Bailey in Kyoto

On Tuesdays and sometimes Fridays, I babysit Sam, my Modern...

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 07:25:28 -0400

On Tuesdays and sometimes Fridays, I babysit Sam, my Modern Literature professor’s three-year-old son. Sam’s mother, whose Japanese is excellent, began speaking to him in Japanese a year ago to prepare for their year abroad, and sends him to a Japanese preschool (“yochien”) in the city, so Sam’s Japanese is also getting very good. He made dubious friends with this girl and her mother on the playground in front of the Kodomo Mirai Kan this afternoon, and by “made dubious friends with,” I mean “copied the girl’s activity and occasionally demanded her mother’s attention while systematically ignoring the girl herself.” Sam, though deeply suspicious of other children, likes to play their games. By himself. Weird, I know.

HE’S SO CUTE *^^*

for Monday (yesterday), 10/27/08 My friends (l to r) Shelby,...

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 07:06:36 -0400

for Monday (yesterday), 10/27/08

My friends (l to r) Shelby, Kelsey, and Jasny (last name) and I went to Nara, the old-old capital (Kyoto became the capital in 794 AD— no, I’m not missing a leading 1). While there we fed deer while visiting the sixtieth annual Shousouin exhibition, where treasures of the Emperor Shoumu (d. 757) dedicated to the Buddha at Toudaiji by his widow Empress Koumyou are brought out and displayed for the public two weeks out of every year. The preservation of these objects is really absurd— some of them look NEW, no exaggeration. We also went to see Toudaiji, where Vairocana Buddha (ostensibly “Buddha that Shines Throughout the World like the Sun”) is enshrined in what is ostensibly the largest wooden building in the world. It’s phenomenal (cf. my Flickr), where I bought the cell phone charms visible next to the seal full of chocolate, which I ate with the cafe au lait next to my plate when we stopped to rest on the way back to the station. :>

for Sunday, 10/26/08 Meidi-ya (pronounce it Mayjee, it’s a...

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 06:50:00 -0400

for Sunday, 10/26/08

Meidi-ya (pronounce it Mayjee, it’s a different romanization of Meiji) is a store on Sanjou just east of Kawaramachi that sells fancy (mostly) foreign foods, and is the only place in the city, according to my host mother, where you can buy fat-free milk (not popular among the Japanese for some unfathomable reason). After being a warm, white-faced body in the room of a woman’s at-home English classroom (hopefully I’ll be more active next month) I got my hair cut and then ate pasta with my friend Charlotte, also from the University of Chicago, after which we went and bought foreign things at Meidi-ya. I scored Nutella, brownie mix, cereal, and the aforementioned fat-free milk; Charlotte got peanut butter and something else. Charlotte is barely visible in this picture holding her arms up in celebratory delight.

A moment in the life of the Matsunaga house

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 10:34:00 -0400

お母さん: 皆のお父ちゃん、何も作れないのに文句ばっかり言ったりしてはるの。[Mama: Everyone's husbands, they can't cook a thing but...

Project 365 starts, most appropriately, on a very productive day...

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 06:59:48 -0400

Project 365 starts, most appropriately, on a very productive day (for me), and perhaps appropriately, with food (♥). Here you see the frameless-art-esque advertisements for the fast-food chain where I was eating, Mos Burger (“hamburger is my life”), over the frosted-glass-and-polka-dotted partition behind which I sat. I had the 五目きんぴらライスバガー(gomoku kinpira rice burger), which features julienned carrots and burdock marinated in soy and other things between two grilled patties of rice. Delicious.

This was my first trip to Mos Burger, something I’d been meaning to do for a very long time, accomplished on a day where I also bought a pair of comfortable cheap black heels and some appropriate socks (different in Japan), switched my cell phone bill to be automatically deducted from my postal savings account, bought a face plate for my phone (for FREE), and decided on dates for my Christmas return to America. A very, very good day. :D

Japan: A Recap

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Hi, everybody. So, I promise I’m really in Japan. I realize this is extremely difficult for...

I swear I'm really here.

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 07:37:56 -0400

I’ve been here for six weeks and all I’ve got for you so far is a brief list (I lack...

おこしやす！

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 08:31:41 -0400

おこしやす・okoshiyasu: Kyoto dialect for “welcome!” Hey, guys! I’ve been in Japan for...

So close, so close!

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:41:30 -0400

My schedule for the next three days: FRIDAY: 9:30AM - leave for Orlando 12:35PM - take off for...

T-１４日間

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:00:33 -0400

Dear Japan, I’ll be there in two weeks. I hope you’re as excited as I am. Love, Bailey

por fin, for now

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 12:10:00 -0400

One last thing: I definitely have tumblr widget (“tumblet”) on my Dashboard now. I love...

A Conversation Between Me and my Brother

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 12:08:09 -0400

me: Hill, do you like my earrings? Hill: They're delicious.

"You know, Joe—when you see smoke coming out of someone’s house, ninety-nine times out of a..."

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 11:47:41 -0400

“You know, Joe—when you see smoke coming out of someone’s house, ninety-nine times out...

A New Thing: Tryin' Out Tumblr

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 11:43:19 -0400

I’ve been running around the internet searching for a good place to blog when I’m in...