Rainy Thursday

I woke up this morning to the sound of pouring rain.

I remembered thinking to myself I should pack an umbrella, but didn't remember actually doing so. I dug around for a bit and found it at the bottom of my bag. Thanks, Kat-from-the-past!

There are these huge crows that always hang around outside my window in the morning. I think they're good luck.



Despite the fact that I got slightly wet on my way to school, I actually found the cooler weather today very pleasant. It's a big improvement over the awful heat and humidity we've had since I arrived.

Also, the birthday card from my mom finally showed up (turns out mailing time from the States to here is around 9 days), and Lee-san brought me a tiny stuffed echidna as a belated birthday present. It's super cute. ^_^



Class today was really challenging. In the morning, we had to call 104 (the Japanese equivalent of 411) to request a phone number -- and then call that number to ask their hours and what days they were closed. Mine was the Nagoya Aquarium. It was terrifying. I got through the 401 part OK, but then when I called the aquarium and asked how late they were open, the person on the other end of the phone told me two times and confused the heck out of me. (It turns out he was saying they're open until 5pm, but the last admission is at 4:30pm.) Then I asked what days they're closed and they said they're open every day because it's summer... but I really didn't understand it, and then kind of panicked and hung up and figured it out afterward. Gah, phones. (I hate phones even in English.)

Then in the afternoon, we had to make a video. I was a reporter for "Yamasa TV" and interviewed some of my classmates about the school. I hope this thing doesn't wind up on Youtube or something. >_> It was pretty awkward. Some of my classmates adlibbed though and were quite funny!

After class, I asked Miyuki-sensei for some extra materials to study kanji. I think I will try to set aside time to practice it for a bit every day, as long as I have the time after doing homework and learning new vocab for class.

What else? Oh, I've been meaning to tell you that I figured out my Japanese washing machine, with some help from the internet. (Oh, Google, I don't know what I'd do without you.)

You'd think it would be pretty straightforward, I mean, it's a washing machine, right? You put your clothes in the thing, put some detergent in, and press start? Oh no.

Here's what it looks like:

There's a big compartment, a smaller compartment, and a hose attached.

The controls are not particularly illuminating:

Nor are the dire warnings about how I'm about to lose a hand:

Turns out, you have to flip the switch on the top to channel water into the larger (left-hand) compartment, and turn on the spigot to fill it with water. Put clothing and detergent into the basin. Close the top, set the middle switch to, uh, the setting that isn't "delicates" and isn't "drain" (seriously, if anyone has a clue what that little picture is supposed to be, I'd love to hear it), and set the far left timer to whatever length you want the clothes to be washed for. It will then agitate the basin until the time is up.

When the time is up, you use the middle switch to drain that basin and move all of your (wet, soapy) clothes into the smaller, right-hand basin. There's a strange little plastic cover that goes over the top which allows you to run water into the right-hand side (after, of course, turning that switch to channel the water into the right-hand side as well). So you do that for, uh, a while. Until it seems your clothes aren't still full of soap.

Once you deem the rinse cycle complete, you can turn off the water and use the far right timer to set the length of the spin cycle. And then hang the clothes to dry, of course (similar to Europe, no one here has a dryer). It's baffling to me that this process is so different from Western machines... I had somehow thought there was only one "obvious, intuitive" way to build a clothes-washing machine, but of course that's silly.

I've had this experience with more than just the washing machine. One of the things I love about this trip is that it's showing me exactly how much I take for granted. I have all these assumptions about how things work (or "should work") that are proving to be untrue. It's kind of cool.

Anyway, I've now spent so much time on this post that it's dark out. And the wind is rattling the windows. I think I'll turn on some Japanese TV for a bit. That's like studying, right? ^_^

Jaa mata!