Kyoto diary: assorted follies
Jul. 6th, 2011 18:17![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starladyTo illustrate the glamour that is my life here in Kyoto, I present a selection of anecdotes, i.e., how many things can I break in 10 weeks?
Shoes
I came to Japan with two pairs of sandals, my trusty Tevas (vintage 2007) and my new-ish (February '11) flat sandals. Suffice it to say that I chucked the flat sandals into the trash after our weekend in Nara three weeks into the program because I had worn nearly completely through the heels in both shoes and they were giving me shin splints. On the Fourth of July I noticed that the soles of both Tevas are starting to come apart in the middle. I don't think it's worth hauling them back to the States.
The story of how the mugwintercreek gave me at Wiscon really did come in handy
So when she came to visit me for Fogcon, Em Creek promised me a certain travel mug, which I promptly forgot about it until she handed it to me at Wiscon last month. "This will come in handy in Japan!" I said, and two weeks later I was proved right, when I realized that after biking home with two cartons of milk upright in my bike basket, both cartons were leaking from the bottom and that if I didn't want to lose two liters of milk I was going to have to pour them into my pitcher tupperware. But crap, there was chilled houji-cha in my tupperware! Solution: pour glass of tea to drink, pour remainder of tea into travel mug, pour milk into tupperware! A week later I wound up using the mug to store zaru soba dipping sauce.
Speaking of food
I've been living on zaru soba, reheated storemade gyoza, and green tea ice cream bars, with rice and sesame-soy tofu & cherry tomatoes for lunch. This is a surprisingly cheap way to keep body and soul together, it turns out, leaving me some leeway to splurge on lunch or dinner out on the weekends. Also, it is fucking delicious, partly because I suspect that I have a continual low-level electrolyte imbalance secondary to sweating and running so much. In other words: om nom nom salt. I should probably start drinking Aquarius or Pocari Sweat, too.
My hard drive
So, after about a year and a half, my Time Machine external hard drive up and died on me Saturday night. Given that my media hard drive couldn't be used for Time Machine without a reformat, I signed up for an online backup service. Maybe I'll see about getting a new computer when my one-year contract runs out next July? I don't find the online backup an ideal choice, because there are various programs that I'm not sure I'll be able to use from the online backup if my computer does go kaput, or if I get a new machine, but I wasn't going to not back up files after the disaster at the end of my last sojourn in Japan and I didn't want to shell out the ¥ for a new external, though maybe I should have. Meanwhile I'm debating whether it's even worth taking the busted external back with me, given that it's a Western Digital MyBook and it weighs a freaking ton. Thoughts, anyone?
Oh yeah, my watch too
So my actual watch stopped telling time last November 5 at about 10:55, and I've been wearing it ever since because I hadn't been able to find the receipt to get it repaired under warranty (the movement is kinetic), but on my last day in New Jersey last month, I found said receipt, hooray! But I knew I couldn't travel internationally without a working watch, so I paid $10.60 for a piece of crap watch in MSP on my way to Wiscon, Which is all well and good, except a month later it's been turning my wrist green intermittently (not unexpected by any means) and I managed to smash a quarter of the cover off on the escalator in a bookstore two weeks ago. Yup, I'm classy.
And my skirt
I bought a skirt on clearance at Anthropologie before I left that has four buttons in the front & ties with a belt. So I was putting it on the other morning when I realized, the third of the four buttons was gone! Obviously I couldn't wear a skirt that was missing 1/4 of its buttons, so I quickly threw on a different outfit and found the other button in the wash machine on my way out the door, yay, but seriously, I just bought this damn skirt a month ago! At least the dress that I also need to get the buttons resewn on (thank goodness for Yôfuku no Byôin) I've had for about a year now. *sigh*
And last but not least, my camera
My camera died on me three years ago, about three weeks before I left Japan; Canon kindly repaired it for me gratis, and I've been good ever since. However, secondary to being bounced around in my bag way too much, my camera is now once again throwing "lens errors" every so often, which is what happened last time. I don't expect to return to the States with a working camera, but I can't afford a new one at the moment, so I'll probably see about getting it repaired again.
