Ōsōji

It's an old Japanese custom to clean the house before the New Year. The Japanese get rid of all the stuff that they don't need anymore, they pay all their debts, settle arguments and so on to start "from the beginning" after New Years Eve.
We had this big cleaning three days ago. Everybody was running around, hanging New Year's decoration, sweeping, washing, arranging and generally going crazy. We changed the bamboo cover for the wells; now it's very nice fresh green color:

We hung various decration; paper, leaves, pine branches (kadomatsu). And of course in every tokonoma we put mochi (rice cakes) and mikan fruit. Afterwards we will eat the mochi in a soup called ozōni:

After cleaning everybody went to a bōnenkai. It's a "forgetting-of-this-year" party. Everybody eats and drinks a lot... We went to a kaiten sushi place near Tondaya and I think I've never ate so much sushi as that night...

The next day wasn't very busy, so in the evening I went with some of my AIESEC friends for yakiniku. It's just "fried meat"; you can fry it yourself on a grill attached to every table. It was tabehōdai (all-you-can-eat), but I'm not a big fan of meat, so I didn't eat a lot. Nevertheless the next day I woke up with the worst stomachache EVER. I couldn't eat a thing; I only made myself some baby food and prayed it wouldn't be too much for my upset stomach. I suffered for a whole day and a part of night, but thankfully today I woke up to find myself in a pretty good shape. I don't think I'll be able to eat yakiniku in the near future though...

Tonight I'm going templing; I'll just go around town in hope of seeing something interesting, and if I'm lukcy maybe see jōya no kane (buddist monks toll a bell 108 times to cleanse all the sins that people commited in the passing year).

Kimono shopping spree

And so this is Christmas... And what have I done? I decided to treat myself today and in the early morning I went to Tenjinsan bazaar around the Kitanotenmangu temple. I was searching for a kimono for a man - a present for my significant other - and encountered some problems:

1. There are more used kimonos for women than men

2. If you find one, it's usually for a very small person (when I say very small I mean 150-160cm)

3. If you find a bigger one it costs a fortune

So I kept searching for two hours, digging through endless mountains of fabric and in the end I was finally able to find something that I think will suit him. I found a juban (undergardments) and an obi, so now I have one set ready. I didn't want to buy a hakama - he'll have to do it himself when he comes here - because I had no idea what would suit him.

For myself I found a ton of stuff. I only buy fudangi (normal, every-day kimono) and I try to find the best materials. I don't like polyester, so the kimonos I have now are either silk or cotton (or hemp-ish... not really sure). I bought 3 kimonos, one haori, one obijime and one juban. Oh. My. Kami-sama. How I am going to ship it all to Poland, I have no idea.
Here are some photos of my kimonos:


On the 22nd I went with Mindy to a Christmas Party to the cafe of her tea teacher (below, me with the said teacher who, appearently, is Santa, Mindy's photo). We had LOTS of food and it was the first time I saw a whole roast turkey as we don't eat it Poland on Christmas. Other than turkey it was, as Mindy said, the most random food I ate for Christmas.
First some gyoza and salad, then pasta, turkey, soup, pizza, etc. I have to agree with her - but everything was delicious (along with my yuzu drink. I am a hardcore yuzu fan) so I was very happy.

The next day we had a quiet Christmas dinner over at Mindy's; mashed potatoes (how I missed that!), salad, lasagne and roast chicken plus obligatory cake. With strawberries that came in a seperate box, wrapped in this stuff that goes "pop". Whole 3 strawberries. Gotta love Japanese packaging...

Kobe!

Yesterday I went to Kobe, mainly for another Pecha Kucha night, but I also did some sightseeing.

