Entries this day: Kate's_Cafe Simon's_apartment Skating_with_Simon Yukiko_in_Kyoto_station shinkansen_speed_estimate soness

Kate's Cafe

10:20pm JST Sunday 20 December 2009 (day 14515)

Went to Kate's cafe this morning, where we enjoyed delicious soup and smiley hugs. Conversation included Kevin and Jeff's plans to attend a seminar on 24 January, and therefore plans to watch a movie on 23 January. Also talked about other stuff or something. Plus Kate's delicious soup! I woulda stayed a lot longer but need to meet Simon to skate! Yukiko walked me (and Toshiko) to the bus stop; I told her I'd call her around 5pm if Simon and I were finished skating. (We'd be near where she was headed.)

Simon's apartment

10:37pm JST Sunday 20 December 2009 (day 14515)

Simon has a pretty cool apartment. It's basically a ten mat room with two fish tanks each featuring three "sea monsters" I like to call them, but they're actually something like lotl, but that word doesn't show up in my dictionary; I don't remember the spelling. They're underwater dwelling lizards that never lose their gills, which look a bit like ferns emanating from either side of their heads. He rattled off the names as I was like, how can you tell them apart????

I could distinguish one of the larger ones from the other two because its gills were smaller ("he grew up in a rough neighborhood"). But I couldn't uniquely identify any of the three small ones.

I could readily identify his orange cat named Marmelade, who liked to burrow under the covers and scratch her right eye which was continually watery and nearly shut.

Simon, having a generous heart inside his huge chest, gave me a pair of skates!! I just need to get new wheels and replace a bolt, but otherwise, I am again the proud owner of skates!!

Skating with Simon

10:26pm JST Sunday 20 December 2009 (day 14515)

I'm not sure I can call this a Wild Skating Adventure, but I can certainly call it the first time I've skated in a long time! The area of Kyoto where we skated was pretty flat, with few smooooothly paved areas, and zero parking garages. We skated from his house, and then a bit along the river, then skated up this street and past a large shrine, and down that street to somewhere else, all the while discussing our latest discoveries online about what's really going on in the world.

On our way home, he found a nice wooden box that was being discarded, confirmed the shop owner didn't want it, and skated with a box the rest of the way. The box chilled on a bench under a tray of chopsticks while we ate at a sushi restaurant. We tried fugu, the famously deadly blowfish. Disappointingly, the fish was already cut when we asked for it; they were just like "here ya go," and gave us the plate. It was chewy and a bit gross, but otherwise uneventful. "Well, Simon, thank you. You witnessed my first and last time to try fugu."

Though I wore his helmet, knee pads and wrist guards, I didn't need them at any point during the skate.

Yukiko in Kyoto station

10:55pm JST Sunday 20 December 2009 (day 14515)

Called Yukiko when on my way to Kyoto station, and she met me there. This was a good thing because it gave me a reminder of me-in-relationship, vs me-single. After changing my shinkansen destination from 品川 to 新横浜 (and got 680 yen refund woot), I waited for Yukiko at the entrance and thought, "man; what am I doing waiting for her? Why'd I even call her? I could be upstairs in the cafe getting a tasty treat and beverage."

Some gears clicked into place in my brain, and I went upstairs to the cafe to get a tasty treat and beverage. Got an banana-walnut pastry but no beverage cause they didn't have what I wanted.

Yukiko called when she arrived and I told her where I was. Hmmm; that was easy. I guess I don't necesarily need to stay planted when waiting for someone.

Told her what I had been thinking, and she said she had been thinking the same thing, "why am I going the opposite direction from where I need to go to get home?"

We walked around a bit to in search of a 500 ml paper carton of milk tea (but the store was closed so I got a plastic bottle; gah)

Bought her a ticket to come into the platform area so we could wait for the train together, and while making a racist remark about the security guy not answering my question, but pointing me to the ticket window, "oh I can't answer your question cause you're white," I slipped a bit walking up the steps and stubbed the crap out of my toe. It really hurt more than I guessed it should, so I checked once we sat down. Left big toe nail bent back, broken, drizzling blood. Wow! So I took a picture and posted it on FB.

Chatty chat and a few kisses then my train arrived in a flash of white. Man that was fast!

shinkansen speed estimate

11:10pm JST Sunday 20 December 2009 (day 14515)

I realized the trains are a lot longer than 100 meters. I guesstimate each train car is 18 meters long * 16 cars = 288 meters per train. 288 meters / 3.5 seconds for the train to go by... oh man I just realized I made a huge mistake when calculating before; I need to halve my answer cause we were both moving toward each other. Anyway, here goes:

18 meters / car
16 cars / train
1 train / 3.5 seconds
60 seconds / minute
60 minutes / hour
100 cm / meter
1 in / 2.54 cm
1 ft / 12 in
1 mile / 2580 ft

=
376.697098909 miles / hour

But that's combined speed for both trains headed toward each other, so divide by two to get 188.348549455 miles/hour.

I bet the actual speed is even faster, so the train must be even longer than I realize, or my time estimate of 3.5 seconds is too slow, or both, or all three, or whatever; good night.

- - - -

Wow! Wikipedia says the train cars are 25,000 mm long for 14 of the cars, and 27,350 mm for the two end cars.

25,000 mm / car        27,350 mm /car
14 cars / train    +   2 cars / train     =    404700 mm / train
1 train / 3.5 seconds
60 seconds / minute
60 minutes / hour
1 in / 25.4 mm
1 ft / 12 in
1 mile / 2580 ft
529.33790253 miles / hour

264.668951265 miles per hour per train

Welp, now my estimate is too fast. I guess my 3.5 seconds is too fast.

soness

1:07am JST Monday 21 December 2009 (day 14516)

Got home last night and told Soness two things, though I couldn't remember the first one first so I told her the second one: I kissed a girl, and she was like, "I knew it from the photo on Facebook! You're never going to make it 500 days!" And I was like, "yes I will!!!"

Oh! And I remembered the second one. "I stubbed the crap out of my toe," and she was like, "Oh yeah I saw it on Facebook.. Gross!" "You wanna see it here?" "no way!"

Good to be back home.

2:13am JST Monday 21 December 2009 (day 14516)

Alex and another CSer are here; I didn't get the other's name.