Category: experiences

The big typhoon that was supposed to hit Kyoto last Monday night did – just like the last one a week before – bypass the city, thank goodness. Last Sunday, our landlady came to prepare the house: opening all the windows just a little bit, so there would not be too much pressure on any side (apparently, if there is, the whole house could blow out); removing anything from the outside that could be blown around and thus cause damage; tying unremovable things down; securing the bicycles by laying them down… In the end, there was some rain and some heavy gusts of wind, but not in the least as serious as everybody had feared. Towns on the East coast have not been quite that lucky I have heard…

So, our house is still standing, and thanks to the recent repairs on the roof there was no leakage. Or, at least, not in the expected spots… About half a year ago, I told the landlady about leakage on the ground floor: During heavy rain, the drainage on the back of the house cannot quite handle the amount of water, and the overflow came through the back door into the house, into the narrow pathway between the kitchen and the entrance area which is level with the outside (the kitchen itself and the rest of the house are elevated above ground by maybe 40 cm).

Then, the problem was fixed, chiefly by installing a new back door with a higher threshold and new floorboards in the pathway inside. I watched as it was done, and already then I was suspicious of the threshold, which is nothing more than a piece of wood laid down and covered with plaster. It looks solid, but it certainly is not!

The proof for this came Monday night: As the drainage problem outside has not really been addressed, the overflow from the heavy rain slowly leaked through the threshold and even seeped up through the floorboards. I have informed our landlady about this – I wonder what is going to happen this time. The solution would be rather simple, but I wonder if I should dare suggest it…

In the late afternoon on Wednesday, a housemate came to my room, she was quite miserable: She had spent all day in the library doing research, and when she went home, exhausted, she had forgotten her bag in the bus, complete with laptop and the day’s findings. She didn’t know what to do, and because of another appointment in the evening she couldn’t do anything anyway. As she does not speak Japanese, she couldn’t make phone calls either, so I agreed to go to the police station with her on Thursday morning.

There is a rather large police station – not just a neighborhood Koban – nearby on Higashiojidori, and we arrived there at 9:15 on Thursday morning. Only three police cars were parked outside, but when we entered, there were lots of men in uniform. There was an open counter and a young man got up as we approached it. On my question whether he spoke any English he first got pale, then looked around for help from his colleagues, but they did not seem at all eager to assist him. Finally he grabbed a big yellow report pad and a pen and put it in front of us. My friend wanted to explain in English, but I ventured forth – I had had lots of time to practise – and said in slow, deliberate Japanese: “Yesterday, my friend forgot her bag in the bus.”

The policeman’s face lit up as I had never before seen in an adult, only with small children in front of their first Christmas tree. I am not sure what exactly made him so happy: That he could understand what those foreigners wanted, or that this was not his responsibility. In any case, he hastily put the notepad back again and motioned us to follow him. At the end of a dark corridor there was the Lost & Found office, he briefly explained there what we wanted and hurried back to his own counter, visibly relieved.

I repeated my well-rehearsed sentence nevertheless, and we received a form – bilingual in Japanese and English – to fill out. It was quite the expected: Who are you, where do you live, when, and where did you lose what exactly. My friend even went so far to draw a picture of the bag… Anyway, while she was filling out the form, I tried to explain – in a mix of Japanese and English, aided by a prepared list of vocabulary, that she was an author, that her latest book was on the laptop inside the bag, and that it was very, very important indeed to have it back.

While one of the clerks helped us filling out the form, another one called the bus company but it turned out that the bag had not yet been found. My friend got worried, but I tried to calm her by saying that it was quite early in the morning, and that the report and/or the bag may not have made it to the main office just yet.

At that point the office head joined us at the window, asked what all the fuss was about and finally inquired why we had not called the bus company ourselves. I tried to explain that I could make myself understood in Japanese when talking to people face to face, but that I was entirely lost on the phone. Anyway, we left with a note on which three numbers were scribbled: The one of the lost and found office, the number of the report we had just filed, and the number of the bus company, just in case. It was 9:45.

From there, things went uphill. My housemate remembered a Japanese friend and she got her to call the bus company and to inquire for the bag directly there. Also our landlady, contacted the night before, had called the bus company. At 2:30 pm, the relieving message came: The bag had been found and could be picked up at the bus terminal.

When I returned from my soroban class in the evening, my friend already sat in front of her own computer again, relieved and happy. She said that everything had been inside the bag just as she had left it – with one exception: Somebody had gone through the bag – probably to try and find a hint of the owner – and had removed the banana peel that was still inside… What a service!

It was a slow day today, as I was very tired. Although it has cooled down quite a bit – it even rained today – it is still warm enough in the night to sleep with open windows. I have windows in two walls, which is very nice during summer when there actually is a breeze; one set of windows faces West, the other towards the neighbours’ house, maybe 5 metres away.

