I'm in Japan right now, and that's why I haven't been writing these past few days. We're staying at a hotel in Kyoto. Today was our first day here, and we spent hours walking around in the city, visiting shopping places and temples. Right now I'm so tired, and it's 4:30 am in California right now, so I whipped out the computer to try and stay awake.
Kyoto is an awesome city. I'd like to live here for a year or two. Everybody's so friendly. It's so frustrating to look around me and not understand a single written thing, though. I haven't had this feeling since we first came to the United States 12 years ago and the only words I knew were "yes," "no," and "My name is Melike." (I'd memorized it verbally as "mayneymis Melike" and it reminded me of mayonnaise. I remember watching Inspector Gadget without understanding a single word.) I really want to learn Japanese, though. I will (hopefully) take Chinese I this summer, but then I want to learn Japanese also. Actually, I just want to intuitively know all the languages that I'm interested in, but since that's impossible, I have to take classes. I'm already beginning to forget my Spanish, though, and I took AP Spanish Literature only last year. Last week I had to look up what the Spanish word for January was. It's kind of embarrassing.
Anyway, I'm going off on huge tangents in this entry, because I'm starving. My parents are probably jetlagged and are sleeping upstairs in the room (well, I know my dad is). I'm gonna go wake them up and force them to go eat dinner.
posted by Melike at 07:34