I finally got to see this movie on opening night. Yes, that wasn’t until last Saturday here. And yes, I had to pay ~$12 for the privilege. But it was worth it. Movies in Kyoto aren’t that popular, but they are nice—this one had assigned stadium seating and headrests…if you were planning to put your head back, that is. We saw it in English with Japanese subtitles with a sold-out crowd, taking up an entire row of the theater. But we were the only ones laughing at most of the jokes. Some of the movie’s best lines were lost in translation. Like Link busting through the door of his apartment: “Where’s my pus--?” became Tadaima, which just means, “I’m home.” The French guy’s monologue also got lost. Ah well.

So now that I only have a few weeks left of class I might as well describe what’s been my typical day here:

6:30 AM. Wake up to dog(s) barking. Fall back asleep.
7:30 AM. Alarm goes off.
7:45 AM. After a number of snooze buttons, which I justify by the lost sleep from the dog, I get up.
8:00 AM. Breakfast. My host mom makes breakfast for me every day, no matter how much I ask her not to take the trouble.
8:28 AM. Take a bus to the train station. Usually I can snag a seat and study for the day’s vocab quiz.
8:45 AM. Take a commuter train downtown. Sometimes I can actually sit down, other times I’m left standing, clutching my Japanese book or fiddling with my phone.
9:00 AM. I emerge from Kawaramachi station, usually to see the next bus I need already coming down the street. By some cruel joke of Kyoto City, the bus stop “at the corner of Shijo and Kawaramachi” is actually half a block away. I get out of the station the same time every day, but the downtown buses seem to treat the schedule as a suggestion rather than a guideline, so there’s no telling when the next one will be. So on these days I make a mad dash around the corner, ducking past little old ladies and gaggles of middle-school kids. Often the bus will round the corner only to be snagged by traffic, leaving me feeling rather stupid for rushing.