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.
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| Omi-chō Ichiba |
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| Just giant crabs, move along |
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| Mushrooms weren't on the small side either |
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| 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.
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| It started from this tiny shop |
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| Shop with religious articles number 1... |
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| ... and two |
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| 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.
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| 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!).
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| So close... |