It seems that somewhat unconsciously I am changing my habits to accommodate the cold season. Although I have always been a night owl, I am staying awake now much longer than in summer, and because I also need eight hours of sleep, I get up accordingly late. That means, I would love to – were there not the neighbour’s boy who sets his alarm at 6 am. How I know that? Did I mention that our windows face each other and he also leaves his open… It’s not a big deal when he wakes up and turns the alarm off quickly, but today he only put it on snooze, and then apparently left his room, because the alarm started again a few minutes later – without any further response except my growing annoyance. By the time I felt it proper to close at least my window, I was too agitated to go back to sleep.

It would not have done me any good anyway, as around 8:30 there began vigorous knocking in the house, or rather: on top of the house, as our roof is being repaired. I am not entirely sure what exactly the builder is up to (there is no spot from where you could watch him), but he uses heavy drills and knocks about a lot, and sometimes it sounds as if the stones from the roof structure are loosening and falling directly on the ceiling above my head. Not a nice feeling, knowing that the ceiling is 5 mm thin… (For details about our roof construction, have a look at my old post here.)

So, I decided, to finally try and get the headset fixed that I bought in June and which is broken already. I went to Yodobashi camera and wanted to see if there was a warranty so they could simply replace it, but it seems there is no such thing, at least not for the cheap type of headset I had bought. Anyway, there is a repair corner, and they will take care of the whole thing for me within the next 2 – 3 weeks. There was a very young shop assistant there, who spoke quite good English, and he went through great lengths to ensure I would understand what’s going on. On my receipt for the headset it says: Repairing takes about 2 – 3 weeks. Please come to Yodobashi Kyoto 1.F whenever you want, we work 9:30 – 22:00. Now, THIS is service! (Hello, Germans!)

Afterwards, I went around Yodobashi a bit. Our vacuum cleaner is broken and beyond repair – finally and thank goodness, I should say; the thing is ancient and sounded like a Boeing at takeoff – and I wanted to know what a new one would cost. The cheapest models are around 10.000 YEN, and from there the sky is the limit, of course; I have seen models for 65.000 YEN, and no, I don’t mean the roombas that were on display. I wonder whether they would work on tatami anyway.

When I finally came home I was very tired and glad that it had started to rain – no more roof repairing for the day. I took a few hours out of my afternoon to catch up on missed sleep. I will still leave my window open tonight, tomorrow is Saturday and I hope my neighbour will sleep a bit longer tomorrow.

Last Thursday I took the text for the next level in soroban proficiency, and – I passed the 5th Kyu test! But only just…

I made two division mistakes – together with the three exercises I did not have enough time for that means I only had ten correct results, which is the lower limit to pass the test. Multiplication and addition were better, although I could not finish them either – one exercise missing at each part. Anyway, I have passed, and it’s nice to be 5th Kyu now!

Sensei offered to put my name up with the other student’s – he has a Wall of Fame with the name and ranks of all his students – but I declined. It would look funny, my endless name with all the katakana among the sleek three or four kanji names of the kids…

In any case, I bought the new exercise book for 4th Kyu and I now have almost exactly two months time before the next level exam to – quite literally – get up to speed. The next exam is all about speed. The difficulty of the problems has not changed, except that there is a digit added to all the exercises (six digit numbers for division, five digit numbers for multiplication and addition), but that only means more time is needed for the exercises. As the timeframe for the exam will not change, it means one has to increase the speed considerably to finish all 15 exercises in 7 minutes.

Sensei has already shown me a way to speed up multiplication, but he says there is nothing to do about division – where I am notoriously slow. Well, actually he said there was a trick, but I should not employ it… I wonder if he’ll tell me eventually… Addition, while it appears the same has become a bit more difficult because the numbers have more variation in length (between 3 and 5 digits) and, as silly as it sounds, it is not so easy anymore to keep all the columns sorted out on the soroban… Sensei has taught me a little trick about that as well, we’ll see how it goes.

It always surprises me how quickly houses are torn down here. Yesterday morning I noticed how roof tiles were removed from a house in my neighborhood. Mid afternoon, the whole first floor was already gone, and this is what the house looked today after the builders (or should I say demolishers?) had left:I bet that the plot will be completely cleared by tomorrow evening. Only three days to demolish a house! Of course, most of the houses here are still made of wood, so it does not take much effort to pull them down. People seem to be rather brutal in their approach, they make tabula rasa in the true sense of the word. Near my soroban school, there was a nice family house in a large garden, complete with trees, a hedge and a big Japanese style gate. One evening, when I passed by there, half of the gate was gone, and a bulldozer stood in the middle of the house; and a week later, every single tree and bush and whatever else had constituted the garden was gone as well, the whole plot was a bare plane of gravel.

