Yesterday was the Japanese Language proficiency Exam which I took in Shizuoka City. Carly also took it in Tokyo but she was taking the 2nd level... Whereas I took the 3rd. A 3 and a half hour exam took about 6 hours as they had hour breaks between each section of the exam.. They should have just run it all at once! I think I did ok, but there was a few q's that I couldn't answer properly :S After the exam, we all went to karaoke in Shizuoka then went home (as we all had school the next day).
The problem was, I had to get back to hamamatsu by train and then from hamamatsu to my house by bus. This meant I was very tired on the way home in the nice warm bus.... So I kind of slept and missed my bus stop and got to the end of the line in the town next door... This being about 11 o'clock and I am sitting alone in the dark cold (it is now winter!) bus stop waiting for the next bus to come to take me back... But there was no more buses. So I tried calling my host mum or someone but they had all gone to the hospital as my host sister was about to have her baby. After they called me back, I had found out the baby had been born about two hours before and it was a little girl! Sachi 幸 meaning happiness. So my host mum quickly came to pick me up and then drop me off to see the baby! Very cute! I didn't get to sleep till very late and was very very tired...
Another story is the story of a Japanese Watch Repairer.
For the exam on Sunday, I needed a watch to keep track of the times of the exams and how long I had left, etc. So I decided to get my watch fixed (as it needed a new band and a battery). So my host mum called up a watch person that they knew to see if they were still open. And they said 'we are closed, but we will open for you!!'.
Sadly, she was thinking of a different watch repairer that they knew and so we went to this old 60-70 year old man's store (but they also knew this guy too). Anyway, after being told this is the band that I should use the man got to work and fixed the battery and put on the band. There was an atmosphere in the store that not much had been sold lately with all old products and fading pictures on boxes and things like that. The man seemed very happy to have a customer (who knows when the last customer came). He said it was no problem to open the store for us as back in the old days, he used to have it open till about 10 but now he closes it at about 7. After about 30 minutes of putting on the band, I finally got my watch back. We paid him 2,000 ($25) for the new band and battery and went home.
But, during the trip home when I was playing with the band, it broke off....
I waited till I got home to check what happened and it seems that this old man forced the pins into my watch and made a slot (from forcing) above the pin hole so that the pin can just slip out easily. This means that he wrecked it for paying it to be fixed.
No wonder he hasn't had many customers lately!
The problem was, I had to get back to hamamatsu by train and then from hamamatsu to my house by bus. This meant I was very tired on the way home in the nice warm bus.... So I kind of slept and missed my bus stop and got to the end of the line in the town next door... This being about 11 o'clock and I am sitting alone in the dark cold (it is now winter!) bus stop waiting for the next bus to come to take me back... But there was no more buses. So I tried calling my host mum or someone but they had all gone to the hospital as my host sister was about to have her baby. After they called me back, I had found out the baby had been born about two hours before and it was a little girl! Sachi 幸 meaning happiness. So my host mum quickly came to pick me up and then drop me off to see the baby! Very cute! I didn't get to sleep till very late and was very very tired...
Another story is the story of a Japanese Watch Repairer.
For the exam on Sunday, I needed a watch to keep track of the times of the exams and how long I had left, etc. So I decided to get my watch fixed (as it needed a new band and a battery). So my host mum called up a watch person that they knew to see if they were still open. And they said 'we are closed, but we will open for you!!'.
Sadly, she was thinking of a different watch repairer that they knew and so we went to this old 60-70 year old man's store (but they also knew this guy too). Anyway, after being told this is the band that I should use the man got to work and fixed the battery and put on the band. There was an atmosphere in the store that not much had been sold lately with all old products and fading pictures on boxes and things like that. The man seemed very happy to have a customer (who knows when the last customer came). He said it was no problem to open the store for us as back in the old days, he used to have it open till about 10 but now he closes it at about 7. After about 30 minutes of putting on the band, I finally got my watch back. We paid him 2,000 ($25) for the new band and battery and went home.
But, during the trip home when I was playing with the band, it broke off....
I waited till I got home to check what happened and it seems that this old man forced the pins into my watch and made a slot (from forcing) above the pin hole so that the pin can just slip out easily. This means that he wrecked it for paying it to be fixed.
No wonder he hasn't had many customers lately!
