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* Hung out for a while with a couple of Malaysian women who were staying in the guest house until today. They were here for work, but worked in some intensive tourism. One is a very aggressive HR administrator who is constantly designing employee training sessions and sensitivity presentations in her head - I know because they often spill over into what she says out loud. The other is her younger and quieter assistant, who is very into anime involving youkai, J-dramas, and Johnny and Associates-managed idol groups. She showed me an episode of a drama called Detective Academy Q.
Me: Why is the bad guy calling himself King Hades if his power is that he hypnotizes people? I mean, you should probably never call yourself King Hades in any circumstances, but...
Her: Yes, it's a pretty stupid name. Oh, and this thing about the dry ice, too... I don't think that it would really work like that. If you really dumped dry ice on a tray full of wine glasses, they would just break.
Ultra-Manager videotaped part of this conversation for her report when they get back; she convinced the department to send them over so they could learn about Japanese culture and be better prepared for incoming Japanese employees. Presumably she'll use her video to demonstrate that their experience will also be useful in dealing with American employees who are nerds?
She showed me one she'd taken of herself trying to communicate with a station employee who didn't know any English, in which her persistence in cheerfully asking him questions he doesn't understand reduces him to helpless giggling. I asked her what dramatic purpose this would serve in her presentation, and she said it would be funny.
* Left for Toji market at 5:00 AM, discovered en route that I had a horrific cold. My eyes were watering and nose was running continuously all morning. I'm not completely sure what's in those shopping bags, it's kind of blurry.
* Came back to guest house around 11:00 to drop off purchases and try to take a nap. The manager was repairing the door across the hall with a power drill. So I got up and got on the bus to Arashiyama, not feeling like walking back to the JR station. It looked like it was going to rain any second when I got there, and all I'd eaten that day were three pastries, on the rationale that when if I feel this crappy I should get pastries for it. So I went into the first coffee place that appeared before me and ordered curry. I asked the waitress for directions to Gioji. We ended up having to consult three different maps and guidebooks, which she thought was very funny, given that it turned out it was only a fifteen-minute walk away.
I strongly recommend visiting Gioji regardless of time and weather, but I suspect that it works especially well in late afternoon and under an ominous dark sky; the light suited it nicely, and there weren't many people. It never actually rained.
* The bus back to the guest house wasn't running for some reason (it was only 4:45?), so I had to walk all the way to the JR Station. Once there, I decided I'd might as well go to Kyoto Station and visit the ramen-only floor of the Isetan, which I hadn't yet done.
I did so, and there experienced a serious moral and intellectual quandary. This is common at the vending machine ramen place, right? That's where you have those.
I put what I recall as being a single 10,000-yen bill into the machine for a 900-yen bowl of miso ramen. It gave me back 19,100 yen in change. After staring in confusion at these bills for several seconds, I gave the extra change to the attendant standing by the machine and told her it was too much. She told me I'd put in 20,000 yen and gave it back. I insisted that I couldn't have, gave it back to her again, and went over to the counter to sit down and wait for my ramen.
The problem is that I actually couldn't remember how much I'd had in my wallet. I felt like I couldn't have had 20,000 yen left, given the amount of cash I generally carry. But maybe I'd gotten some extra to put in there while staggering around in the morning? I didn't think I had, but I was sick and I'd gotten up at 4:30 AM, a time at which I prefer to be fiddling around on the computer trying to decide if I should go to bed.
And it occurred to me that I was sitting in front of a bowl of miso ramen and didn't actually feel like eating it. Which is what really made me feel that I might actually be sick and sleepy enough that my judgment couldn't be trusted. And I didn't want to be responsible for them having to put the damn vending machine out of commission to be checked when I might just be confused. They'd probably lose more than 10,000 yen if they did that and I was wrong. But AM I JUST RATIONALIZING BECAUSE I AM GREEDY?
I forced down about half the ramen, to see if whatever nutrients contained therein would fix my brain - they didn't - and went back over to try to run through with the attendant what she thought I'd done again. She'd apparently been talking it over with a guy who seemed to be the manager, who again assured me that I must have put in 20,000 yen, and gave the money back.
I don't know what John Stuart Mill would make of all this, but I'm pretty sure that the characters from Lois McMaster Bujold's Curse of Chalion would tell me to donate that 10,000 yen to the temple of The Bastard. Its history is too problematic.