By now they are building one of those terrible modern Japanese houses there – a wooden structure covered with plastic inside and out. I positively hate them, they are so ugly! There is lots of building activity going on at the moment all over town. A friend told me that apparently this year is a very auspicious one when it comes to building new houses, and build they do.  At another open plot, I have seen a small tent with a number of chairs in it, apparently erected for some ceremony, most likely Shinto. I find it rather odd that in the 21st century people would still worry about auspicious times…

Anyway, I am quite sure we’ll get another one of those dreadful modern houses on the plot in my neighborhood, to be fair though, there is not much space to build anything else. We’ll see…

Today was a very cold day – barely 24 degrees. At least it was not raining, but even our new guest from Finland said she was surprised about the cool weather. According to the weather forecast, it will be warmer next week again though. I’m not ready for winter just yet! Actually, I am wondering – the summer was much cooler than usual; does that mean that the winter will be mild too? I am certainly hoping for it, still can’t tolerate cold…

I was not very motivated today, so I did some laundry, tried to vacuum my room just to find out that the vacuum cleaner is broken (to be honest, I’m not too sad about this – it was ancient anyway and made a noise like a Boeing at takeoff), and put away my fan for winter – won’t be needing that for a while now. Later in the afternoon I visited a friend’s cafe and then bought some sweets in my favourite bakery. The owner there always greets me very politely and talks to me in Japanese, one of the few opportunities I have to practise. Today he even commented on my perceived improvement speaking Japanese – but I think he was just being friendly…

It is slowly turning autumn here. Already several weeks ago I noticed that it would get dark earlier in the evening, by now I ride to my soroban class when the sun has completely set. That means that I have given up cycling along the river, it’s simply too dark down there.

Now is the right time to come to Japan though, the weather is very pleasant with up to 30 degrees during the day and bright sunshine and no rain. This is perfect weather to do sightseeing, as it is not too humid either; I can understand why people would prefer to visit here now instead of summer. It does cool down in the evenings quite a bit though, so I will not be able to wear my shorts much longer then, and I will probably have to start looking for a jacket.

Besides that, you don’t notice autumn much just yet. Only here and there leaves are turning yellow and bright red, but it’s by far not cold enough. And the koyo, the autumn colours, will only be at their height in November anyway. Instead, we did have some spectacular sunsets in the last weeks, I have seen people flocking to the river and taking photos there (not everybody lives in a great place like I do with perfect view on it).

Yesterday I spent the afternoon in my favourite spot at Shinniyodo temple. There are lots of trees, often a cool breeze, and benches and tables where I can write and work. Unless they are working in the large area with attached cemetery with their leaf blowers and grass cutters, the place is very quiet and peaceful. As it is a bit off the beaten tracks, not many people are coming there, except during Hanami and Koyo season.

Every now and then, a hapless tourist stumbles onto the temple ground. Yesterday was such a day, and I watched a tourist – possibly a Japanese from outside of Kyoto – running around the temple taking photos. The man also took a picture of the front of the main hall, which struck me as particularly odd. Don’t get me wrong, the buildings are nice, there is a lovely three-storied pagoda, and for a special fee you can go and see the Japanese garden, but, right now, the main hall front view is this:

So, why on earth would you want to take a picture of scaffolding with a roof on top? Even if the man was a builder, this is very strange. It may have been simply for documentation purposes, something along the lines of Been here, Done that. I have seen many people taking odd snapshots. The most stunning experience, however, was a man in Heian shrine garden, who walked through it with his ipad raised to the side of his head, obviously making a movie. However, neither did he look at the screen, nor at the scenery at large, the only thing he saw was the path in front of him. To me, this type of tour documentation is useless. Even if you see the pictures half a year later – would you still remember actually having been there?

This is a great day with great timing… Noon has just passed and I’m already 2 hours late…

In the morning, I had one of my quarterly hospital appointments. When I arrived there, I was informed by a note on my doctor’s door (which I got translated by another staff member) that my doctor was running late and would not be in the office until 10:30, more than one hour after my original appointment.

Usually that’s not a big deal, because my schedule is rather loose, but just today it happens that I have a deadline, need to finish two other things (including writing this post), and I have to go shopping for some souvenirs because I will see friends in Kobe this afternoon. As we want to go to a museum which will close at 5 pm and have dinner afterwards, I can’t be much later than already planned.

At least I could do a little something while waiting for the doctor’s arrival – as you get this cell-phone style beeper, you don’t need to sit and wait before the office anyway, which was good – in the one hour I had I went shopping and picked up my writing utensils from home, which is only 10 minutes away thank goodness.

Still, when my appointment was finally over, one and a half hour later than planned, I just made it in time for the extra long queue in front of the payment counter; and when this was done, there was, of course, an extra long queue in the pharmacy as well (you have to pick up your medicines in “your” pharmacy not later than 2 days after the prescription, so that could not wait). So, altogether, I am now running two hours late. I’ll have to get on the bus in about one hour – and I have the feeling I haven’t done anything just yet…

Isn’t is always the same – just when you think everything is running just fine, you have a severe onset of Murphy’s Law…