(K)night Bus

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8

Koko mornings may be early, but they're good. I don't have a first hour, so as long as I make the teacher's meeting in decent time, I'm fine. The class schedule for the day was a bit twisted around, which no fewer than FOUR teachers came to explain to me. Honestly, it's porbably good that they're looking out for me and keeping me in (that) loop, but it was getting frustrating by the end to be interrupted to have it all explained – again – to me. I also wasn't that complex. But, moving on...

It was my first time teaching the Mickey-Minnie lessons and I fell into the hang of things fairly well. The students didn't seem to enjoy it as much as the Digimon one (perhaps because the dialogue is still stupid, even with my improvements.) But, they did it and it went fairly well.

I didn't want to give homework. I don't have TIME to give homework this week. So, I told students that I'd draw a card from my stack of YES and NO cards (for an activity we didn't get to) and if I drew a YES, there would be homework. If I drew a NO, no homework. And then spread the cards out in front of me, and carefully selected a NO card. (They're a bit see-through.) I did this in all classes. Some students missed the whole show, but some were surprised at NOT having homework. I was happy not to have to grade it.

I spent my lunch hour reading through my Lonely Planet book on Tokyo. It went a bit over my 45 minutes, but given the amount of over-time I put in here, I think they can forgive me. I jotted down notes of all the places I wanted to go in nice color-coded pens. Now, getting quite excited, I was ready to tackle the evening.

I left pretty much on time, given all the preparation I still had to do. At home, I made an elaborate dinner of pasta with a caramelized onion marinara sauce. The dishes for which were not part of my original plans. I then had to do those many dishes and the others all waiting. I swear, dishes NEVER go away!

I packed my stuff together and carefully watched the clock. I also did other important things like take out the garbage and clean the toilet to stop the house from smelling on my return. (Not that, with my bad sense of smell, I'd probably notice.)

Time seemed to go so slowly

Then, finally, I was off to the station. I was planning to buy a discount ticket from the machine, but when asking the Japanese girls in front of me about the Kyoto kanji (to confirm that I had the right one) they said something about not being able to use the discount tickets because of a holiday. I'm confused, but they led me upstairs and pointed at the machines to make sure I knew how to get my ticket. A student of mine said hello while I was in the middle of this and unfortunately I couldn't pay her the attention I typically would with so much going on. I did manage to tell her I was going to Tokyo.

On the platform, I didn't see the student, so I don't know where she went off to. I caught my train and headed to Kyoto. Once in Kyoto Station, I followed the well-done signs and ended up in the bus area. Here, it was mad-house of people in lines, people waiting, and people shouting. I bit overwealmed, I wandered over to a group of English-speaking gaijin to ask if they had any idea how this worked. They looked at my sheet and translated that I'd be looking for a certain bus company. I thanked them for their help, although honestly I probably could have managed without them had I more nerves, and wandered over to ask an official looking guy. He read my sheet and directed me toward the “blue jacket” people. There, I waited in line, was checked off on the list, then was directed to my bus. The girl checking me in actually spoke half-decent English.

Once to my bus, I showed my reservation form, and my name was found on another list. I climbed aboard and was directed to my seat: isle, fourth row from the back, left side. There, I sat and read through my Japanese phrase book some, rather than listening to more Pollyanna, so I could hear any announcements.

My seatmate wasn't showing up, and I was getting excited about maybe having extra room when a young Japanese girl walked down the isle and looked at me, looked around, then walked back to the front. She checked the posting with names and walked back again, stopping at the woman seated on the isle, the row in front of me, on the right side and announced that she was in the wrong seat. That woman apologized, stood up, and forgive me, my first thought was “hooker.” She high books on, stockings, and a short shirt that ended tucking in tight just below her butt. And, of course, she comes and sits next to me. I don't know how she managed to so badly mess up her seat. I don't even speak Japanese and I got it figured out.

Each seat had a leopard print blanket and a black eye mask. I used my blanket and cuddled up as best I could. The seats went back farther than those on airplanes and it was more spacious as far as leg-room, but there was no divider between me and my seat-mate, and that made it hard to be aware of not bumping into her on accident. It wasn't exactly comfortable, but that was okay. Finally, we started moving and I curled up for sleep.