Kobe is quite close to Kyoto, but those two cities are very different; the first being a business, culture-mix and harbour city, the second old, high-class, old capital type of atmosphere city. As much as I've come to love Kyoto, my trip to Kobe was quite refreshing. I wandered through the various shopping arcades in the Sannomiya district (I bought 2 pairs of tabi for 500yen! I still can't believe it!) and finally I found a mini China-town (Nankinmachi). It was great; I especially loved all those small stalls with different types of food. I had a manjuu (a steamed bun with meat filling; by the way, it was the first time in weeks that I ate meat!) and zhimaqu (a type of chinese pastry made of rice, sweet bean paste and sesame seeds) I also encoutered some... interesting shops selling "weird stuff" (and that's to put it mildly). First, I came eye-to-eye with gay-santa-football fan Bruce Lee:
Than I found perfect presents for my friends:
YES, that is real.
After spending way too much time in China Town I went to the harbour; it was quite cold, so I ran away pretty fast, but I managed to take some pictures when the light was nice:
After walking around the city for a few hours I took a train to Nishinomiya where the Pecha Kucha Night was taking place and I gave a short speech about my life as an intern student in Tondaya. It was cold outside and warm inside, so my face got all red - everybody thought I was nervous, but that was just the damn heat! Oh, OK, I may have been a little bit nervous...
Other presentations that night were very interesting; everybody was great and I enjoyed this PKN a lot. A pity I won't be there for the next one; it's a week after I'm going back home.

It seems that this week will be quite interesting - lots of parties and good food, so I'm excited. Mindy invited me to a Christmas party at her tea teacher's shop; this will be my first Christmas outside Poland, so I'm a bit down, but then again I always welcome new experiences.

Xmas parties and stuff...

I was at a Christmas party with my Kyodai friends yesterday and drank, ate and tortured the poor souls with my singing. Fotrunately, there were no casualities.
The Japanese invented many good things - long hot baths, karaoke, instant noodles and nomihodai. All-you-can-drink parties can be very entertaining if you're a gaijin. You can drink to your hearts content and be sure you'll be the most sober one.
Other then that, I can't seem to get used to this japanese custom of pouring drinks for eachother. Basically, you have to constantly observe the glass of the person sitting closest to you and make sure it stays full at all times. I usually just get pulled into a conversation and forget about it, resulting in my and my partner's discomfort. And sometimes I have to drink ridiculous amounts of beer or other drinks, because everybody's pouring me...

I came back home, my head slightly fuzzy, and couldn't fall asleep until 2 AM - I guess I crossed that magical barrier when alcohol makes you hyperactive. And I think the fact that I only drank coctails may have added a slight sugar rush to all that...

On Monday I went with Mindy and her friends to Hanatoro; it's a very unique light-up at Arashiyama. It's basically over a 5 kilometer path of various cute lanterns; it was quite beautiful, bur my camera's battery died on me, so I will post some pictures as soon as I steal some from Mindy's facebook page (is it still stealing when the victim agrees...?).
I also learned something new about taboos in Japan - appearently you can't walk and eat at the same time - it's considered very rude, and I do it all the time. I was wondering why all these people stand in front of the supermarkets and eat whatever they bought instead of simply going wherever they were going, but now I get it... But well, I'm a uncultured gaijin, so I guess I'm forgiven. At least I hope so...

Ohisashiburi

"Ohisashiburi" basically means "long time no see" (which, by the way, is a direct translation from chinese hǎojiǔ bùjiàn... it amazes me how the world's languages influence eachother). I haven't written anything in a while, so I figured that it's time to do something about it!

Work has been a bit hectic lately, so I didn't have time to do interesting stuff. New Year's celebrations are coming soon, so we started the "osoji" ("big cleaning"). I was terrified when I had to clean the windows in the house; it's hand-made glass, which is over a 100 years old. And the way to clean it is to take out the whole window (!) and wipe from both sides. I had to be extra-careful...

