding apartments! That's right, your man ain't got nowhere to live! While I'm sure you crack a smile and evil grin imagining me out on the street making my way with my four bags and half a million t-shirts, wipe that thing off your face and go clean your mouth out with soap(for good measure). I live just fine in my cool little airbnb baby, that's for a month, so you can just quit thinking in that sadistic way. For a month. Thus today was the first time looking looking looking for a place to live. Let me tell you, this has already been the advent of an adventure not so worth venturing out for. 

I wanna share house, but you know, you can't have everything you want. And I learned that today. Again. Probably. A share house is just a house that you share with other people, basically the same as in the US, so no Japanese twist on it...which is quite unusual....I still have room for suspicion. Anywho, today I went to a housing agency and got started looking for houses. There was one share house. Very good location, 250 USD.....okay....something is funny here. Not really funny "ha ha" funny. This is Kyoto, the old capital city where tourists abound year round then I make a rhyme and everyone reading thinks I'm cool, everything centrally located is expensive, period. 

Well turns out, freaks and geeks, that there was something funny which was not funny that you might find funny, you sadistic freaks and geeks, you. That is, it was expensive for what it was. Yup. YUP. So the guy drives me over to show it to me and we get to the door. The door, first of all, is one that we weren't exactly sure if this could actually be the door because there was a moped parked directly in front of it, and you had to squeeze around it in order to reach the sliding front door much less enter the "home." 

We enter the abode to a room which is I guess a kind of mix between the area where you leave your shoes in the average Japanese house and a rectangular shaped 1/17th of your hoarder great uncle's garage. There's bags of trash to your right just as you walk in. Just miscellaneous cardboard boxes on the floor, random junk on the shelves, bikes(plural for some reason). Then turn right to step up onto the floor of the oddest apartment I've ever seen. It's all basically wood and Japanese tatami floor. Not strange in and of itself, but everything seemed so used that even in its cleanest state, it was still a kind of "ill at ease" state of clean. Like when you clean something and you know it's clean, but the whatever that's on it has just been made part of the greater structure. One "room" is empty to our right, but it's not really a room...I don't even remember if it had a proper door or if the hall just led into it. It was an empty tatami room with a kinda foggy style window you mind see in a shower room. The walls all Japanese style. We wonder if this is the open room.....but then we hear a noise from behind the back wall.

Well this wall wasn't a wall at all. Btw do you like how I put paragraph breaks right where there would be a commercial if this was a show? Anyways this wasn't a wall at all. Yes it was a sliding wall door, a door apparently to the master bedroom. Whose walls are doors it seems. A bearded, kinda sketchy looking early 30s guy cracks the door and pokes his head out with this confused "I was just smoking weed in my pajamas" look on his face. He's not your average Japanese customer either. This man is sporting a beard with a tiny bit of gray, sandals with socks up to his knees and a camo jacket. The guy showing me the place politely explains who he is and what he's there for and the grungy fellow seems to realize who he is in the middle of this explanation. Turns out this guy is the "house leader" who, apparently in Japanese share houses, basically manages the situation and makes sure things are going smooth.

And boy were things peachy. We went right up to the room that was supposedly "interested" in. The stairs were wooden, poorly built, and so steep that I had trouble making my ascent without using my hands and scrambling. The narrow ass stair case led to two rooms, one available, one not. The checked out the room, and it was pretty huge. Great right, but for some odd reason, I guess because the complete lack of space in the cluttered establishment, everybody's laundry was just hanging in this room. So, if I move in here, where do we hang our laundry? I was afraid to even ask. I think the leader and I had already decided there was no way I was living there. Some random foreigner in prep clothes who can't speak Japanese at all(or so he figured which is almost right) coming to live in my lair?? He and his feeling of entitlement going to Kyoto University and feeling all good about himself. Get outta here!