* The miso ramen was not itself very good. The best ramen I've had on this trip was in Jimbocho the other day, on the south side of the used books street, a little ways past the easternmost shop. Excellent tonkotsu.
* Should I drink this umeshu I bought? Old Japanese men think it's healthy. Surely old Japanese men always know exactly what they're talking about.
Me: Why is the bad guy calling himself King Hades if his power is that he hypnotizes people? I mean, you should probably never call yourself King Hades in any circumstances, but...
Her: Yes, it's a pretty stupid name. Oh, and this thing about the dry ice, too... I don't think that it would really work like that. If you really dumped dry ice on a tray full of wine glasses, they would just break.
Ultra-Manager videotaped part of this conversation for her report when they get back; she convinced the department to send them over so they could learn about Japanese culture and be better prepared for incoming Japanese employees. Presumably she'll use her video to demonstrate that their experience will also be useful in dealing with American employees who are nerds?
She showed me one she'd taken of herself trying to communicate with a station employee who didn't know any English, in which her persistence in cheerfully asking him questions he doesn't understand reduces him to helpless giggling. I asked her what dramatic purpose this would serve in her presentation, and she said it would be funny.
* Left for Toji market at 5:00 AM, discovered en route that I had a horrific cold. My eyes were watering and nose was running continuously all morning. I'm not completely sure what's in those shopping bags, it's kind of blurry.
* Came back to guest house around 11:00 to drop off purchases and try to take a nap. The manager was repairing the door across the hall with a power drill. So I got up and got on the bus to Arashiyama, not feeling like walking back to the JR station. It looked like it was going to rain any second when I got there, and all I'd eaten that day were three pastries, on the rationale that when if I feel this crappy I should get pastries for it. So I went into the first coffee place that appeared before me and ordered curry. I asked the waitress for directions to Gioji. We ended up having to consult three different maps and guidebooks, which she thought was very funny, given that it turned out it was only a fifteen-minute walk away.
I strongly recommend visiting Gioji regardless of time and weather, but I suspect that it works especially well in late afternoon and under an ominous dark sky; the light suited it nicely, and there weren't many people. It never actually rained.
* The bus back to the guest house wasn't running for some reason (it was only 4:45?), so I had to walk all the way to the JR Station. Once there, I decided I'd might as well go to Kyoto Station and visit the ramen-only floor of the Isetan, which I hadn't yet done.
I did so, and there experienced a serious moral and intellectual quandary. This is common at the vending machine ramen place, right? That's where you have those.
I put what I recall as being a single 10,000-yen bill into the machine for a 900-yen bowl of miso ramen. It gave me back 19,100 yen in change. After staring in confusion at these bills for several seconds, I gave the extra change to the attendant standing by the machine and told her it was too much. She told me I'd put in 20,000 yen and gave it back. I insisted that I couldn't have, gave it back to her again, and went over to the counter to sit down and wait for my ramen.
The problem is that I actually couldn't remember how much I'd had in my wallet. I felt like I couldn't have had 20,000 yen left, given the amount of cash I generally carry. But maybe I'd gotten some extra to put in there while staggering around in the morning? I didn't think I had, but I was sick and I'd gotten up at 4:30 AM, a time at which I prefer to be fiddling around on the computer trying to decide if I should go to bed.
And it occurred to me that I was sitting in front of a bowl of miso ramen and didn't actually feel like eating it. Which is what really made me feel that I might actually be sick and sleepy enough that my judgment couldn't be trusted. And I didn't want to be responsible for them having to put the damn vending machine out of commission to be checked when I might just be confused. They'd probably lose more than 10,000 yen if they did that and I was wrong. But AM I JUST RATIONALIZING BECAUSE I AM GREEDY?
I forced down about half the ramen, to see if whatever nutrients contained therein would fix my brain - they didn't - and went back over to try to run through with the attendant what she thought I'd done again. She'd apparently been talking it over with a guy who seemed to be the manager, who again assured me that I must have put in 20,000 yen, and gave the money back.
I don't know what John Stuart Mill would make of all this, but I'm pretty sure that the characters from Lois McMaster Bujold's Curse of Chalion would tell me to donate that 10,000 yen to the temple of The Bastard. Its history is too problematic.
* The miso ramen was not itself very good. The best ramen I've had on this trip was in Jimbocho the other day, on the south side of the used books street, a little ways past the easternmost shop. Excellent tonkotsu.
* Should I drink this umeshu I bought? Old Japanese men think it's healthy. Surely old Japanese men always know exactly what they're talking about.
