The Train Job
May. 28th, 2010 05:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
foolish_m0rtalSo today was...interesting.
We went with Sugiyama-san to the Omiya campus, where I'll be working. (The professor doesn't get there till 2, so I'll be there till 7PM. Yikes) I asked Sugiyama-san about the characters for Omiya (I can now identify them as I'm passing the station- useful!) and he said Oo (which is why Omiya has two O characters) means big. So I guess this is where Big O comes from!
We had our first Japanese lesson, which was really fun. Our teacher, Yabe-san, is really nice and a good teacher.
We went with Sugiyama-san to the canteen, where I got some kind of really good pork dumplings with radish. I also got miso soup because I was really thirsty. Sugiyama-san asked me in a kind of shocked voice if I was going to get rice, so I did. It cost me about 420 yen and the receipt had the number of calories I'd be eating- isn't that neat? It was about 666Kcal, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.
It was a pretty big lunch for me, and Sugiyama-san got about as much as I did. OH MAN I have never seen a person eat so fast and with such concentration. I thought we were both going at the same pace, but then he pulled out ahead and suddenly I was racing him the entire time. Because I'm always the last person finished, and it's really awkward. And oh oh! They have the coolest way to dispose of dishes. There's like...a stream that goes past in a long half-pipe, and there are holes in the sides of the half-pipe that trickle water out into a drain. So you wash out your dishes in the trickling water and then put it in the stream and away it goes! I had the biggest smile on my face as we walked out. It is now the coolest thing I've ever seen. Ever.
Then Zhuo had to take the shuttle bus to go to work in Toyosu, so Sugiyama-san showed me around. This isn't like, "oh, and here's this building- here's this buliding." It was really thorough. More like, "this is this building and let's go inside and check out all the rooms, and I'll tell you about the professors that are here." ^_^ I know now that there's a professor in the biochemistry building that loves golf and brings his clubs to work.
We stopped in one of the classrooms (we were there because Sugiyama-san wanted to show me what the old classrooms look like. Like I said, very thorough. I can only hope we do half as good a job over in the states) and apparently they were holding an extracurricular English lesson. The teacher is from Oklahoma and taught himself really good Japanese (he has a perfect accent too) and invited me to stay for the lesson. It was really fun! I met a lot of interesting students, and while they were learning English, I asked them to teach me the same words in Japanese. I told them about Japan Student Association and Anime Club. Apparently Nodame Cantabile is very popular here, because when I told them anime club watched that, everyone was like AHHH! And they asked me what I liked, and I said Gundam. And apparently this is very funny, probably because I've been told it's rare for girls to like Gundam. Of course there was a Gundam Seed Destiny guy in the circle across from me, and a Gurren Lagann guy to my right.
We went to the library, where Sugiyama-san asked the librarian if there were scientific books in English. They're in storage since no one uses them, but he showed me how to get them. Then we kind of went around to the baseball field and tennis courts before running out of places to go, so Sugiyama-san said I could kill time at the library before I had to leave.
So I spent a few hours there studying my Japanese books. I wound up sitting at the same table as the other three Americans in the college. (I believe they were the three American English teachers). I read ahead and learned enough to be able to correctly ask for Sugiyama-san at the desk when I came back to tell him I was leaving. ("Sugiyama-san o onegaishimas")
Then...I braced myself for going back home by myself. Oh yeah, it couldn't be hard. I'd been here for two days- surely I could man up and travel between cities without freaking the hell out.
I thought things were going smoothly after I was able to get my pass card from the purely Japanese speaking ticket guy, but then I forgot the pass was only valid after May 31st, so I tried to use it and went back to ask why I couldn't go through. Then the other guy who spoke a little bit of English pointed to the date, and I knew enough kanji (because I've had to fill out enough legal documents) to figure out I was a moron.
Then I second-guessed myself when I went to the train station and the sign said Green Ticket holders only. So I was like, well, where am I supposed to go? So I approached this old man, who turned out to speak better English than me, and he told me I had been right all along.
So we're okay. We're on the Utsunomiya line going to Omiya, where we're going to be switching trains to Keihin-Tohoku line to Nishi-Kawaguchi. Then I found this random stink bug (??) on the train which had somehow slithered on my leg. So I'd felt this weird creepy sensation the entire time (and decided to ignore it, because I always have weird creepy false feelings), and then brushed my leg, and this random stink bug fell on the floor. Creeeepy.
So now we're off the train in Nishi-Kawaguchi, we're cool. We're walking in Warabi through the city. We know our way, we know where to turn. We see the bridge that we always cross over. We know the way, we know the way...we know...where are we?!
And it turned out I'd left the hand-drawn map the managers gave me at home, so I was wandering around for a bit till I asked this really nice old woman (what is it with me and nice old people?) who spoke only a few words of English (and I spoke only a few words of Japanese, so we were square) who was just the most sophisticated graceful put-together person. She reminded me strongly of my academic adviser at UVa. She had this giant black dog named Jiiru, who was interested in everything and had his huge innocent doggy grin whenever she was like, "what are you trying to eat now?"
So she WALKED me back to Warabi house. She totally did. Apparently I was only a few blocks away. But that was so incredibly nice of her! So now I'm all good back home after being helped by the most random people imaginable (and a dog). Embarrassing day is hopefully over.
But I'm not getting my hopes up. The house lends out bicycles, so I'm going to cycle down to the supermarket to buy stuff for food for breakfast, lunch and dinner next week. And (not to sound Asian) if I don't get rice soon, I will absolutely DIE. At least, at the bottom of my shopping list, I've written how to ask where things are ('___ doko des ka' for example, where is the natto would be 'natto doko des ka')
We will...see how this goes...