Thankfully, after New Year we'll have some quiet time and I hope to go around Kyoto for a bit, discover some not-touristy places (it's quite difficult in here...)
It's getting colder (about 12 C), so I'm heading to the sento to warm myself up. Sayonara picture today is kamelia blossoms in the garden:

Miyagi trip

It all started so bad, that I figured that things would only get better from that point. Luckily, I wasn't wrong.
At the beginning of our trip we all gathered near Kyoto Station (in the evening of the 25th of November)and everybody was ready to get on a night bus and be in Sendai at about 6 o'clock the next day. But the person responsible for booking our bus tickets made one little mistake. He booked the tickets not for November 25th, but December 25th. In the end, we had to take the earliest Shinkansen train in the morning, and arrived at Sendai at noon. Everything would be OK except for the fact that the train is two times more expensive than the bus. I shall be dieting for the rest of the month now.
Of course, it was my first time riding the Shinkansen, and I must admit, the train is amazing. The trip to Sendai took us only 4 hours, while our trip back to Kyoto with a bus took 12 hours.
In between trying to surpress anger and tears at my lost money (of the Dark Side those emotions are) I noticed two salarymen (typical Japanese white-collar gyus) sitting next to me take out 6 cans of beer, which were emptied quite fast (please note that it was about 10 A.M.) Indeed, the Japanese-Alcohol relationship is quite strange. Picture below: Shinkansen arriving at Kyoto Station.

After we arrived at Sendai we were picked up by the AIESEC gyus from Tohoku University and led to a conference room, in which people from the City Hall talked about their experiences during the earthquake and tsunami.
After the meetings we went for "nomikai" (again, lots of alcohol involved). Not only "nomikai" ("drinking meeting"), but "nomihodai" ("all-you-can-drink"). It cost 3000 yen and the drinks were about 500 yen each, so, wanting to get just a little bit of my money back, I drank 6. As it was a nomihodai, there really wasn't too much alcohol in those drinks, but still everybody was shocked that I could still stand after that amount (some guys who drank less had trouble going back home. To my great surprise, me knees just got a little wobbly.) We also had mountains of food (nabe, sashimi, rice with eggs, lots of seafood that I can't name...) and my mood brightened.

The next day we went to a small town near the coastline called Watari and did some volounteer work. We managed to clean two houses (pictures below). I was really happy that I could accually do something. I'd like to stay longer and help more, but I couldn't leave work for such a long period. Pictures below: me at work and during lunch break.

After work we went around the area for a bit and saw the effects of the tsunami with our own eyes. They guy who showed us around told us that this area was famous for it's strawberries, but now there is too much salt in the soil, so everything looks like that:

In the evening we went to Matsushima, one of the three greatest views in Japan, which, thankfully, was not so damaged. Matsushima area is surrounded by small islands that were a natural barrier for the tsunami. We stayed in a ryokan and I think I had the most delicious dinner of my life. Sashimi, crab, konnyaku, macrell, eel, miso soup, rice, tuna and, of course, stuff that I can't name and I barely managed to eat it all. There was so much food that it was falling off the table. After the meal we went to the onsen and changed into yukata (everybody asked me to tie their obi for them - quite strange, a gaijin dressing a bunch of Japanese in their own traditional clothes). Picture below: our group in Matsushima. The weather wasn't that nice, so I have no good photos. At least it wasn't cold...
In the morning of the 3rd day I had natto for the first time. It smells bad and tastes bad, so I guess I'm not going to be a big fan of it. After leaving the ryokan we walked around Matsushima, and visited two shrines there. Local speciality is a cow's tongue ("gyutan"), so everybody except me wanted to try it, and I ended up trying my best to look satisfied with my lunch. Oh, well. I managed to get rid of the taste with some green beans ice-cream (also, local speciality)
In the evening we walked around Sendai for a little bit and got on the bus at 8 P.M., starting our journey back to Kyoto. I don't know if the Japanese buses are so comfortable (they are five times more comfortble than Polish ones, I think) or I was very tired, because I slept for the whole journey, and I usually can't fall asleep in any mode of transportation.

Overall, it was a very fruitful trip and I'm happy that I went. On the other hand, it was also the most expensive 3-day trip of my life, but you can't really help it in Japan...

Ramblings

Nothing particular happened today, so I figured I'd just ramble for a bit.

