Stillness

[Higashi-Osaka and Ikoma Mountain, just before sunrise]

I did a little bit of shopping after work today, (mostly due to the shocking fact I discovered yesterday that I was out of soy sauce!) and somehow I ended up catching a gap between trains after I finished. Normally I don't have to wait more than five minutes for a train, but right now I've been sitting here for about fifteen. The strange feeling of patience that you only see at the end of the line.

And yet... I have nothing to do here but wait. I finished dinner, finished shopping, and replied to a few of the outstanding mails on my phone. I guess I could dive into my kanji studying like I usually do, but it just isn't the same when the train isn't in motion. Maybe that's a bad thing. If I get too used to this, I won't be able to take the Japanese proficiency exam if I'm not in a moving vehicle...

Such a strange feeling, stillness... The train is just sitting here, a muted chorus of hums and hisses coming from above, below and all around me as its circulatory and respiratory systems idle away. Train conductors walk up and down the cars picking up the occasional forgotten wrapper or manga book left by the passengers on the way out here.

Work has been pretty intense lately. Intense in an off-season kind of way. The kind of intensity when you're struggling to put your head around a problem and learn what the last people did. Not the kind of heads-down, sprint-to-the-end intensity that characterized the last couple months. It's pretty exciting for me that I'm working with a team now. At the same time it's exhausting to sit through hours of meetings held completely in Japanese. My comprehension kind of saturates and then my mind just sits back and waves the words on through with a smile.

Been studying like mad lately, too. I realized last week that I'm going to have to cover three kanji lessons a week in order to be ready for the Level One test this December. That's a pretty ambitious goal, but I think I can keep it up as long as I study on the train every morning and most evenings. Feels like binge-and-purge education, but what else would be appropriate for this country?

My personal life has also been pretty eventful lately. The big news is that KIP and his friend Ryan came to visit over the weekend! It was sooo awesome to see him. We rented bicycles on Saturday and biked around Kyoto with Niklas and Keiko (yes... the girlfriend I've been hinting about for a couple of months), taking in some of the major sights and seeing some of the little back streets as well.


[Traffic hazards in Kyoto - Photo by Niklas]

Let me just say that this is THE best way to do Kyoto. I've ridden the crowded, stuffy buses, I've walked enormous distances, and I've taken overpriced taxis... but there is nothing like tearing across the city on a rented bike for 300 yen on a beautiful spring day!


[A beautiful afternoon at Kinkaku-ji - Photo by Niklas]

Although I have lots of photos from this trip, I won't have time to crop, resize, and upload them for a while. Fortunately, however, Niklas is a great photographer and is also diligent about uploading his pictures!

You can see his pics from our trip on his Flickr page, which has a cool slideshow function.