Ninjas, sushi and beer

(For 23 April)

Garbage collection point.  There are several of these set up
throughout each neighbourhood on rubbish day, and residents
bring their garbage here and sort it into the appropriate containers 

Today we learnt all about how to express regrettable events, such as losing your ticket, falling down the stairs, missing the plane, dropping your mobile phone in the toilet, etc.  This lesson was just made for me, as, being basically clumsy, I found that I was quite familiar with many of the things that we talked about.  It didn’t mention my biggest problem (getting lost at the drop of a hat), but I’ve now got the basic structure to talk about this, too.

Can't think of a caption for this one!

 

After class, seven of us had lunch in the plaza near the station before hopping on a bus to go to the Ninja Temple.  I really enjoyed visiting the temple.  Unfortunately, the guided tour was only in Japanese, but we were given a booklet in English to follow as we toured the building.  The temple is a maze of cleverly designed trapdoors, hidden stairs and tunnels.  From the outside, it has the appearance of being only two storeys high, as it was built during a time when buildings higher than three storeys were prohibited, but it is actually a four storey building with seven layers inside.  I made sure I stayed close to the tour group to avoid spending the rest of my life in there trying to find my way out.  The ritual suicide chamber was a little disconcerting, but overall we enjoyed the tour very much.  I managed to bang my head, straight after being told to mind my head.   I’d like to pretend that I didn’t understand the instruction.

The Ninja Temple

We then wandered around the temple area and swooped on the nearby souvenir shop.  Among other things, I bought a couple of ‘Ninja Star’ fridge magnets.  I also found a nice chopsticks cover and a purse which is designed for medicine, but will serve nicely as a purse.

 

After that, we went up the ‘tea shop’ street, which was pleasant enough.  There is a bigger tea shop district which we’ll visit if time permits.  Ulla and I will do some more exploring after class tomorrow.

We made our way back to the language school where we sent emails etc., then Ulla and I went to the station.  While I bought my shinkansen ticket to get me from Kyoto to Hamamatsu, she found a very nice souvenir shop which we plan to revisit before we leave.

When I got home, I quickly put my washing in the machine before we went out to the Kanazawa equivalent of the Sushi Train.  The food was fantastic and I ate too much.  I also had a beer that was too big for me.  Any typos in today’s blog can be blamed on the Asahi Beer company.  (Pronounced ‘assa hee’).  Unlike the Sushi Train, where the staff count the number of coloured plates to work out the total cost, here they use a little electronic gadget which they swipe down the pile of plates.  Very high tech!  Sadly, it reminded me of the scanners at work.

After that it was the usual – bath and homework.  We have to do another speech on Thursday, so tonight I’m attempting to write what I’m going to talk about.  The days are now going so fast so we’re trying to make the most of every minute of our studies.  Enough prattling – homework awaits.