Friday, May 20, 2005

Place Your Bets

Everyone says it's a small world. Here we say it's a smaller world when you're a foreigner in Japan. Today I tell you that the world has shrunk to the size of a peanut.

I was shopping this afternoon when two foreign girls joined me at the rack of bad English t-shirts. A few minutes later a Japanese woman came up to them and started speaking in English. I glanced over and almost died. Holy crap, it was my high school Japanese teacher!

Kishi-sensei had brought fifteen Academy students on a ten day tour of Japan for their May Term. They were in Kyoto for two days, and shopping in Teramachi for one hour, and I ran in to them. Seriously, somebody calculate the probability. Of course, I was invited to introduce myself to the group and tell them what I have been doing for the past five years since graduating. Looking over the bunch of them, I remembered how dorky Academy kids are. I was reminded of the stupidity of youth that would make two of them buy Japanese swords and one the Zen "stick of compassion." I was incredibly envious that they got such a good May term option.

At any rate, my day was made by this incredible happening. And thanks to the magic of the Japanese cell phone, I have pictures to prove it.

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