Condensed entry for Wednesday to Saturday morning. I woke up as usual in Yodo on Wednesday, with the plan to head to Imadegawa after Lorna’s dance practice in the evening. I arrived a little early for the end of her class, ending up trying to call her from pay phone and cell when I arrived.

 

We met up and had our date, eating a usual delicious dinner (It turned out that all of her recommendations were excellent). And retired for the evening. She didn’t have work on Thursday so I was able to accompany her in the afternoon on her pre-trip errands. We visited the hardware store to buy a daikun grater and several other things. Lorna did have dance class, though, so I visited Will for rock climbing in the meantime. My strength and stamina had improved but my technique still stank. I headed back for dinner with Lorna and we retired early.

 

On Friday Lorna had a half day of work. She woke in the early morning in a panic, realizing she needed a re-entry permit on her visa. We gathered ourselves and headed to the immigration office. Lorna’s friend had spent several hours attaining her permit but with the light crowd and her knowledge of Japanese, we were only there for 30 minutes or so.

 

Lorna headed to work around noon-time and I caught up a little on sleep. When she returned in the evening, we headed again to the falafel restaurant to eat and discuss the day. It was a decent dinner, and we spent plenty of time eating and talking before returning home for the evening. She had a shuttle to catch at 5:30 AM. so we caught what sleep we could.

 

Saturday morning came, I said goodbye to Lorna in a half sleeping daze then returned to my slumber. It was a dream state morning for me easily remembering her departure but seeming to reappear in time several hours later. I finally woke at my usual hour, around 11 AM.

 

I’d decided to schedule the day for Christmas shopping with Will in Shijo. I called him up and arranged a time, despite his sleepiness. In the meantime I decided to read more of The Anubis Gates and clean up Lorna’s apartment. I met Will at Shichijo station and we headed out.

 

There was little shopping to be done given the late hour, and we mainly walked around and ate dinner. In the evening we went to a Christmas party at the cafe where Will teaches English. We met and spoke with many of the students there in English (and a little Japanese) while building gingerbread houses. I had a handful of drinks and was only slightly buzzed by the end of the party, but we had missed our last train to Yodo for the evening.

 

Will was starving and wanted McDonald’s so we walked over. Inside a man claiming Philidelphia became the first person in Japan to beg us for money. He continued talking to us for several minutes afterwards, trying to become friends. I was still put off by his request for spare change and told him we had a last train to catch. I headed back to Lorna’s apartment and Will to his, having missed the long ride back to Yodo for the evening.

I repeatedly hit snooze on my phone over the course of an hour and a half so that I missed breakfast on Tuesday. I cannot seem to adjust myself to a normal schedule in Japan. Perhaps walking for over an hour after midnight is too much. I had some bread and peanut butter to go with an apple I cut up. Hisa called me a liar when I told her I had in fact woken up at 8 AM but went back to bed.

 

The day before, Will had sent me some interesting mails about a horrible date he’d been on. Intrigued and without a plan, I decided to head to his college at 3:30. I was listening to my ipod on the train when a very shy (by even Japanese standards) girl got on. She sat down and bowed her head, which was perfectly normal (many people simply look down at their laps for the duration of the ride). I glanced by her again when we got going and saw her beaming a gigantic smile, but apparently staring off into space. She caught me looking at her and her smile instantly evaporated. Worried that I’d embarrassed or upset her, I looked away. A few stops later, I saw her smiling again, dazedly staring up at the ceiling. My best guess was that she’d just met the love of her life or was extremely high on drugs.

 

Will was in the courtyard to meet me when I arrived at Ryogoku and we headed to the Kaikan dorm. He told me about a date he’d had with a girl he’d met in the street when I was in Osaka. They’d gone out to dinner and had drinks for a few hours when she tells him she has a problem. She tells him a story of a drunken night leading to a blackout leading to a threesome and some morning regrets. Afterwards, she tells him she has a problem and tries to make him guess what it is. He cannot, so she finally asks: “What do I tell my boyfriend?”. Will finished his drink, put some money on the table, and left.

 

That was indeed a bad date, and I tried to talk him out of swearing off women for good. We arrived at the Kaikan and hung out with Kyle and Bob while playing some video games. The buzz around the dorm was of course about the Iraqi reporter throwing shoes at President Bush.

 

Not wanting to spend any more of our declining currency on dinner, we headed back to Yodo on the train. Hisa-san met expectations with delicious food and we watched some video before bedtime.

Though it was Monday the 15th in Japan, it was also Sunday the 14th in America. Which means it was Jim’s birthday. I had wanted to give him a quick birthday call but couldn’t match up the time zones properly so as not to wake anyone up. Instead I wrote him a birthday email and hoped I could make it up to him later.

 

Over the weekend I’d learned that Lorna was actually going back to America for Christmas on the coming Saturday. Because of this, we decided to spend as much time together as we could stand, including dinner together again in the evening.

 

I didn’t have a plan for the day other than to catch up on internet business. Around lunchtime, Hisa and Rickie asked me if I wanted to go to Ginkakuji, the Silver Pavilion. I had been meaning to visit the gold pavilion (kinkakuji) at some point, so I agreed.

 

We headed out around 2:30 PM, taking the car into Kyoto city for the first time. Traffic doesn’t seem as bad when you’re walking or using the train, but driving seems to take longer than it looks. I’ve been in Japan long enough now that I am not continually shocked by driving on the wrong side of the road. This worries me a little for my return to LA.

 

Near Ginkakuji I saw the largest Torii I’ve seen so far, straddling a large main street near a temple. At the temple there were two trees, one encased in a protective box and the other without it’s leaves in the winter. They were both over 300 years old and symbolized some great meaning to the temple. Unfortunately that meaning was lost in translation.

 

We proceeded to the silver pavilion and paid our entry fee. The pavilion itself happened to be under serious reconstruction, so I wouldn’t be able to describe it. However, the courtyard was quite beautiful. There were massive structures carefully built from sand and lots of beautifully cared for trees. We took a path around the small lagoons into the hill overlooking the pavilion. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, they really make beautiful nature paths here. We stopped along the ridge to look out over Kyoto before heading back down.

 

We were already along Imadegawa, so I split from Hisa and Rickie and started walking to meet Lorna. I passed by Kyoto University on the way, stopping occasionally to make sure I hadn’t wandered off course. I arrived at the meeting spot just in time to see Lorna ride up across the street.

 

For dinner, we went to another of her favorite places. This place was a tiny junk filled restaurant owned and operated by an old photographer. We ate our dinner while looking through his books of photographs of Kyoto. His works had spanned from as far back as the 70s and all the way into the present. Each one had a small caption in Japanese and English, which Lorna pointed out were not always the same. After dinner I did my best to compliment his work in Japanese. He chatted with Lorna and I checked out his old (non-digital) Nikon on the table before telling him how much my mother and grandfather would appreciate it.

 

I was tempted to stay with Lorna again, but wanted to make more of an appearance back in Yodo as I’d planned to spend Wednesday through Friday with her. I left around 11:30 and ended up catching the very last train to Yodo, watching it go out of service as I stepped onto the platform. On my walk back along the river I saw the moon hanging in the sky, bright orange and as big as I’d seen it in years.