And now, I will sum up my first, hm, about two weeks here at the I-House in one post! Here it goes...
Here's a photo which pretty much sums up the mercurial weather in Kyoto, quite beautifully, if I do say so myself. (I took this picture from my balcony, by the way. The sakura tree blocks the boys' dormitory across the little road quite nicely.) I'm happy to report that the sakura endured the brief on and off snowing we had a couple of days last week. This week was quite warm by contrast.
The I-House is just down the street from the university--it's about a 10 minute walk to campus. We're set up in the hills in the north, right next to the mountainy wilderness which surrounds Kyoto. Pretty much right in the wilderness actually--we'll address that further later, I think. As previously mentioned, there's a karaoke place called the Operetta really close by, and a Circle K konbini just down the street in the other direction. We have to pay our rent at the konbini, by the way, but any konbini in the country will do. 
I-house is full of cool people, both Japanese and exchange students. We have people from a good number of countries: several girls from South Korea, quite a few people from France, Germany, Poland, China, a couple of people from Italy, Iceland, Poland, Taiwan, Finland, Canada, and one each from the UK, Ireland, Russia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and Mexico. Out of the 5 students from America, 4 of us are from the same university, and the other is from Cali. Speaking of Elliot, he moved in on his birthday, which the residents of I-house saw as a good excuse for a nomikai. I'm not entirely sure if it counts as a nomikai, but that's what everyone calls them when people get together as a large group to talk, snack, and drink. It's not a crazy '80s movie party by any means (and is very tame by comparison), and not everyone even drinks at a nomikai.
The first outing I had with a group from I-House was to Teramachi-dori, a street/shopping district between Shijo-dori and Sanjo-dori (streets.) We wandered down the street, stopped in a couple of the shops, at a Mister Donut, and store that was rather like a Japanese version of World Market. Shoe stores in Japan are ridiculous: the prices and the shoes. The shoes range from cute, to neon, to absolutely gaudy, in both men and women's styles. I'm only a U.S. size 8 (sometimes 7 1/2 or 8 1/2), but here I'm something like a 25, which is on the upper end of women's shoe sizes. A lot of foreigners or exchange students who come here simply can't fit in the clothes or shoes they sell, especially men. It's very surreal, to walk in a crowd and feel like an Amazon compared to the women around you--I'm at the solid average American height of 5'4". Not that tall.
It's claws moved...
One day last week, when the weather was finally nice--I think it might have been Thursday or Friday--some of us took a trip to Fresco, the nearest supermarket, to pick up some snacks before sitting by the Kamogawa river to enjoy the sakura. Mini-hanami, I'd say. Walking along Kamogawa, you're certain to see a couple of herons, definitely mallards and other types of ducks (Kamogawa's name consists the kanji for "duck" and "river"), and probably some small skimmer-fishing birds.
Some of the Japanese students in I-House took a bunch of us to each okonomiyaki, which is kind of like very large pancake-omelette hybrid with everything in it. Ok, not everything, but egg, cabbage, onions, meat--ours was pork--and various other veggies. Okonomiyaki was delicious, but the yakisoba was incredible. Karaoke that night too--fun, fun, fun...~~~
Engrish of the Day:
Mocca: be your happiness with the flower
