Lost and Found

Today was a long day. Especially long for a Tuesday. Japanese class has been dragging all of my energy out, and because I had so much class yesterday, I really feel like there hasn’t been much “me” time. As always, it’s gotten me a little strung out. I’m much better when I can spend an hour or two in silence, breathing, doing something useful. I only had one class today, but we had an area studies in another part of Kyoto, so right after Japanese class we had to hit the busses. There is a bus stop not too far from our neighborhood, so we went and took the 51 which got caught in some heavy traffic. At this point, we’re already passed the first stop we could have gotten off of but we decided to wait until the bus went around the block so we’d be a little closer, but the traffic is so heavy that all we’re doing is sitting still at stoplights and getting nowhere. The time was ticking away and we were getting closer and closer to being late every second. On top of that, none of us were exactly sure where we were going. We finally get to our stop and run across several streets to find our building, but where we think it should be, we only see a playground. One of the guys in our class (who has already had a semester of Japanese) was able to ask some women where we were supposed to be, and luckily we were there. Inside we had a hard time figuring out exactly which floor to go to and then we couldn’t find the right room, but we finally found it and were welcomed by a sea of happy, warm faces. These wonderful Japanese women teach cooking classes to local women wanting to improve upon their English and to foreigners. For about $10 dollars each, we learned how to cook tempura and then got to sit down to a fabulous meal complete with tea, miso soup, rice, and the tempura that we had just cooked. Tempura seems like something I will be able to do in the future, even though it requires a large pot of very hot oil, which scares me a little. We made tempura out of sweet potato slices, tiny peppers, eggplant, onion and carrots mixed together, shrimp, and burdock root. In all honesty though, you can make tempura out of any vegetable as long as you have the rest of the ingredients. I really look forward to trying to make tempura either here in my kitchen, which is probably less feasible, or at home this summer. I am still trying to cook for myself a little, and doing an okay job. Even if it’s only one part of a meal and even if it’s only the toaster oven, that’s still better than I am used to doing at home. I feel like I am ready to stock up on meat, so next time I go to the store I am going to get some salmon, some more beef (maybe), and some chicken if I can find it. I think I should get mom to e-mail me some of her easy meat recipes though, so that my food will taste better. Anyhow, these women there were AMAZING. They were dancing around and showing us a little more about Japanese culture than we realized we were in for. I wanted to take all of them home and make them my grandmothers. Mostly, that’s just because I miss mine. On the way home from the cooking class we sort of got lost, mostly because we did not want to wait a half hour for the bus. By the time we finally found another bus station that had a bus heading in the right direction, we could have just waited for the other one. We did have a good time though, navigating our way through Kyoto. We got to see a lot of the nearby scenery and see another part of the city that I was mostly unfamiliar with. It’s hard to believe that I’ve been here for ten days…but that it has been ten days and that it’s been only ten days. I feel like my life here is so wonderfully full but there is just something different about the way time passes here. I have time to do so much for myself, but never as much as I want to do. But now, I have to do work, because it is, as always, a top priority.

Music of the day: Here I Go Again On my Own
Food: Tempura I cooked myself
Meditation/ inspiration/ thought of the day: What a great gift a compass is. Thanks Margaret.
Top priority: work