Day Two of SSDM

Another day spent at the conference. I met one of the few other native english speakers at the conference today, a student at Sheffield University. It was also his first trip to Japan, though he had the advantage of having two friends (another graduate student and his advisor) here as well, both of whom speak Japanese. In any case, it was fun to talk to someone for a while without wory about the language barrier. (It's strange, but I get stressed out a bit speaking in English to someone who doesn't speak well, because I'm trying so hard to say what I want in just the right way that I will be understood. ) Anyway, again it was a mixed bag of talks. Some were good, some were bad. Also, I got really tired out at around 4 pm, and so the last two hours were pretty rough.

On the vacationing front, I had two successful activities today. First, I was able to send my bag off to my hotel in Kyoto to avoid carrying all my things with me on the train (for the ludicrously low price of ~$15!) This was accomplished with the help of the bell hop captains at my hotel. Fortunately, they both spoke just enough English for this to succeed. And I was at least able to finish the transaction with "arigato gozaimas" (thank you very much) to show that I was at least trying to use a little Japanese. Also, this morning at breakfast, I made sure to say "ohayo gozaimas" (good morning) to the hostess. I also tried to decline the offer of coffee with "chotto," but either that was the wrong thing to say, my pronouncation was too poor, or the waitress simply didn't hear me, because I had to add "no thank you" along with shaking my hand before she understood. My second activity was another excellent Japanese meal. I decided to go to the Sushi bar in the hotel, which looked very nice, and I was not disappointed. Though the sushi chefs did not speak English, one of the waitresses spoke good english and helped me order. Then one of the chefs was in charge of my meal and proceeded to make one piece of nigiri at a time right in front of me. It was fun watching, and the quality of the fish was excellent. The toro (fatty tuna), in particular, was deliciously decadent. All of the food was also presented beautifully. When I was done, I ended up waiting around for a long time, so I finally decided to try some more Japanese, and when I got the waitress's attention, said "okanjoh onegai shimas" (the check, please), which got her to smile. She said my pronounciation was very good, though maybe she was just being nice. Finally, when I got up to leave, I made sure to say "gochisoh sama deshta" (the food was excellent) to the chefs, which they seemed to like. I don't have much Japanese to work with, but I at least tried a few things out today.