Kyoto Trip

I finished my Portuguese fluency exam, all in one day no less. I was originally slated to take the written exam on Tuesday and the oral exam on Wednesday, but they pushed me through from 1:30PM to 8:00PM. I felt like I did well, but who knows what errors will surface when they begin to grade it.

I overslept on Tuesday, the day I was to depart, and did not leave the house until about 2:00, without a train ticket or a confirmed place to stay in Kyoto. I eventually took care of the train business, arriving in Kyoto at about 5PM. I then called the Bed & Breakfast where I thought I had a reservation only to find out that I did not. So I was in Kyoto, no idea where I was, no place to stay, no clue where my exam was to be conducted the following day: No worries. I walked around and found a hotel in central Kyoto within 15 minutes, settled in, and received a phone call shortly thereafter from the B&B wondering where I was. Evidently, he misunderstood that when I previously called I already had a reservation and was calling simply for directions. In any case, I confirmed that I still wanted to hold the reservation that I had for the following two days.

I completed the written exam by 4PM on Wednesday, which gave me ample time to commute across town to check-in to the B&B during the 5-9PM time allotted, but I discovered then that my 30 minute oral exam was moved to that evening at 8PM. I did not want to attempt the commute in the interim between the exams as I neither understood the layout of the city nor wanted to waste $120 in cab fare for both ways, so I called the B&B to obtain an address because I would have to take a cab and to explain that I may be a few minutes late. After a few language-obstructed, awkward exchanges, he urged me to take the subway across town and then catch the #17 bus uptown to something like “King Li Circle,” the supposed last stop that is a non-Japanese-sounding name that was not on the map.

I did everything as instructed, only to find the #17 bus displayed no map in the bus’s interior and the stops were named according to the district and not the street names in contradistinction to my map (this is actually an all too common source of problems in getting directions in Japan). After about 10 minutes en route, doubt began to creep in when I realized we had been driving for some time, my best estimates indicated that we had driven off my map, streets lights were decreasing in frequency on our route, and I boarded the bus at stop #3 of 30. Remember, I am supposed to go the last stop.

At this point I called the B&B again at 8:45PM with no answer. By 9PM, I conceded that it was a lost cause and got off at about stop #15 in the middle of nowhere, walked across the street to the bus stop going back into town, and waited under a small canopy in the rain without my umbrella that I left on the bus in my haste to get off with 2 bags of my stuff that I had been carrying all day. The #6 bus appear promptly 30 minutes later, I boarded asking the bus driver if the bus went to Kyoto Station; he said no. I then asked if it went towards lights; he said yes, so I said let’s go.

I returned to central Kyoto, only to stay in the same hotel as the night before. At this point, I was desperately low on cash with no American bank in the vicinity. On Thursday, I woke up, toured the city in the rain despite most tourist attractions being closed, spent my remaining cash on lunch, and left for Tokyo that night.

There are some lame-ass pictures in the link to the right.