Sutorenjaa In Japan

Sumimasen....

Today I set out on my bike and decided to try to see what was in Sabae. With my trusty map in hand, and after clearing the icky frogs off my bike (they like to perch on the tires… I am soooo tempted), I was off to the center of town. I actually wanted to try to find the post office to extract a bit more cash from my ever dwindling funds. Can’t wait till I finally get paid (Aug 21)! HOWEVER, I had a flat tire so I had to try to get some air. So, I went to the gas station (isn’t that usually the place one can go for such things?). Being the prepared person I am, I had already spent the previous evening tearing though the books looking for the Japanese word for ‘bike’ to no avail, in hopes of asking someone for help. Apparently, no on considers “bike” or ‘ bicycle’ an important enough word to list in beginner books. Introducing you wife to your dentist , finding love hotels and renting cars seem to be the choice topics for language learning books these days. OK, so knowing that I didn’t know, I decided that I would employ my mad brilliant pictionary skills in my quest for bicycle repair and I brought a pen and paper. Heheh, I was also armed with one of the most important words I have learned so far… ‘doko’ (where).
So I got to the gas station, found an attendant, pointed to my flat tire and said the magic word. The guy was so nice… he tried so hard to tell me where to go and how to get there. He knew how to say right, left straight and under, thank goodness! AND he was even kind enough to draw me a map. So, I found the bike shop across the train station. Ha! That was another adventure too! The nice old man stopped what he was doing and started to work on my bike. He tried to tell me what was wrong in Japanese (deer in headlights look from me), then he tried to write it down (…), in katakana (....) and finally just motioned for me to come back in 10 minutes. 10 minutes later and 1,500 en lighter, my bike was fixed and I was on my way.
The center of town is actually pretty cute. I found a local book store (of course there were no English books) and considered buying some children’s activity books to help my writing. I also found a stationary store and a little clothing store (older ladies clothing but still fun to poke around). After all that, I finally found the post office and got some cash… yay! Then it was back to the apt. It was crazy hot. Hopefully I can check out more stuff tomorrow and possibly see my school again!

posted by KidBach @ 3:51 PM