First, the food. I mostly cook at home (cheap and healthy), but I had to learn how to make a few things, since the ingredients here are so different. Bread is basically inedible - it smells funny and tastes like cardboard. Dairy products - cheese, yoghurt, sour cream - are expensive and the taste also can't live up to my expectations. Back home my diet consisted mostly of the products listed above, so I had to think of something to replace them. Now I usually make onigiri (rice balls with different filling), miso soup, sushi, many types of udon and soba noodles, and, of course, I'm slowly learning 101 ways to prepare tofu. Tofu really is a life-saver and it's especially good here in Kyoto. And last but not least - my favorite thing to eat as of late - stimmed kabocha (Japanese pumpkin). It's quick and easy, and it tastes heavenly. You only have to mix some water, sake (though I use mirin) and sugar and stimmer it till it gets soft.

Second, the people. I imagined they'd be more reserved and they'd keep their distance from me, but when they realize that I speak japanese they starting to be more open. I'm amazed by the number of questions I've been asked since I came here, from quite simple ones like "what's th e weather like in Poland" to quite strange like "is Polish the official language of Poland". But I have to answer all of them patiently because most of them don't understand sarcasm. They are just so polite that they can't imagine answering a question in any other way than helpful, I guess. I'm afraid that my sarcastic sense of humor may disappear if I stay here longer.

The other day there was a group of people from Italy in Tondaya, and we have a very small entrance, so taller people usually bump their heads. There's at least one such preson in every group, so of course one lady bumped her head while entering. When they were leaving I reminded them to watch their heads, and then one girl said "no, thank you, I think I'd rather smash my head" and my first reaction was "...huh?", and my sarcasm detector kicked in only a few moments later. Scary...

So, most Japanese don't get sarcasm. And I'm afraid that I don't understand their sense of humor yet. Whenever I crack a joke they tell me I'm mean. That's one more thing - you can't be completely straightforward with them, or they'll think you're mean, or crude. Sometimes I think you have to have some Jedi patience to get your point across. And if they had some bad news for you they will a)not tell you at all or b)say it so don't think it's actually that bad. But overall they try really hard to be helpful and hospitable, it's just that our cultures are so different, that there are situations when we stare at eachother not sure what to do, even if we speak the same language.

Enough of my ramblings for today. For the end is a photo of the maple leaves light-up at the Zenrinji temple (I went there yesterday)

Kyoto University Festival

Lately work's been quite hectic, so I didn't have much time to write. And since I had so much work, I didn't have time to do anything worth writing about...
But! I had some free time this Sunday and Monday, so on Sunday I went to the Kanze Theater. Kanze is the most famous Noh family (and Noh is an old Japanese theater - something like our opera; if you don't know what it is about, you won't understand a thing). My boss gave me ticekts to see her friend's performance, but it turned out that it was some amateour group performing that day and they were basically only singing the score. For seven hours.
So me and Mindy (a girl from the US that I met recently) decided to retreat pretty fast and went to the Heian Jingu for a walk in the gardens. The maple leaves are nearing their finest now, so it was very nice to just stroll through the temple's gardens, gossping. (Pictures below: me at the Heain Jingu garden)
On Monday I went to Nara with my fellow KyoDai (Kyoto Daigaku) students. I was supposed to teach a high school class, which basically ended with me tormenting a group of poor 16 year-olds. I told them a bit about myself, about Poland (lifestyle, history, famous things, etc.) and my internship at Tondaya. I guess I almost gave one boy a heart attack when I asked for a volounteer to show a traditional Polish greeting (3 times kiss plus hug - you can imagine how a Japanese person would react to that. But I DID warn him.)
Later the students asked me all kinds of questions (what's my favorite manga, how many languages can I speak, do I often fight with my boyfriend and so on).
And today evening I went to the KyoDai Bunka Sai - "culture festival". I wish we had something like that on our universities. Every club organizes some activities; some people sell food (made by themselves) and everybody's drinking. So I was selling baby-castella (a kind of cake, originally from Portugal) today with other students, amazing everybody with my drinking abilities (??), sitting in a kotatsu and watching the performances. I guess the most bizzare thing of all was the performance of the cheering club (I can't find a better name for that). It's something like cheerleaders, but there are also guys and an orchestra. They were very serious about it, but I couldn't stop laughing (at first I didn't know what was it and asked Natsuki if it's a kind of comedy... turns out that it wasn't. You can check out this link to see what is it about, more or less:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7feO8KCS1n8&feature=related). This kind of thing is called Oendan and, I suppose, it's only practiced in Japan.