As I was leaving the room I also noticed another thing. The stairway was so narrow and there were sliding doors on the rooms.....Wait is this.....No way. The two doors at the top of the stairs couldn't open if the other one was opened. They were literally boneheadedly engineered so if one guy had his door open then the other guy couldn't get out. Okay this is totally ridiculous. Here, just to give you a visualization, I've put some top down illustrations of the door situation in this apartment:

Yup, as you can see, if one door opens in the direction it opens, it cuts off the other guy! Like this:

One door opens, the other guy is screwed. Or, for those of you more familiar with Japanese, the more probable response:

One thing leads to another, and you have this:

Then of course that creates a roommate turf war and you have this:

But I'm not used to turf wars, so I choke:

Then failure:

Needless to say, freaks and geeks, that this was not the straw that broke the camel's back. The camel was already in that situation from the moment I walked in, but now the camel got hit by a flaming meteor. I'll spare you a description of the rest of the apartment, other than it was a cluttered mess even when I could have imagined it "clean." On the way out of the awful place I saw the toilet room, which was just three makeshift walls built around a toilet which before must have just been sitting there out in the open. It was like they put a poorly built outhouse inside the building. I didn't stick around long enough to see if the thing flushed like a normal toilet. As the guy who owned the apartment couldn't get over his curiosity and started asking me questions even though he had looked at me like he wanted to kick me earlier, I was running out of there. 

___________________________________

Days after this, I checked three other share houses, one was great, I'll move in there. The other two were like chapter 2 and three of garbage pit 5000 which is the name of the book written about searching for share houses in Kyoto. 

I'll be short and say the chapter 2 entailed a building in the middle of the city which wasn't run down like the other one. It seemed relatively modern as well. But the halls were extensive, the kitchen was small( about right for 1 person, instead of the probably 8 that lived there.), the halls had no windows and a ceiling so low my head almost touched it. It was a space worthy of inducing CLAUSTROPHOBIA. Well fine, there was a nice 40something year old with no teeth in the kitchen who said nobody in the share house talks to each other. Then I was told that everyone works and they're all 35ish and up. WEEEEE BYEE!!!

So that didn't work. Great so on to chapter three. This place. THIS PLACE. I have no words so I'll just show pictures and be done. I will say though that this one was in the range of 170 USD per month and was built in 1945. Alarm bells people, ALARM BELLS.

I'm putting those pics in the following picture blog. Enjoy and beware!!! Ciao peeps!

Highway to He...inconvenience.

Well hello there lovelies. Wonderful to see you on this fair Monday. Let's just say it's time to take time and pitch you a little blog into the blogosphere. That is, just an honorable mention today. None of these million word posts.

So today I arrived in Kyoto(again) with even more bags. My friends had been graciously holding them for me until my return and thus with my return also comes making many trips to my old humble abode and bringing them to my new rich fancy abode that thinks it's better than you (and your stupid abode). Well upon arriving at the train station I waited in line for an unsuspecting cab driver. The man seemed nice enough as he put my bags in the car, undeserving of my disturbance at least.

Well we go down the road and have the average exchange, I tell him it's in this direction and when he get's to where "this" is then I tell him further specifics. Well where I'm staying is next to some train tracks( just heard the loud ass thing fly by as I was typing this), so actually when you cross the train tracks on the way to my place of staying you should take a super immediate left. Well it was Japanese and the guy was driving too fast so I didn't tell him to turn in time and quickly directed the cab driver instead to the following left which was right after the left he should have taken had he not been such a speedy driver(his fault!). Well so what! I didn't know that left was so incredibly narrow so that three people couldn't walk shoulder to shoulder down the street!