We went with Sugiyama-san to the Omiya campus, where I'll be working. (The professor doesn't get there till 2, so I'll be there till 7PM. Yikes) I asked Sugiyama-san about the characters for Omiya (I can now identify them as I'm passing the station- useful!) and he said Oo (which is why Omiya has two O characters) means big. So I guess this is where Big O comes from!
We had our first Japanese lesson, which was really fun. Our teacher, Yabe-san, is really nice and a good teacher.
We went with Sugiyama-san to the canteen, where I got some kind of really good pork dumplings with radish. I also got miso soup because I was really thirsty. Sugiyama-san asked me in a kind of shocked voice if I was going to get rice, so I did. It cost me about 420 yen and the receipt had the number of calories I'd be eating- isn't that neat? It was about 666Kcal, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.
It was a pretty big lunch for me, and Sugiyama-san got about as much as I did. OH MAN I have never seen a person eat so fast and with such concentration. I thought we were both going at the same pace, but then he pulled out ahead and suddenly I was racing him the entire time. Because I'm always the last person finished, and it's really awkward. And oh oh! They have the coolest way to dispose of dishes. There's like...a stream that goes past in a long half-pipe, and there are holes in the sides of the half-pipe that trickle water out into a drain. So you wash out your dishes in the trickling water and then put it in the stream and away it goes! I had the biggest smile on my face as we walked out. It is now the coolest thing I've ever seen. Ever.
Then Zhuo had to take the shuttle bus to go to work in Toyosu, so Sugiyama-san showed me around. This isn't like, "oh, and here's this building- here's this buliding." It was really thorough. More like, "this is this building and let's go inside and check out all the rooms, and I'll tell you about the professors that are here." ^_^ I know now that there's a professor in the biochemistry building that loves golf and brings his clubs to work.
We stopped in one of the classrooms (we were there because Sugiyama-san wanted to show me what the old classrooms look like. Like I said, very thorough. I can only hope we do half as good a job over in the states) and apparently they were holding an extracurricular English lesson. The teacher is from Oklahoma and taught himself really good Japanese (he has a perfect accent too) and invited me to stay for the lesson. It was really fun! I met a lot of interesting students, and while they were learning English, I asked them to teach me the same words in Japanese. I told them about Japan Student Association and Anime Club. Apparently Nodame Cantabile is very popular here, because when I told them anime club watched that, everyone was like AHHH! And they asked me what I liked, and I said Gundam. And apparently this is very funny, probably because I've been told it's rare for girls to like Gundam. Of course there was a Gundam Seed Destiny guy in the circle across from me, and a Gurren Lagann guy to my right.
We went to the library, where Sugiyama-san asked the librarian if there were scientific books in English. They're in storage since no one uses them, but he showed me how to get them. Then we kind of went around to the baseball field and tennis courts before running out of places to go, so Sugiyama-san said I could kill time at the library before I had to leave.
So I spent a few hours there studying my Japanese books. I wound up sitting at the same table as the other three Americans in the college. (I believe they were the three American English teachers). I read ahead and learned enough to be able to correctly ask for Sugiyama-san at the desk when I came back to tell him I was leaving. ("Sugiyama-san o onegaishimas")
Then...I braced myself for going back home by myself. Oh yeah, it couldn't be hard. I'd been here for two days- surely I could man up and travel between cities without freaking the hell out.
I thought things were going smoothly after I was able to get my pass card from the purely Japanese speaking ticket guy, but then I forgot the pass was only valid after May 31st, so I tried to use it and went back to ask why I couldn't go through. Then the other guy who spoke a little bit of English pointed to the date, and I knew enough kanji (because I've had to fill out enough legal documents) to figure out I was a moron.
Then I second-guessed myself when I went to the train station and the sign said Green Ticket holders only. So I was like, well, where am I supposed to go? So I approached this old man, who turned out to speak better English than me, and he told me I had been right all along.
So we're okay. We're on the Utsunomiya line going to Omiya, where we're going to be switching trains to Keihin-Tohoku line to Nishi-Kawaguchi. Then I found this random stink bug (??) on the train which had somehow slithered on my leg. So I'd felt this weird creepy sensation the entire time (and decided to ignore it, because I always have weird creepy false feelings), and then brushed my leg, and this random stink bug fell on the floor. Creeeepy.
So now we're off the train in Nishi-Kawaguchi, we're cool. We're walking in Warabi through the city. We know our way, we know where to turn. We see the bridge that we always cross over. We know the way, we know the way...we know...where are we?!
And it turned out I'd left the hand-drawn map the managers gave me at home, so I was wandering around for a bit till I asked this really nice old woman (what is it with me and nice old people?) who spoke only a few words of English (and I spoke only a few words of Japanese, so we were square) who was just the most sophisticated graceful put-together person. She reminded me strongly of my academic adviser at UVa. She had this giant black dog named Jiiru, who was interested in everything and had his huge innocent doggy grin whenever she was like, "what are you trying to eat now?"
So she WALKED me back to Warabi house. She totally did. Apparently I was only a few blocks away. But that was so incredibly nice of her! So now I'm all good back home after being helped by the most random people imaginable (and a dog). Embarrassing day is hopefully over.
But I'm not getting my hopes up. The house lends out bicycles, so I'm going to cycle down to the supermarket to buy stuff for food for breakfast, lunch and dinner next week. And (not to sound Asian) if I don't get rice soon, I will absolutely DIE. At least, at the bottom of my shopping list, I've written how to ask where things are ('___ doko des ka' for example, where is the natto would be 'natto doko des ka')
We will...see how this goes...