Time goes by...

Sometimes I wish that time would slow down. It has alreday been a month since I came to Japan, and I'm still feeling like it was a week ago. But so much happened since then that I couldn't possibly do it all in one week...

This week my boss took me to a banquet in one of the hotels in Kyoto. She was a panelist and gave a lecture about traditional Japanese culture, and I assisted in a chakai. When I was handing out tea bowls people would stare at me, and sometimes I was stuck talking to some ojisan and explaining my existence - I guess that besides one guy from the USA, I was the only gaijin there, and I was wearing a kimono, too. (The picture below: me and my boss.)
After the chakais and lectures, there was food (my mouth still waters at the thought of those cakes...) and performances - first two maiko and one geiko, and than a jazzband. I was able to talk to a maiko for the first time in my life, so I was quite nervous... (Below: the photo of the two maiko and a geiko during their performance.)
But the next day I had an even better occasion. The guests can book a "Japanese wedding ceremony" here at Tondaya, and a couple from Spain came. Only the girl didn't know it's a wedding ceremony - we dressed her in a fantastic kimono, and her partner in a kimono and hakama, and he proposed to her that way!
She said yes, and they had san san ku do ritual later (It's a traditinal Japanese wedding ceremony, when the couple drinks sake from 3 cups, and after that they are married). Not only he booked the ceremony, but he also ordered kaiseki ryori (a very expensive Japanese meal) and a maiko. She performed a couple of dances and talked with them. I was there taking photos and translating a little bit, so I had a chance to see how it looks like.
I admit, I was amazed. From now on I shall hunt down every idiot that says a geisha equals prostitute.


Yesterday we had a TV crew over - they were making a program about kimonos, and decided to ask me how does it feel to be a gaijin wearing a kimono. Everything would be nice and easy, but they asked me to talk in Japanese about "how my heart and soul changes when I wear a kimono" while performing a temae (tea ceremony).
So you can imagine how it feels like to talk in a foreign language about something very complex and going through some complicated moves with your body.
Basically, it was a failure... I only hope there will be only a little of me in the show...
And the recording of all this took all day - I had to do the same thing on and on again, and at the end of the day I was a corpse. Luckily, I went to see the momiji to the Tofukuji temple with Mindy and the atmosphere was so relaxing that the stress just disapeared. This year is especially warm, so the leaves are not changing their color yet - but it was fun just to sit on the engawa, listen to nice music and gossip for a bit. And the temple's garden itself is beautiful.

Kurama

It was my first day off when it wasn't raining! I decided to go to Kagome, a small mountain town near Kyoto. I was beginning to miss nature, and a short hike in the mountains seemed quite nice. And indeed it was - Mount Kurama is a very important place in Japan. Here young hero Ushiwakamaru was trained by Tengu (weird creatures with enormous noses, picture below), Kurama temple is a well-known place since the Heian period, and the guy who invented Reiki lived here in the beginning of the 20th century (I dedicate that last thing to my future mother-in-law, who has creeped me out numerous times with her talks about Reiki).The momiji (maple leaves) are not yet at their best, but I managed to get a few glimpses of really beautiful trees. I guess I have to wait about two more weeks to see the famous moyo (red-colored leaves), and than I will go to Arashiyama and get killed by wild tourists.
And for the sake of comic relief, I also post a picture of me after the matcha incident. I was sifting a container of tea for tomorrow's chakai (Of witch, by the way, I'm terrified of. Just a bunch of very important people in the most expensive hotel in Kyoto and ME serving them tea. I just hope I can survive.) when it blew up in my face. How's that for a good luck charm. I spent a lot of time cleaning the office, my kimono, myself and the carpet. I pray to whatever kami who is willing to listen that nothing like that will happen tomorrow...

