... 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).

Countdown

So, soon I will be freezing my ass off at the airport. The cheapest flight was also the one with most "adventures", so I have to be at the check-in desk at around 4 a.m. and I think anyone who's been in Poland can imagine that October nights are not the most pleasent ones...

But it's bad to start an epic story such as mine (modest, ain't I?) in a depresed tone, so let's drop the subject for now. I'm happy that I can leave Poland before November which always got top scores on my "most hated time" list and bask in the Japanese sun whilst enjoying temperatures over 20 Celsius degrees.

This day was full of packing, running around to say good-bye, getting my dry-ceaned jacket in the middle of a raging storm and so on. As it turns out I didn't even graze my weight limits for baggage, which is a nice surprise indeed. Check-in baggage is only 18 kilos (for 23 allowed), and hand baggage is 6 (for 12 allowed). Phew!

Now, I'm going to enjoy my well-deserved beer that will hopefully help me fall asleep early, so I can be ready to face this ungodly 6 o'clock departure...