Mainly admin adventures

I won’t be writing too much (at least in theory) because I don’t think that many people will find stuff like fire drills or placement tests interesting. The running theme for the past few days was admin stuff: the aforementioned tests, handing in papers for my health insurance (compulsory for anyone staying in Japan for 6 months or more, it covers 70% of most of the typical medical expenses like visits to the GP or hospitalisation) or orientation sessions for my program (Japanese Language and Culture Program, Nikken for short) or daily life (the only new thing I learnt was that while earthquakes may be rare in Kanazawa, I do have to be careful not to be killed by a bear or a poisonous snake – great!).

From the more interesting things: on Wednesday I became a proud and happy owner of a はんこ (hanko), a little stamp with the name and surname (or just one) which the Japanese use often instead of a signature, especially in all sorts of documents like banking stuff, admin stuff and what have you. I’m not gonna lie, the fact that I have my own stamp made me feel very important and official. There is a teeny-tiny bit of me that regrets that I had to go for the cheapest one, even though I did buy one of the slightly nicer (ergo: more expensive) cases, but at the end of the day a stamp is a stamp, it’s the contents that matter. So after a brief search on the shop’s website and slightly longer chat with the clerk (the main achievement was deciding to have my name in katakana so that the bank won’t start the whole “but your passport doesn’t have your name in kanji” thing) I took the cheapest type made out of cow’s/ox’s horns (I don’t know, in Japanese the word for both cow and ox is 牛 [ushi]), with the name written in the most readable font, 10.5mm diameter and a nicer case to top it up.

The same day that I ordered my hanko I had a bit more spare time, so I did a little bit of sightseeing. Back in Pongyi guest house I got a tourist map of Kanzawa and using it, I divided the city into my own manageable “zones” in order to organise my touring so that I don’t end up trying to see everything at once. Seeing as I wasn’t going out of Kanazawa city centre, I decided to first go to one of the oldest markets in town, 近江町市場 (Omi-chō Ichiba).  Although great to visit as a tourist, it still works as a regular market and people go there to shop, mainly for fruit, vegetables and fish, but I did find a couple of restaurants, some flower shops and some clothes shops (which sold either stereotypically housewife-y clothes, or the cheap Chinese clothes, but not the fashionable kind, that you’d find on a Sunday market). I’ll probably go there to actually shop eventually – coz even if the prices were a tad higher compared to the supermarket, they definitely had fresh and mostly local produce and not stuff like carrots from Hokkaidō. And the fish! Yes, I am not a great fishy person, I’ll eat it when I fancy some and I still have not actually eaten raw fish, but even I, a fish layman (laywoman?), saw the difference – and felt it too, coz usually all the fish stands stink of fish that’s been lying there a few days, while in Omi-chō the smell was surprisingly not invading my sense of smell. Not to mention the sizes. On the picture so far you can only see the giant crabs, I didn’t manage to take a picture of prawns the size of my hand or any other massive fish. 

Omi-chō Ichiba

Just giant crabs, move along

Mushrooms weren't on the small side either

One of the kimonos on display in a kimono shop - I thought it better not to go in and ask about the price

And on the way back, quite unexpectedly, I stumbled upon a cute little street which, as it turned out, lead to a temple. I stopped because a lovely little bookshop caught my eye, and then I remembered that I’m not in a rush. On the way there were some more tiny shops, selling mainly religious stuff, from incense to figurines, but there were also a few clothes shops and some places selling local produce, mainly pottery. Unfortunately, I did not enter the shrine as I was a bit confused by the sign outside it; I could only make the temple name, Y500 at the bottom and the dates out of it. But I’ll go back there, I’m not in a hurry.

It started from this tiny shop

Shop with religious articles number 1...

... and two

Higashi Betsuin temple (東別院)

As it turned out on Thursday, I start classes from this Monday. Luckily though my timetable doesn’t look as scary as it could’ve. The most scary thing on it is the fact that classes at Japanese unis are 90 minutes long (I don’t yet know about other schools, I’m yet to find out), but having said that one can have a max of 5 classes per day. In my case the busy time’s concentrated in the middle of the week, leaving me only one morning class on Mondays and Fridays. It could’ve been worse, no doubts about that. And I was already warned that the Nikken program is the most intensive from all the ones offer, so now that I know what to prepare myself mentally for, maybe I won’t experience too much of a shock. We’ll see.

Well, and I finally sorted out my keitai (I didn’t manage to get to the bank today, it’ll have to patiently wait until Monday), so I can relax a little. Keitai was supposed to be sorted yesterday, I went to Softbank store, the only mobile network that has a pre-paid option, I said that I already have a handset and just need a new SIM card, and then I waited. And waited. The clerk was sorting some stuff out, scanning some barcodes and after maybe 15-20 minutes it turned out that my handset is already too old to register on the system. Ok, I get that technology is advancing really fast, but that’s the most basic handset possible, it’s a miracle it has a camera built in, how can it not be recognised by the system anymore? Oh well, happens. But since in that particular shop they didn’t have any pre-paid handsets, the clerk was phoning up around other branches to see, if any one of them has at least one handset, until she found one – so this morning I went there and I finally have a mobile. And to make things more interesting, it’s identical to the one I had, even the contents of the menu are exactly the same. I’ve no idea what got so old in there that it doesn’t register on the system, but maybe I’m not supposed to know. 

One of them is new

Now that I have a more or less free day, I can spend some time on planning some further trips and sightseeing. Especially since I now have my timetable and a calendar, so I know when I’ll have days off. On top of that I received a so called Gaku Pass (学パス), chich gives me free entry to twenty six tourist spots in Kanazawa – savings, woop, woop!

Finally, another Engrish, this time from a restaurant where I’ve had my lunch on Tuesday (FYI: fantastic gyōza [dumplings, fried at the bottom and steamed from the top, originally Chinese, but now a part of Japanese cuisine] and a bowl of rice with some miso soup – only Y346 and I was full right until late evening!).

So close...