Justin-Klein.com – Life of a Traveling Programmer

Wow, what an eventful few days.

First off, as usual the planned one night and two days at Naomi’s house in Uji turned into three nights and four days. During my stay there I got several things accomplished:
1) I learned how to make Unagi Donburi, Curry Rice, and Kimuchi Nabe
2) I got my haircut
3) I saw Ocean’s Twelve. In my opinion, it was one of those few times when the sequel manages to be more entertaining than the prequel. If you’ve got the time, see it!
4) I practiced lots of Japanese
5) Good times were had by all 🙂

After I came back, I decided that it was about time to take a nice hike. Normally I LOVE really out-doorsy travel; hiking, scuba diving, mountain biking, that sort of thing. But since it’s been SO cold here (and because I’ve been in Hirakata without any real means of transportation) I’ve done very little of that. So, after my workout at Ritsumeikan, I decided to just start riding. No particular trail in mind, I just picked a direction. As I mentioned before, Kyoto is in a valley surrounded on all sides by mountains, so if you go far enough in a direction, you’ll eventually come to the end of the city. And this house marked that end. Luckily, there happened to be a small road just behind it leading…UP! So, I got off my bike and started walking it up the hill, and up, and up…and up.
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Wow. I simply cannot describe what a GREAT decision it was for me to move here.

Nao was nice enough to spend most of her day helping me move from Hirakata to Kyoto (with her car it was about 10 times easier, because I could just throw the big stuff in the back seat and not have to even think about packing carefully). And while we spent most of the daylight hours getting everything set up and organized instead of exploring the city, I can already tell how much happier I’m going to be here.

So, without further adieu, welcome to my new room. This will be the FOURTH place I’ve lived in only a month in Japan. For those of you that can’t read Japanese, that’s my name in Katakana. The previous (male) tennant was nice enough to leave me the Hello Kitty stickers.
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OK, be forewarned: this is NOT an interesting post. I just forgot to mention this before and thought that it was a bit amusing.

So, most of you are probably aware that in Japan you absolutely NEVER wear your shoes indoors. There’s always a small, lowered area just inside of the entrance called the “genkan” where you must remove and leave your shoes before stepping up to the main area. Even the low-end dorm buildings have this; each room has its own cubbie for the occupant’s shoes. Well, the gym is no exception! That’s right…people work out in just socks here. When you walk into the main gym building, there’s a HUGE pile of shoes at the entrance for everyone who’s in the building at the moment. Quite a difference from the “no shirt, no shoes, no service” policy in the gyms back home. Continue reading »