Good Fortunes With No Charms

As expected, I awoke with no roommate sleeping next to me. In fact, it wasn't until an hour later (10:00 to be exact) that he came home. As I expected, he had not slept since the party last night, thus confirming that my choice to not go was a wise one. Having not done anything particularly useful the previous night, I was worried about not having anything to do today either. I decided that it might be best to get my alien registration out of the way - I have 90 days to do this - so I started preparing to make my way to the city. Before I got anywhere, something that never happened before happened: My phone rang. The phone displayed a number with no name, so I was expecting to have an interesting time explaining that they dialed the wrong number since it was not someone that I knew. It turned out that I did know the person, but I did not get their number when he got mine. It was my classmate and also group member, Albert, and he wanted to know if I wanted to join him and Yusuke on a trip to Kyoto. Weighing the inevitable cost of transportation against not having anything to do today plus not having done anything the night before, I accepted the invitation. Joining them would require me to drop the idea of registration since I had about 40 minutes to reach the meeting point after the call. I gathered my traveling gear and made my way to the bus stop. Once reaching the station, I found my group and we went on our way.

Thankfully, Yusuke, being Japanese, could read Japanese, and therefore we were able to find the correct train to ride. After riding to Kyoto, we stopped for lunch at a 'famous' soba (buckwheat noodles) restaurant. From there, we went to a shrine to watch a matsuri (festival) celebration. Again, pictures would make the description of the events easier, so please stand by for pictures. At the conclusion of the show, the performers threw packs of beans to the crowd. Those who caught the beans are said to find happiness. Albert was one of those who caught the beans. After the matsuri show, we tried some special sweet sake at the shrine. This sake, as I understand, is basically non-alcoholic since it was cooked. The sake was good except from the ginger which was a bit too spicy for my tastes.

Next, we took a long bus ride to the Golden Temple. The area was very peaceful and serene. A large golden temple sat across the pond surrounded by foliage. There wasn't much to do at the temple other than what was explained, so we headed back to the bus stop to return home. At the bus stop, we met a girl who knew Albert from working a local coffee shop that he frequented. They offered to let us go with them to another shrine. Yusuke had to return home for an activity with his classmates, so we went on without him. When we finally reached the shrine, we learned that it had closed three hours ago. Since most everything else was also closing, we decided to go home.

Once we reached the trainstation, the girl and her friend bid us farewell since they were bound for elsewhere. Albert and I rode the train back home. Since we weren't sure where to get off, I asked a girl sitting next to me if a certain stop was Hirakata-shi. She explained that it was the next stop and so we waited until then. Once we arrived at the station, we made our way, by Albert's suggestion, to McDonalds to eat. After eating there for about $4.64, we walked back to the school and continued on to the grocery store so we could do some shopping before going home. Finally, we got back to the dorms making our trip last from 12:00PM-9:00PM. Albert offered to call me the next day when he would go to a department store to shop for various items before leaving for his dorm.

The important thing that happened here was that I finally found someone to travel around Japan with, which was something that I had despirately been wanting since I got here. Not only does he want to hang out, but he has interests that are far more similar to mine than my roommates can ever get.

At the dorm, I checked my email to find that my speaking partner emailed me about possibly doing something on Monday. This email confirmed that she did not dislike me since we could not communicate well together. I happily responded with my schedule and added the occasion to my list of good things that happened today.

All of these great things happened today and I didn't catch any beans or buy any charms. The only thing that could have superstitiously blessed me was the coin that threw into a bowl at the Golden Temple. If all of that was worth one yen, I should have thrown 100!