The college kids are coming! The college kids are coming!

Today was the start of my long week with the students visiting from OSU. I met the bus in front of city hall that was picking up the Kameokans who were coming along and then we went to pick up the students who were all waiting in front of Mister Donuts.

After they got on the bus the staff all had to introduce themselves. As usual I got a bit of satisfaction out of the look on people’s faces when I stood up and introduced myself in Japanese and then English. Pride is a sin…pride is a sin…pride is a sin….

We were visiting Ryouanji and Kinkakuji so the students could do some sketches of some Japanese gardens. For me it was a bit of a relief to be suddenly surrounded by a bunch of people my age…but that relief was short lived.

Well I shouldn’t say that. I certainly had a lot of fun with them. They were loud, boisterous, and very very American. It was nice to be hanging out with people my age who speak my language fluently. But….

They made me realize just how much I have changed since I got here; they made me realize just how different a person becomes after just one year out of college.

I am old. Well, not really old, but I have become an adult. All they could talk about was drinking. They wanted to know where the bars were and what the best kind of sake was and at least half of them were hung over.

Nearly every story they told began with: “I was so wasted…”

They asked me about what dating was like here so I told them, almost truthfully, that I have no real experience with it so I wouldn’t know. Two of the young Japanese girls who came along on the trip latched on to two of the boys and followed them everywhere. We all began to joke about it. The girls eventually gave the boys their phone numbers...but the boys didn't realize that in Japan that doesn't mean anything really. The girls were only interested in English.

Ryouanji was actually really interesting, since it was my first time there. It is a small zen garden (you know, the rock gardens)in the middle of Kyoto City. It is in a secluded garden area set apart from the city, making you feel like you have entered a separate world.

The students are all studying landscape architecture so they spent most of their time there sketching bits of the garden. I was really impressed with some of them (the ones who actually tried).

Next we went to Kinkakuji (my 5th time) and then back to the house where they were all staying.

At the house, the hosts were putting on a big garden party with a BBQ (Japanese style) and welcome party. I translated for the host families and students when they met each other and helped the students sing along with a few Japanese songs.

Here's the breakdown of participants
Kim and Kevin: Members of the television crew. Both are married with kids.

Jared, Jon, Meredith: these three were inseparable. They were also almost always drunk.

Kyle: he was kind of in the middle ground. He didn't seem like a huge party he seemed to be making the most out of the trip. He took almost 4000 pictures while he was visiting...and all in order so he could make a walk around view of all the places. He and Kim hung out a lot.

Scott: Scott was a character. He had a great sense of humor and he was one of the first ones I really talked to. My boss Fujiki-san really like him, and Jonathan.

Jonathan: Jonathan was actually my favorite. He was much more difficult to figure out. He was really quiet and seemed to like to be off by himself. He also would take great care with all his sketches and journal entries. But, he also had a very energetic personality that would come through sometimes. He would drink with Jared, Jon and Meredith, but he would also seclude himself from everyone for long periods of time.

Marla: Marla was the one who didn't fit in. She studies ornithology and is a bird watcher rather than a landscape architect. She would often hear a bird call and launch into a long description of exactly what bird it was...but none of us cared. She also has been studying Japanese for 3 years and would constantly try to talk to me in Japanese which would frustrate me because I don't want to speak a foreign language to someone who has the same native language as me. But she was really sweet.

Professor Hsu: Hsu was an interesting guy. He was always in a rush but seemed very good natured. He joked with his students and allowed them to enjoy themselves. He treated them like adults. Sometimes I felt like he was unhappy with how I became more friendly with them as the week went on but I also could have been reading him wrong. He was not easy to read.