picture: 飲み放題！
In the morning I put out the 燃えるゴミ (moeru gomi, burnable trash) and bummed around the house until Masao called me out to have lunch at a Chinese ramen restaurant with some of his friends and employees. One of them explained a recent news story about a cat who was hanging out at an abandoned rail station, and even though the rail line was about to close down due to lack of use, people would ride the line recently just to see the cat watch the train go by. It was a 三毛猫 (mikeneko, calico cat) whose name was たま (tama, which translates to "ball"). She explained to me that the name たま is very common for cats in Japan, I guess kind of like "fluffy" is assumed to be a common cat's name in the US. The cat died a few days ago, and now there's a memorial for it in the station.
I ate 西川ラーメン (nishikawa ramen? I don't remember) with the others, which is a Chinese spicy ramen, and it was super good. One of the people I went with was another American, Dave, who also plans to take the JLPT:N2 level test, just like me. We spoke in Japanese even when it was just a conversation between the two of us. I always think it's pretty great when I find another foreigner who will speak Japanese with me even when our communication would be smoother in English. He lives close to me, so on test day (JULY 5!) we are going to go to our test site together.
After lunch I went to see my 後輩 (kouhai, younger student) from Bennington College at 関西外国語大学 (kansai gaikokugo daigaku, Kansai Gaidai University). It was his last full day in Japan. He likes to play ultimate frisbee, and I was happy to see a good crowd of Japanese and foreign students had gathered to play with him one last time. We all played ultimate frisbee together, skilled and unskilled alike, and it was a lot of fun. Some of other of his friends showed up to give him a T-shirt they had written a bunch of inside jokes on for him. It was really great to see he had been doing so well in Japan. One friend of his was an Okinawan and she spoke with me about base protest in Okinawa. She says she understands opposition to the bases, but the people who are too outspoken about it and are always railing on about it start to bother her. There's such a range of opinions about these issues, and I'm always eager to hear the opinions of native Okinawans above all others, of course.
In the evening I returned to Masao's work and he answered some of my questions about the exercises in my 読解 (dokkai, reading comprehension) textbook. I stayed there pretty late and he asked if I wanted to go out drinking, so we went to 飲み放題 (nomihoudai, all you can drink) at a place called 土間土間 (Doma Doma) and we spoke mainly English and taught each other some new expressions and caught up. For example 大人の味 (otona no aji, which translates literally to "adult taste") is used for bitter things like coffee and beer, and 子供の味 (kodomo no aji, "childish taste") means sweet things or things children like to eat. Drinking completed, I got home at about 4 in the morning.
Culture note: Japan is serious about separating garbage, and they do a really great job recycling most things. In my area 燃えるゴミ(moeru gomi, burnable garbage) goes out on Monday and Thursday, プラゴミ (pura gomi, plastic garbage) goes out on Tuesday, and 缶と瓶 (kan to bin, cans and glass bottles) get picked up on alternating Fridays. One Sunday each month is for カルトン (karuton, cartons). It's a great system. When you're in public, though, like in front of a convenience store, there's usually just one bin for ペットボトル (petto botoru, plastic bottles), one bin for cans and glass, and one bin for everything else. So even though residential pickups are very efficient, public trash cans are less strict.
(All names used in this blog are pseudonyms.)
