Components Of A Weird Day

[snarp]

1) A job interview.

2) Finding a kind of chocolate you've been on the lookout for for a couple months, and on your way to the checkout being stopped by a woman who'd also been looking for it to ask you what aisle you found it in.

3) Seeing somebody for whom you bought dorayaki last weekend mentioned in an entirely non-dorayaki-related-context on a blog you read every day.

4) The Metro goes aboveground sometimes?!

Comments

[inkstone]

The Metro goes aboveground sometimes?!

Hahahaha, yup!

[snarp]

I was just sitting there in the Death Star like usual, and all of a sudden there was sunlight! And we were up in the air, like on a monorailI naturally assumed that these developments would be followed by a sudden drop. It struck me as unlikely that DC public transit system could be technically advanced enough to run a monorail; if the cars don't fall off, then they will probably be picked up and carried away by massive golems created by a secretive order of warlocks tasked with the maintenance of sanity in the universe.

(What I'm saying is that my seat kind of fell in on the bus this afternoon, and everybody just went "yeah."

Also, it takes them six weeks to fix an escalator.)

[inkstone]

Sadly, both of those things are true as well.

[treesahquiche]

1) Oh, awesome! I have my fingers crossed for you. :)

2) That chocolate sounds delicious; I usually get Dagoba or Green & Black's, but I will be on the lookout for Grenada the next time I go shopping.

3) So that's what they're called. I like those. They're delicious.

4) Yeah, the first time I found that out I was taken aback too. Metros in Shanghai -- well, Asian metropolises in general -- are CRAAAAZY.

[snarp]

2) I usually get Green & Black's, too! The Divine mint dark chocolate bars are good, too. (Though I partly buy them because I think the packaging's cute?)

4) I was vaguely prepared for it when it happened in Tokyo, because it seems like an engineering challenge and I assume that Tokyo can handle those, but... the DC metro does this? DC can't even get the lights on the buses to work!

[lacrimawanders.livejournal.com]

*Thumbs up*

Also, unrelated, but what do you think of Yamasa after-the-fact?

[snarp]

Yamasa is the only reason I'm at all coherent in Japanese, so I'm definitely glad I went. The teachers are almost all excellent - I only remember one out of fifteen or so that I felt was phoning it in, and she only taught electives - and their curriculum is really good for spoken Japanese. Reading's a little perfunctory but still fine. They try to keep the mix of the classes so that there won't be too many people in one class who spoke the same language to force you to speak Japanese more.

(I mean, in practice, what this meant a lot of the time was that 45% of the class speaks Chinese, 45% speaks English (not always as a first language, but most of the Europeans and Brazilians knew it), and the single Korean was the only one who couldn't default back to a language she/he knew better. It actually does work pretty well as an incentive, though.)

On the downside, their approach to kanji is kind of: "Hopefully You Already Speak Chinese, But If Not, We Will Give You A List. Memorize The List." They do have specialized kanji classes you can take as electives, but they're basically just quizzes, flashcards, and writing the kanji over and over.

They also grade a little leniently, but as far as I could tell, not so much that they won't hold someone back at the end of the term if they think the person needs it. There's an optional evening program, involving a combination of online and private lessons, which I tried for a while and don't think is worth it - it's just not integrated well with the main curriculum. Their server kept breaking when I was there, too.

Unrelated to actual educational material, they also do these field trips on the weekends that you can sign up for pretty cheaply - I did the shrine at Ise, the Wedded Rocks, and Mt. Horai, and I nearly fell off Mt. Horai. There's also a bar on campus! One of the administrative guys was talking about starting a private brewery for it? A lot of beer is consumed at this place.

[chomiji]

Re Metro - Lordy, yes! It's above ground where I get on at Takoma and doesn't dive underground again until just before Union Station. You need to travel the system a little more ... but this is not the weekend for doing that. There's track work on almost all the lines. But do it sometime. The bit on the Yellow Line that goes over the Potomac is really cool.

[snarp]

I've mostly on been taking the Red line into the city, and then the Blue/Orange a few stops in either direction from Metro Center, I think - I assume it doesn't come aboveground much in the denser areas, which is why I didn't realize it had this mysterious property.

[inkstone]

Yeah, where I get on the Metro (blue line's originating station in Springfield-Franconia), it's above ground pretty much until you get to Crystal City.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Ah ha, yes, it's pretty much all underground in the city proper, but when you get out onto the farther reaches of lines in MD and VA, there are huge above-ground chunks. I live out by Huntington and the Yellow and Blue lines on that side of the map both are totally out in the open until you hit Crystal City, and then they surface again for a bit after the Pentagon station. And I used to work out in Merrifield and IIRC, those last few stops on that end of the Orange line are all above-ground, too.

(And heh, didn't realize you were local-ish! We might have bumped into each other in the crowd during Sakura Matsuri and NEVER EVEN KNEW! *cue dramatic music*)

[snarp]

(Dun-dun-dunnnnh! It's possible! You probably would have noticed because I would have gotten mochi all over you.

I've only been in the DC area since the end of January. It is what I consider to be an appropriate distance from my family, and the job-hunting situation is much better than in Kentucky.)

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Maybe not! I was kind of preoccupied hauling around a bag full of giant creepy dolls, not to mention being in a massive antihistamine haze.

Have you already found your way to Hana Market on U Street?

[snarp]

I have not been there yet, but now I guess I must go! A friend tried to take me to a place called Daruma Market in Bethesda the other day, but it had gone out of business. Thus was my quest for anko thwarted.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Hana is great -- there are a ton of much much bigger pan-Asian markets out in the VA/MD burbs, but they're mostly Korean-based and if you're looking for specifically Japanese products, their selection isn't always as extensive as one might like. Hana is pretty tiny and their selection of fresh/frozen stuff in particular is very small, but for more shelf-stable stuff they probably have the best selection of Japanese nummies in the area, especially now that Daruma and Nani-wa in McLean have both closed. :( (Go on Thursdays if you're looking for vegetables, that's when they get fresh deliveries.)

It's very very Metro-able, too -- only three blocks from the U Street station on the Green or Yellow lines. (If you drive or have a friend with a car, the Fairfax Super H Mart is probably the hugest and nicest of the Asian mega-marts in the area -- or Great Wall in Merrifield is the best bet if you're looking for specific Chinese ingredients, now that the last supermarket in Chinatown is closed. :(

[snarp]

I will definitely check out Hana when I get the chance. Thank you for telling me about it!

[snarp]

(Dolls from the stand where people were making dolls, or anime plushes from the insanely crowded booth down near the J-pop stage?)

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Ah, nope, the crazy resin ball-jointed things...although I know a couple of the girls at the kimekomi dollmaking school booth also had their BJDs hanging out with them there, and lots of the doll forum folks who'd come downtown for a dollmeet in the Haupt Garden were dropping by their booth to say hello.