Shoes
I came to Japan with two pairs of sandals, my trusty Tevas (vintage 2007) and my new-ish (February '11) flat sandals. Suffice it to say that I chucked the flat sandals into the trash after our weekend in Nara three weeks into the program because I had worn nearly completely through the heels in both shoes and they were giving me shin splints. On the Fourth of July I noticed that the soles of both Tevas are starting to come apart in the middle. I don't think it's worth hauling them back to the States.
The story of how the mug
wintercreek gave me at Wiscon really did come in handySo when she came to visit me for Fogcon, Em Creek promised me a certain travel mug, which I promptly forgot about it until she handed it to me at Wiscon last month. "This will come in handy in Japan!" I said, and two weeks later I was proved right, when I realized that after biking home with two cartons of milk upright in my bike basket, both cartons were leaking from the bottom and that if I didn't want to lose two liters of milk I was going to have to pour them into my pitcher tupperware. But crap, there was chilled houji-cha in my tupperware! Solution: pour glass of tea to drink, pour remainder of tea into travel mug, pour milk into tupperware! A week later I wound up using the mug to store zaru soba dipping sauce.
Speaking of food
I've been living on zaru soba, reheated storemade gyoza, and green tea ice cream bars, with rice and sesame-soy tofu & cherry tomatoes for lunch. This is a surprisingly cheap way to keep body and soul together, it turns out, leaving me some leeway to splurge on lunch or dinner out on the weekends. Also, it is fucking delicious, partly because I suspect that I have a continual low-level electrolyte imbalance secondary to sweating and running so much. In other words: om nom nom salt. I should probably start drinking Aquarius or Pocari Sweat, too.
My hard drive
So, after about a year and a half, my Time Machine external hard drive up and died on me Saturday night. Given that my media hard drive couldn't be used for Time Machine without a reformat, I signed up for an online backup service. Maybe I'll see about getting a new computer when my one-year contract runs out next July? I don't find the online backup an ideal choice, because there are various programs that I'm not sure I'll be able to use from the online backup if my computer does go kaput, or if I get a new machine, but I wasn't going to not back up files after the disaster at the end of my last sojourn in Japan and I didn't want to shell out the ¥ for a new external, though maybe I should have. Meanwhile I'm debating whether it's even worth taking the busted external back with me, given that it's a Western Digital MyBook and it weighs a freaking ton. Thoughts, anyone?
Oh yeah, my watch too
So my actual watch stopped telling time last November 5 at about 10:55, and I've been wearing it ever since because I hadn't been able to find the receipt to get it repaired under warranty (the movement is kinetic), but on my last day in New Jersey last month, I found said receipt, hooray! But I knew I couldn't travel internationally without a working watch, so I paid $10.60 for a piece of crap watch in MSP on my way to Wiscon, Which is all well and good, except a month later it's been turning my wrist green intermittently (not unexpected by any means) and I managed to smash a quarter of the cover off on the escalator in a bookstore two weeks ago. Yup, I'm classy.
And my skirt
I bought a skirt on clearance at Anthropologie before I left that has four buttons in the front & ties with a belt. So I was putting it on the other morning when I realized, the third of the four buttons was gone! Obviously I couldn't wear a skirt that was missing 1/4 of its buttons, so I quickly threw on a different outfit and found the other button in the wash machine on my way out the door, yay, but seriously, I just bought this damn skirt a month ago! At least the dress that I also need to get the buttons resewn on (thank goodness for Yôfuku no Byôin) I've had for about a year now. *sigh*
And last but not least, my camera
My camera died on me three years ago, about three weeks before I left Japan; Canon kindly repaired it for me gratis, and I've been good ever since. However, secondary to being bounced around in my bag way too much, my camera is now once again throwing "lens errors" every so often, which is what happened last time. I don't expect to return to the States with a working camera, but I can't afford a new one at the moment, so I'll probably see about getting it repaired again.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-20 21:50 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-21 01:09 (UTC)