Sayounara さようなら

Sayounara to Japan, that is, not to you. 

I moved to Osaka (accent on the first syllable) last night -- it wasn`t so bad, really considering the slight train problem.  The nice person who sold me the ticket indicated that my train left from track 7, but apparently thought it sufficiently obvious that I would have to change trains in Osaka Station that she need not mention it.  I got suspicious though when we left Osaka station traveling west, so I summoned up the courage to leave my seat and carefully examine the map posted above the door.

I didn`t see my station, and so at the VERY last second I jumped out WITH my luggage at the next station. 

Here`s where my study of Japanese got me into trouble.

I walked up to the nice man and asked him (after taking my common course, which is to rehearse the question in my head, including pronunciation) where I had gone wrong and how to get to Tennoji Station.  What followed was a torrent of syllables that had not the least meaning to me.  He might as well have been speaking Chinese.

get it?

Anyway, it happens sometimes.  I have a pretty limited vocabulary, things-going-unexpectedly-wise, and I probably couldn`t understand my own name when it gets said to me this fast.  So I just stared at him, and had the courtesy, which is as you know pretty big here, to thank him and nod and walk in the direction his eyes were looking.  After only one false start I found the track and confirmed it with another officer.  I think if I were me three years ago listening to myself now do this Japanese thing I would be pretty satisfied but I sure feel helpless sometimes.

Oh, btw, it rained here last night, pretty much all night, I think.  In fact it was raining late yesterday afternoon when I got off the train in Osaka.  Thank you, tsuyu.

A Scrap of Paper.

I'm Home!  Photos!!!

I was at one of the station entrances trying to decide which way to go (another kind of long story that I`m not going to tell at the moment) when out of the corner of my eye I saw a little thing flutter.  I looked -- it was a little scrap of paper, a couple of square inches, fluttering to the ground.  The kind, for example, that could have come off the end of a pack of Men`s Plum Candy, though I don't think it was. 

I looked up to the figure standing over it.  I won`t tell you how I know, but he was definitely western and I really think one of my own countrymen.  And, odds are, yours too.  He looked at the piece of paper.  Then he glanced at me.  Then he looked away.  I know something was going through his mind, and I really think it had something to do with the scrap of paper.  I wanted to pick it up, and in hindsight I should have.  I should have shown the person who I hope was a very new newcomer that there`s no shame in retrieving your own paper over here and perhaps a little in not doing so.  I wanted to show him that team spirit suggests we all do our part here, and that goes so far as to do each others` parts.  But I didn`t.  I can`t tell you why.  For all I know that piece of paper is still there.  If I see it today I`ll pick it up but I`ll have missed my chance with that man.   

The train ride back here this morning

A bunch of kids on an outing.  With their teacher, on my train.  They are not quite as stand-offish as their elders and eventually through the extreme perseverance of Hiro (not his real name) we (meaning just about all 20 or so of them and I) struck up a conversation of sorts.  When the conversation got out of my depth the teacher and I negotiated some translation.  Incidentally the kids knew two English words (one of them twice), or at least were giving up that much: "peace" and "bye-bye." 

They all look like this.  It's not a great photo, but they do.

We asked each other a number of questions, age, name, home, the standard introductory stuff.  They were all 8 and 9 years old, and dressed, as most kids here seem to be, in a school uniform of sorts, which is invariably white shirt or blouse, navy pants or skirt, and white socks.  As the girls get older and go to middle school their skirt uniform sometimes varies to something conservative but not necessarily navy.  It was nice to be talking to 8- and 9-year-olds because at the moment that`s the language level I aspire to, so although we were out of my depth in many senses it was still a lot of fun.

The students were on some sort of field trip, which was a nice thing for me because, as often happens (and occasionally for good reason, as explained earlier), I wasn`t positive I was on the right train.  When you get off the Tokyo-Osaka main line stuff, English tends to fade from the schedules and signs and such.  Anyway, the students` task this morning apparently was to fill in the little chart showing what stations their train had stopped in, and maybe something they saw there.  So All I Had To Do was look at their chart and there, sure enough, was the kanji 大阪, for Osaka, which as it happens I know.  Thank you kids.

And Last (last entry in Japan)

Ishida san, my favorite Ippo-Do helper

Will be Ippo-do, my tea shop.  I will go to tea, which I now am getting reasonably adept at for a foreigner.  I will have a pot of gyokuro and get some sencha and play sidewalk bushido and lose, as I almost always do (won one yesterday, so my record now stands at something like 1-588).  I am loaded up with Smart Citrus and brought some with me.  I have been quasi-communicating with Ann`s cousin, who`s back from the U.S. and it`s possible he and I will have dinner together tonight.

I finished The Teahouse Fire, I know I said that before, and left it in a cafe for someone else to find.  I started the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I think I might have mentioned that too, though it could have been my Journal.  I have heard a lot about it.  The writing`s not really as great as I`d hoped but he tells a good story, that`s for sure.

Oh, thank you for reminding me I need to buy an alarm clock.  I need to leave not later than 5:30 to be at the airport at 6.  I woke at 4:30 or something today, but I`m not counting on it and I don`t want to be, you know, late.  That wouldn`t be a good thing.

So, goodbye cultural center and computers B and A.  Goodbye Kyoto.  Hello soon my friends at home.