Early this Week

It's Friday and it's been a pretty good week, but it's not over yet. More on that later.

Last weekend I went to visit American Steve (one of the Jet teachers) in a small town in Shiga prefecture, about an hour north of us. I couldn't believe how much the climate changed in that hour, though. After passing a late-autumn-looking Kyoto, the train went through a mountain and emerged on the other side in some kind of winter wonderland. In Steve's town, there was a couple of feet of fresh snow on the ground, it was great and has made me want to go skiing.

We ate at a revolving sushi restaurant. By this, I mean that the cooks just prepare sushi, put it on a coveyor belt that goes around the restaurant, and customers just grab whatever they want and eat it. Each plate is a different size or colour to indicate the item's cost, so at the end of your meal, the waitress just adds up the amount of plates you used and charges you correspondingly. It's delicious and great to be able to actually see your food before you buy it (and come on, the world needs more conveyor belts...)

Monday I was approached by, Kimiko, one of the Japanese staff members at work. She asked me if I would like to have a "shift slide" at the end of the month where, instead of working my regular 5-9pm shift, I work 10am-2pm. I told her no thanks. She looked confused. So I explained to her a bit about sleeping patterns and that was like me asking her to come in at 3am instead of her regular 10am shift. She turned around and went back to talk to her manager. Frankie, my co-worker, came over to me and told me that no one EVER says no to them like that. I was a little bit worried, but she came back in and said that she was going to ask Lee instead. Sweet, I have asserted my dominance.

Tuesday evening I went to a Media (internet) Cafe in Juso. After a couple of hours on the computer, it struck me: I had forgotten to bring my cash. Furthermore, the staff doesn't speak any English, so I had no way to even explain to them that I didn't have the money to pay. So after a little bit of thinking (and a little bit of considering to just run out of there and never come back), I opened up an online English-Japanese web translator. I don't know if you've ever used these things, but they're pretty horrible. They don't translate directly, word-for-word, but unless you have a good grasp on the language you're translating into (meaning, how to structure your English so that it makes a bit of sense), it comes out as some kind of rough gibberish. So I typed in...
"I have no wallet. I return with money."
...hoping that this would be simple enough to translate without major errors. I grabbed one of the staff members pulled him over to my computer. He seemed to understand. He typed something in, translated it and it said...
"But, leaving status for, isn't that so?"
...I just kind of smiled and nodded as I usually do, gave him my phone to hold as collateral, and biked home to get some money. Everything worked out, but I think I figured out what he meant afterwards. He was trying to tell me that I can leave, but the computer timer will be left running.

Ok, I'm on the verge of running late for work, so I'll contine later on. Have a great weekend,

Ryan