日本語わちょっと難しいですねえ。。。
ひらがな尾書いていますけど。。。ひらがな尾書いてません。。。露マジ尾かいています。
ok so seriously - i feel like i'm cheating writing all this japanese because it looks like i know what i'm doing when in reality - not so much. i just discovered that in order to type in japanese, all you have to do is type in romaji (the english romanization of the japanese pronunciations) and the computer does it for you. what the heck?? eesh after all that practice getting good at typing in korean, and the japanese give me a cheating way.
the sheer gluttony that comes from biz trips is astounding. i wish i had brought some running shoes because i feel downright slothful. and perhaps i'm too simple at heart, but after a week of fancy meals which probably cost on the order of $200+ per head ... i'd be happy to have a bowl of noodles by myself and not have to have the same conversations over and over again. not that i disliked any of the people we met with ... just the formality of it all and the extension of "work" into lunches and dinners was just draining.
other than finally finally understanding what the heck we're doing (i swear, i need a whiteboard to understand things. i'm going to ask if i can order one and install it in my cube) japan came with some interesting observations.
-my boss thinks i'm really weird for eating curry for breakfast. i love the hotel breakfast in hitachi city ... they have a western and japanese spread, of which i totally go for salad, curry, miso soup, and various fishes and picked vegetables in the morning. why on earth would i eat runny scrambled eggs and cereal? but seriously, i could eat that curry every day for breakfast for the rest of my life. maybe with a little kimchi...
-japanese drugs - there was a commercial last night for what i assume was cold medicine ... or magical superpowers. it's kind of entertaining watching a commercial where you don't have a clue what they're talking about.
-twin beds in hotels? seriously?? my boss's feet must stick over the ends. what am i supposed to do with 2 twin beds? i actually stole the covers from the second bed because i was cold one of the nights ... i haven't slept in a twin bed since college.
-japanese toilet technology is beyond impressive. except now I want heated toilet seats at home...seriously.
-there are bikes everywhere - without locks on them. apparently theft is not a problem here
-food is less appetizing when its head is chopped off and put on the plate for presentation. i swear that fish was looking at me, and its head was the size of a small child's head.
-having a language barrier with the top researcher has resulted in a lot of drawing on the white board. move over english - math is the real universal language. except no one could draw the vectors straight enough that i could REALLY understand where exactly they were getting the sine equation from but...eh, i got the gist. even that was more than i thought i'd follow. sometimes it's depressing to realize just how much knowledge you've lost over the years.
-fake competancy is...fake. so between rosetta stone, 3 semesters in college, and this being my third trip to japan - i've developed some competancy at basic phrases, numbers, etc. it's really quite pathetic. but now i feel confident enough to try them out, at least at restaurants and while shopping. the problem is, when you're good at faking the beginnings of conversations...people start talking fast and having real conversations with you. and then you have to admit that you're lost and ask if they speak english. fail.
-i haven't slept more than 4 hours straight in a week. i hope this corrects itself when i get home...
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