First full week in Japan with a focus on the weekend :)

The first full week in Japan had its ups and downs and required some adjustments but at the end of it, we both agree that it starts to feel really homey here.

The apartment is by now stocked with almost everything we need for cooking, cleaning, working and resting, so coming home in the evening is nice. We bought two bikes, so we can go to work and language course independent of public transport. We know now a handful of restaurants where we can go for lunch. Meals keep on being amazing wherever we go. So far, we never ate badly.

At work, Georg had some troubles setting up the computer and programs, but that is rather normal. Especially when all is in Japanese and asking for help every half an hour in a new culture where it is not clear whether it is normal or not can be a bit awkward. Japanese people are very helpful but whether they are helping only because they feel obliged is not easy to figure out, because they are also always very friendly!

The Japanese course for Zhenya started a bit rough. The group of students is very heterogeneous from the level of Japanese and the textbooks that we got are written solely in hiragana and katakana (no romaji), meaning that we were actually supposed to learn to read before we came. But nobody told this to Zhenya. From the second day on, it started to become better though. I think I am one of the slowest in the class at the moment but there are 3 or 4 of us and when I make the teacher replay the audio exercise one more time or write on the board in romaji what he wrote very fast in kana, at least the 4 of us are happy :)

On Friday evening, we went for dinner to Yakitori Torito. We were extremely hungry but it was still funny when at the entrance the waiter wasn't letting us in until he made completely sure we don't have allergies against anything they have in the food. We didn't see him doing the same to the people who came after us though... Is it written in my face that I am allergic to many things? The food was great. It's basically BBQ with all possible sorts of skewers with chicken, chicken's skin, heart, liver, with leak or sauce tartar on top. We also had a potato (which is so tasty when it is done on the fire!)

and a rice ball, which was really just a ball of rice made on the outside crispy by fire.

Afterwards, we wanted to check out a bar close to our home for a drink. We found it on google maps, as it had good reviews. And it is a good thing we found it on google maps because finding it in reality proved to be challenging. The bar is hidden on a tiny path (I wouldn't call it a road) that runs along the train tracks. The bar is very small but very cosy. It reminds us of an apartment that someone with love for music and hosting guests turned into an establishment with some tables, chairs, a very nicely looking bar, pictures of musicians and events, a piano in the corner, and a soft jazzy music playing. The owner Yoko is a woman who we thought is in her 50s, but by now we figures out, she must be at least 60, since she opened the place 48 years ago! Yoko is a miniature Japanese woman, very friendly and very motivated to speak English. Apparently, she started learning English some months ago and now uses all the chances to practice it. We tried sake, which she poured from a very large bottle to sake glasses to the very rim of the glasses. When we were leaving, she told us that on Saturday night there will be live music and we should come.

On Saturday, we planned to do some sports after we go for lunch. When we left the apartment, we noticed that it is drizzling but we were convinced by the forecast that there is going to be no rain! We left our rain ponchos and umbrellas at home, which turned out to be not very smart. After lunch, we wanted to take a break before doing sports and realised we were close to the Yoshida Shrine. On the map, we also saw that there is a cafe close to the shrine, which we reached after a small hike through the woods. When we left, it started to rain! We ended stranded in a pavilion in the middle of the park close to the shrine. However, we never found the shrine itself :)

The pavilion protected not only us from the rain, but also many mosquitos. Thus, we didn't wait for the weather to get better, but left to our bikes where we arrived rather wet.

Later, we signed our membership with the gym! It took an hour and half to do that, but then when we were training the girl who was signing us in, brought us free protein-rich cookies! Maybe she felt bad it took so long and maybe she thought we must be hungry at 6:30 pm and training :)

And on Saturday night, we of course came back to the bar to listen to the live music. It was great that we did so! We met a lot of international people who live in Kyoto for over 20 years. They gave us tips on language learning and on the upcoming Gion Matsuri festival. They were all very open and welcoming.