Well, Saturday was a lot of fun, even if it was 1,000 degrees and about 500% humidity. One of the other exchange students had had a birthday recently, and his host-parents were throwing him a birthday party at their house in Uji, maybe 40 minutes worth of train-riding away. When I was on the train heading to meet up with everyone at Kyoto station, I realized that this little kid was staring at me with his mouth hanging open and a look of disgust or dismay or something like that on his face. I have to say that this was the first time that this had happened to me since I arrived in Japan, though I have heard of it happening to other foreigners. Well anyway, a TON of us showed up in Uji. Like, probably almost 30 big, hungry foreigners, but his family were really nice about it and showed us a great time. We had Japanese-style barbecue made by his host-father on an iron grill in the front garden, and tons of other food and more than a little alcohol. After we had, locust-like, consumed everything that could be considered food or alcohol in their entire house, a smaller group of us went shopping at Kyoto station, where I replaced my trusty fan (which had fallen apart during the party) with another of the 100 yen variety.
-Onigiri (balls of steamed white rice) with umeboshi (pickled under-ripe persimmons) are remarkably refreshing in extreme heat. Those, and slices of pears on ice.
-When you buy your train ticket, make sure that you are on the correct side if the platform is divided.
-If you are changing lines on the subway, make sure to indicate that when you buy your ticket by paying for the full price of the trip, and then pushing the flashing button with the line that you will be changing to written on it.
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