Kamigamo Kimono Fair

Lots of photos today!
We went to the Kamigamo Kimono Fair - Tondaya had one booth and we sold lots of obijime (a silk string), obiage (silk scarf-like thing, but you use it to tie your obi), and even one silk obi (kimono sash). I felt weird at first - a gaijin selling kimonos is not something you see everyday - but it turned out that I became a living advertisement. Everybody wanted to see that freak who speaks Japanese and sells kimonos ;).
The first photo is a view of the shrine:

There was a stage set up before the entrance and lots of things were going on. I caught two geiko (geisha) walking off the stage after their performance.

Today was also Shichigosan - a festival for 7, 5 and 3 year-olds, so there were many children dressed in cute kimonos running around. The thing that I noticed about Japanese kids is that they can run freely everywhere, pick up sand, bugs, climb trees and even roll on the ground and nobody says a word about it. I can't count how many times I heard in Poland "don't do that, you'll get dirty", or "don't run around, you'll sweat". Everything I hear that I want to throw something at a person who says it - how can you be a kid and NOT get dirty? So, even in quite expensive and ceremonial clothes these kids seemed to have fun.


And, at last, I have the promised purikura. It's me and my friend from the Kyoto University - Mai. You can see I was a bit overwhelmed by the whole thing, because I'm making a weird face yet again...

... in the rain

Of course, it has to rain on my day off. But that couldn't stop me from going out! I went with my Kyodai friends, first to the Kyoto Zoo. It was very small, like most things in Japan, but the good thing was that I could see all the animals clearly - and the most interesting thing that we witnessed was the feeding of penguins. On land the don't look very graceful, but in the water they are amazingly agile and it was quite fun to watch them dive for fish.
After visiting the zoo, we went to the Kyoto City Museum, because I got some free tickets from my boss for the antique kimonos exhibition. I regret to inform you that I was not allowed to make photos, but take me word, that those kimonos were awsome. I can't even begin to imagine how much work it took to make even one of them...
Since the museum is located on the Sanjo street, we went window-shopping. Usualy I hate window shopping, or even real shopping, but there it's an entirely different case. Shops in Japan are really cute, there is a ton of things that you can't get anywhere else and it's just nice to walk around and occasionally drag your jaw behind you. In the end I decided to buy a book in Japanese (Yoru no Pikunikku by Onda Riku) - I just asked my friends what should I start with. I didn't want to start out with something complicated by the well-known Japanese authors. Well, we'll see.
And the last highlight of the day - my first purikura! Purikura is a type of photo; basically you make photos of yourself and your friends in a booth and then you can edit them in various ways. When I'll figure out how to put them in my computer I'll upload them here.

This. Is. BAZAAAR!!!

Every 25-th day of the month there is a bazaar near the Kitanotenmangu Shrine, and my ever generous boss gave me 2 hours off so I could check it out. I love flea-markets, bazaars, little stalls with strange stuff and the people who sell it. You can find a lot of interesting stuff there - from old furniture, textiles and fruit from the farm to designer clothes. But the thing that interested me the most was the fact that they sell a lot of old kimonos there.
so, I found myself digging in a mountain of old kimonos, and I found the one in the picture - my first kimono. It's plain, but that's how I like 'em ;). Now I have to buy the accesories which, I think, will cost me much more than the kimono itself (only 1000 yen!).

Churching... or templing?

Yesterday I got a free day to see the Jidai Matsuri, but the weather forecast said that there will be showers (from this day on I will belive in the Japanese weather forecast. When they say there will be showers you feel like you're under a god damn waterfall.) so it was postponed to today. Luckily my boss is a nice person, so she let me out for two hours so I could see the festival today.
This is me with some guy from the Heian period. He and his friends were standing in a queue, waiting for their turn to join the parade, so I came up to them and asked if I could take a picture with him. He was quite flustered - appearently he didn't meet so many gaijin women travelling alone and chatting up strangers in Japanese.

