Jason | Moved into apartment April 9

Today I finally moved into the single room in the rented apartment, and I no longer have to carry luggage to class.

The house is in a village at the foot of Arashiyama in the northwest of Kyoto, with a railway and a stream next to it. It is not far from the city, about 6 kilometers, roughly the distance from the ancient city to the vicinity of Wuwei Temple. It was my first time here, and when I was almost there, I rode along the stream, with cherry blossoms on both sides and the foot of the mountain not far away. I couldn't believe it, it was too good. I thought it was just a regular city apartment on the roadside in the city.

When I came here, I also felt that this area was more like a small village. There was only one store of each type, there were not many people on the streets, and the pace was slow, which was exactly what I wanted.

This house was introduced to me by a British classmate. I met him on the rooftop after the freshman orientation when I went to smoke a cigarette. He knew I still lived in an Internet cafe and said that he had a sharehouse website where he lived, so maybe there was still one. I went to check it out and found that there were several apartments, but only one was vacant, number: 25, room 104, and I booked it immediately.

At 13:00, Airi from the rental company came over to greet me and explained everything in detail, including the use of public areas, kitchen, electrical appliances, shower, washing machine, dryer, house rules, garbage classification, house renewal, and payment. She was really serious. The rent is 2500/month, the management fee is 750 yuan, and the cleaning fee is 500 yuan.

Coincidentally, this house, before being taken over by Kyoto Apartment, was the dormitory of the ISI language school where I attended.

After I put my luggage away, I went outside to smoke. Someone just came out and greeted me warmly and stopped to chat with me. He introduced himself as Trevor, an Australian who bought a house nearby and was planning to renovate it. He had been living in this house for a month and had just moved in three days ago. He has his own small digital marketing company, works remotely, and plans to travel around. He had lived in Vietnam for half a year before. I told him that I was from Yunnan, China, and he was very excited. He said that his uncle's wife was from Yunnan, and he opened the map to show me that she was from Lijiang.

We chatted for about twenty minutes, and then he went out to buy things.

I rode my bike towards the mountain, trying to find a spot to climb up. Soon I reached the foot of Arashiyama and crossed the Katsura River. There were a lot of tourists there, but I could sense that it would be extraordinarily beautiful to walk along the open Katsura River in the evening or at night, when the crowds had left. The gurgling stream and the cherry blossoms on both sides were equally beautiful whether it was in bloom or not.

I continued walking along the Katsura River. The road became narrower along the mountain and the Katsura River. As I went further in, there was no one. There was no road on the other side, but there were cherry blossoms on the hillside. There was also a river beach, and the stream was wide and green. There was a temple nearby, but it was closed.

I couldn't go any further, so I turned back. I could go back along the Katsura River, which was less than a kilometer from where I lived, and I could walk here later.

I went into a supermarket and bought a box of strawberries for 20 yuan. Thinking about cooking in the future, I looked at the seasonings and rice: 4 jin of rice is about 100 yuan, a small bucket of soy sauce is about 25 yuan, and five or six small peppers are 9 yuan.

After learning about the market, I continued to walk back. I passed a coffee shop and sat down. The owner was an elderly lady who only spoke Japanese and the menu was also in Japanese. I ordered coffee and an egg sandwich as usual, 750 yen (38 yuan). The egg sandwich was also mustard-flavored, and it seemed to be a traditional method. It was very delicious. There were two other tables of guests, one with two elderly women and the other with a middle-aged woman, who smoked a cigarette.

Back at my place, I talked to Jiuyue Yuwei about how to post performance information on our website. She mentioned that Zhou Yunpeng was also in Kyoto, and in order to obtain permanent residency, he had to live there for half a year every year. Being in a foreign country seemed to give us a reason to meet. I didn't know Zhou Yunpeng at first, but although I had met him, we were both in Dali for many years. So she made the connection, and we made an appointment to have dinner together the day after tomorrow. If possible, we can spend more time together.

After sitting in the kitchen of the apartment for a while, Trevor came back and was cooking a meal, probably sandwiches or something. He said he wanted to make more at a time and put them in the refrigerator.

While they were talking, a young man joined in. His name was Yao Shi and he was Japanese.

I asked him: "What do you do, study or work?"

"Work, I work in a lacquerware workshop" (In order to understand lacquerware, I took some effort to look up translation software)

"What did you do before?"

"I graduated from university and studied biology, mainly environmental science"

“It’s a big difference.”

"Yes, after I graduated, I had a strong feeling that I wanted to make lacquerware, so I found this workshop to be an apprentice."

Yaoshi's family lives in Niigata, which is located in the northern part of Honshu, Japan. I asked him how far it is, and he said, "It takes several hours to take the Shinkansen."

We talked in English, his English was not very good, but my Japanese was not good at all. I checked Google Translate several times.

Trevor joined in a little while later. I asked him how his uncle and aunt knew each other. He said, "My uncle teaches English in China. We met in Lijiang. But my aunt doesn't speak a word of English."

"When I was little, I loved going to my uncle's house because my aunt's cooking was so delicious. Although she didn't speak English, I loved her so much. She didn't speak English and she didn't have any friends."

"My mom's relatives were all very rude, saying she didn't know the language and it was probably useless, but she later opened a super successful Chinese restaurant, doing better than anyone else and speaking English exceptionally well."

"But in recent years she has said that she wants to go home and doesn't like Australia. Every time she goes back to China, she is very happy with her friends and doesn't want to go back to Australia. I understand her."

I am really happy to live in this house. Everyone is willing to chat, very friendly and special.