He was like uhh...here?? I, without really thinking, said yeah here! He just went on like  uh well okay and just started down the road. He went slow, and slowed up a lot when he continued as there was a really tight ledge and a phone pole to shimmy through. To be fair, I'd never really been down this road so I had no clue what to expect....well...other than a normal road like all other lefts in the entire city thanks Japan. So he slowly squeezed through that tight spot then moved on a bit to a fork in the road brave man he was. Well left again would get us back to the street we missed, so I was like okay left! I said "hidari"(left in Japanese). But you see this fork was like....a real fork hahaha. The individual prongs of the fork are not as wide as the handle of the fork which lead to the prongs. In other word, the road got even narrower! (why is it there in the first place????) The cab driver said "Hidari??........Muri!(the word impossible in Japanese)" then followed that up with "BA KU!"(not sure if that was the English word or if Japanese actually steals that word from the word "back" in English like Japanese does with so so many other words). So the cab driver, fed up with this direction enough to break his politeness(which is huge huge huge in Japan) and actually exclaim "impossible!" when I told him to do something, backed up very carefully. In fact, it took us a good 5 - 10 minutes to back out of that street (hard to even go forward into) because of the phone pole and the ledge.

I was just wondering what this cab driver was thinking. Like grrr whyyy why why did I pick up this foreigner and who is this guy telling me to turn into this freaking alley way wtf......I actually had to hold back an extremely strong urge to burst out laughing as I was imagining what he must be thinking and as he tried several times to back out of the road between a phone pole and ledge. After that he just said okay great so that'll be 2600 yen and just dropped me off right there hahaha. He was too turned around to even take me the rest of the way there. He probably just drove straight home after that and didn't even finish his shift. Anyways I was only 5 min from my place so I just walked home. Cab drivers beware!! Peace wut!

Orientation which only gets the orient part right

Well, here we are freaks and geeks. Another one flying over the cuckoo's nest as it were. Actually I have no clue what that means.

Back to ole Japan. Another chapter in the book of untold chapters. Yes, as untold as the last chapter was, let's start with episode IV. That's right freaks and geeks. This blog is a New Hope. Ohhh the story will be told. I, II, and III are coming out. But you know what?? Why not start with IV, V, and VI??? That's where our story begins.....

SO let's up the ante shall we freaks and geeks? As I travel on out to sea I can see that the buoy is bowing and it's time to take off the floaties. Oh poetry! What I'm trying to say, silly, is until now I was always properly belayed for the ballet which would soon be laid to rest in my tracks. Okay fine I'll cut the scientific jargon.

What I'ma tryina say is this thing is gonna be harder than the other things. Don't believe me? Well baby, clap your hands if you're ready for the knowledge drop cause here's what I learned today....that's where our story begins.....

Man, I have never really thought twice about orientations. In fact, when I did think about them, I basically just wanted to gag the whole time. After all, who likes those things anyways? Orientations are for me to make jokes to my neighbor who is uncomfortably trying to act like he's listening to the lecture instead of my distraction, in an unfaltering attempt not to reveal that he himself is playing similar games in his own bored little mind.

NOPE THAT'S WRONG. I've come to Kyoto University. I've squeezed in here as a rat might contort to find himself in a room holding all the king's cheese. That is, without explaining too much, I'm not with a program, I basically negotiated my way in for a research year here in a department. Well as it turns out, and also what might be beneficial for the rat, is that you don't make a big splash when you come in as just a guy who got penciled into the university. Thus, whereas before I came with a huge group, in every travel situation I've been in, went through seminar after seminar, ceremony after ceremony until I wanted to pull my leg hair out(why shave when you can go to an orientation).....now it seems relatively...quiet.

"This is great!" you might say, freaks and geeks. Now you won't be caught by the kings guards. "Nobody loves me!" the now demoted Luke-san says (whatever once a sensei always a sensei is what I sei). And ya know, it's really more disconcerting than I thought not to have any clue if the cafeterias have meal plans, if there's a university gym, how to use the library, the ropes of student health (or the closest clinic). Throw in a language barrier and you have a recipe for being lost! Never fear though my dear creepy crawlers, as the night falls a hero rises. What I'm sayin is I'll sleep on it and probably know a lot more by tomorrow. A NEW HOPE. Ciao!

P.S. I got a cool app for this thing now so WEEEEEE, I'll be doing some short post with some long posts weeeee gonna try that weeeee