Yesterday, instead of watching the Jidai matsuri I went for something my dear friend Ania calls "churching". But instead of churches, there were shrines and temples, so I really have no idea how to call it. I don't know why, but I just like to visit places like that - I can't say I've been somewhere unless I've seen a temple there ;P. So I went to see the Kitanotenmangu shrine - the high school exams are coming soon, so there were a lot of teenagers praying for good results.

After performing my touristy duty, I met up with three guys from Kyoto Daigaku and we went to something called PechaKucha Night. In Kobe. That was one little detail that the boys conveniently forgot to tell me about, but nevertheless I had fun! Check out this PechaKucha thing, it's realy worth participating in.

Welcome party

Yesterday was my welcome party. People from AIESEC Kyoto gathered to say "hi!" to me (special thanks to Natsuki for setting the whole thing up), and we went for okonomiyaki.

I never had those before, so I didn't quite know what to expect. Basically, you order something that resembles a very thick pancake with a filling you like (pork, squid, etc) and you have a hot tray in front of you to keep it warm all the time. The food was really nice and I hope everybody had as much fun as I did.
It seems that I'm only eating and working in here, doesn't it? Well, tomorrow is my first day off and I'm going to go do some sightseeing. I divided Kyoto into four parts (north, south, east, west) and I'm planning to slowly go and explore every part. Of course, not only tomorrow, but over the next six months as well ;). And tomorrow is Jidai Matsuri - if it won't rain, the streets of Kyoto will be full of people dressed in traditional clothes from every japanese era. I really want to see people dressed in the Heian era aristocracy clothes; I can't imagine how can someone walk in those things (sometimes the 12-layer kimonos called juunihitoe weight to 10 kilos or sometimes even more).

My boss gave me a lot of tickets to many different places today, so now I have to spend some time with the dictionary to know where I'm supposed to go... 0_o

First sushi

After a pretty uneventful day at work my boss took me out to eat some sushi. We went to a new place that she wanted to visit for some time, but didn't have a chance to. It turned out to be a type of a very modern kaiten sushi -the one where the trays are rotating around the room and you can pick whatever you like.We ate about a ton of it (at least that's how I felt when leaving the place). This sushiya was very modern, because not only the trays were rotating, but you could also make an order by pushing the buttons on your presonal LCD screen (beer, udon, miso, desserts...) and your order was also delivered to you by a machine. In spite of all that, there was a lot of staff running around.
This place had also one very important trait - it was very cheap. For two people, with desserts, beer, chawanmushi (a type of... soup? I'm not sure), and a mountain of sushi we paid (or rather, the boss paid) only about 1500 yen. And it's only 5 minutes by foot from Tondaya! I think I will go back to this place quite soon...

I promised some better pictures of Tondaya and here they are.
This is the inner garden:
This is the engawa (veranda) between the "official" and "private" part of the house. In the official part there was a shop and a few storage rooms in the old days, and the private part consisted mainly of a chashitsu (a room for tea ceremony) and a big laquered kamidana (shinto altar). The family lived upstairs (where I live now).

Orange Phantom of Kyoto

There was not much to do at work today (only two ladies from France to guide), so I kept falling asleep thanks to the jet lag. Other days were OK, because I didn`t have time to be sleepy, but today I was totally somewhere else and I fell asleep two times while sifting tea, which, by the way, I sifted a mountain of, and it took me 1,5 hours to do it. I could probably serve tea to a whole battalion.


The highlight of the day was buying a bike - the cheapest one in the used bikes section in a fantastic in-your-face shade of orange. Now everybody will know that ore-sama is coimg ;P.

In the evening I had a nice dinner near Kyoto University with my Japanese friends. We had some good food and a few laughs (Naoya insists that he makes the same face as my boyfriend. He must be your long-lost twin Jarek xD.). Can`t wait to party with those guys!

Kyoto on foot

Not wanting to spend 220 yen on a bus ticket (what a scrooge I am...) I went from Tondaya to Kyoto Station by foot (it`s about 5 kilometers) to buy a map. I went along Horikawadori (one of the main streets), checking out every little shop on the way, so that walk turned out to be a bit long. I finally got to the Kyoto Station, bought a map and started the epic journey known as the search of plain white socks with a place for the big toe. I failed. Have to search tomorrow...

