The Saturday of my first weekend in Kyoto was a rainy day. I had an appointment with Lan san beforehand so despite the rain, I went to Hyakyumanben to meet her. We then went to Teramachi shopping arcade together.

 

On the way to the shopping streets

Actually, it was just several days into our residence in Kyoto, and we were just exploring Kyoto. We were trying to find a secondhand clothes shop. As we did not bother using a map, and were only be able to access the internet near bus stops, we headed downtown, unaware of the exact location.

I always have a lot of fun wandering Kyoto with Lan san. Our real stories sound just like jokes. That time, both of us were looking for Japanese textbooks. We found a small bookstore on a street and got in. Lan san asked the owner, an old wise man, with her not-perfect-yet Japanese: “Do you have any Japanese books?” The owner looked totally confused, he thought for a while and replied: “But… all the books here are Japanese…”

If Ms. Lan had used a word for textbooks to study Japanese, instead of Japanse books, we would not have had such a good laugh ?

8 Apr 2017