Next, I decided to try out the famous matcha latte in Starbucks, and I have to admit that I was expecting more. I prefer the real deal ;P.

Work today was nice - we had 4 people from London; one older couple and two girls my age. The English ojisan and obasan were really funny, and everywhere they went all the time they were exclaiming `exquisite!`, `wonderful!`, or`gorgeous!`.

Sorry, no photos today. I have to get used to the idea of taking my camera everywhere with me...

Shigoto!

My first day of work.

We don't have a set scheldue here, and we work whenever there are customers. My first visitor turned out to be an old gentleman from Venezuela who was very kind and forgave me my many mistakes.
Oh, but I didn't write about my work. I work in Tondaya as a guide for foreigners. I show them around the house, have a tea ceremony with them and than serve them obentō.
Today, the lady also working here did the chaseki (tea), but they told me I would be doing one too in a few days. If I didn't do tea stuff before I would die on my first day here. Thank you Sunshinkai!
After work I went to a sentō – public bath. I've obviously never been in one before and if was quite a challenge for me to undress with all those obasans there (obasan – middle-aged lady). Besides, they were all speaking in Kyoto-ben (Kyoto dialect) and I could only smile and nod while they were speaking to me. Below is a picture of the entrance. (I`m pretty sure you wouldn`t like the photos of the interior... xD)
Last thing I did was a visit to the local supermarket (this time with a camera). Today, I probably bought the most expensive apple in my life. In Japan, they don`t sell apples by kilos, like in Poland...
And the last thing - I think the most terryfying in the shop - little fishes that you add to the rice and they STARE at you from your onigiri.

The first day...

I'm finally here.

But, before I got here I had a pretty uneventful and long flight, during which I couldn't sleep a wink. Whenever I tried to make myself comfy, I would accidentally swich on the TV, pushing the „start” button with my butt or my elbow. My remote was broken, so I couldn't turn the TV off, and I had to wait for itself to turn off automatically. And every time when I was dozing off, some minor turbulences would wake me up. I ended up watching a really bad movie (don't ask...) that I hoped would bore me to sleep, but even that didn't work. Beware, for great is the power of the time zones...

We landed in Osaka International Airport witout any trouble, and after collecting my baggage I met with three Japanese students that were kind enough to pick me up. I would have trouble managing all my things without them and I'm very thankful.

After getting to Kyoto I had my first ever ramen (hard to belive, I know, but I've been a ramen virgin untill now :D). I think I can learn to like it, but for me it's too salty.

After the meal we finally reached our destination (meeting Ola in the bus on our way there – what are the odds of meeting your uni mate in a place like this?!) – the house Tondaya. I checked it up on Google Street View before, but in real life it's even better. It's spacious, beautiful with that kind of traditional japanese machiya style and there is some great stuff inside.

The house itself is 130 years old, it's made entirely out of wood, paper and other materials of that sort (for example, the window glass is hand-made) and you can actually feel like you time-travelled to Meiji era. For now I have photos of the entrance and of my room. I will make better ones during the day and when it will stop raining.

Next, me and my Japanese friends went to the city office to get my sometihing called Alien Registration Card, which you have to have if you`re staying longer than 90 days. I have to admit, the name is cute. From this day forth I am oficially an alien.

So, after registering myself as a legal Alien in Kyoto, I went to buy a phone. At first I thought that I'd just buy a pre-paid SIM card, and use my old Polish phone, but it turns out that you can't buy a SIM card without a phone. When I'll find out why I will write about it, because it was really weird for me. My friends were talking something about security reasons, but I don't think I understood it in 100%. So I got the shittiest phone there could be and I'm 6000 yen poorer. Who would have thought.

Not having enough of spending money, I went to local supermarket and spent there 45 minutes like an awe-struck gaijin should. I have never seen so many packed meals in my life. I think somewhere a deity of good food is suffering right now, but I bought a packed salad, cheapest packed sushi for dinner, a bun with sweet potato jam (?) and a bottle of calpis (I love it, if you don't know it – try it).