Small town Japan

I write to you from my house (well technically not really mine, nor Will's) in Sadamitsu. A town with the towering population of approximately 5000. I should be trying to study Japanese but I'm a great procrastinator and instead decided to update my blog.

For those of you who don't know much about the geography of Japan, Sadamitsu is on the island Shikoku. There are four main islands that make up Japan: Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku. Honshu is the largest of the four and is where most of the big cities are (Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, Tokyo) and I'm not on it. Now, I recall after being in Seoul that I never wanted to live in such a big city again. I certainly got that wish!

Sadamitsu is pretty easy to get around. Since I have next to no sense of direction this is a fortunate thing indeed. I really can't get lost, even if I take a wrong turn somewhere. The town just isn't big enough to get lost in. The main road is quite short by Calgarian standards, and is easily walkable. If you lived only in this town and never went anywhere else there wouldn't be much need for a car. While walking about the town yesterday I looked at my map and wished to visit the stationery store (I love pens and notebooks, can't get enough). I missed it during my first attempt. When I did find it I discovered it was half a stationery store and half a sporting goods store. What connection do stationery and sporting goods have? You've got me. But here I guess they go hand in hand.

On my way to the stationery place I passed by another store that specialized in "hankko" or name stamps. In Japan your written signature doesn't seem to matter much. What does matter is this thin wooden cylinder that has your name engraved on one end. You're supposed to carry it with you at all times and use it to "sign" documents (ie, car registration papers, bills, etc.) Having been in Japan for only 4 days I didn't have one yet. Will didn't know how to ask for it in Japanese so being the brazen person I am I decided this was the time to torture some poor storeowner. I went in armed with my Lonely Planet Japanese Phrasebook and a ready smile. Our resulting conversation went something like this: (note, I had no idea what the man was actually saying so it's what I interpreted he would be asking)
Me: "Excuse me *long pause* I'm foreign *shorter pause* Name stamp. How much is it?"
Man: "Is this a new name stamp?" (I found out the word for NEW later on in the day)
Me: Completely confused, my smile now cemented onto my face, "My name is Yuri. Katakana."
Man: "Yuri-san." And he writes down my name in katakana. I watched approvingly, knowing only the characters for my name and recognizing them. At this point it suddenly occurred to me that I might be doing this all wrong. What if they actually needed my last name, not my first? How do I tell him I don't want to do this right now? Not knowing how to communicate any of the above I just stood, mutely hoping I was doing the right thing, with a feeling of panic welling up that I kept quashing down.

From here I somehow managed to select the stamp I wanted, the cheapest he had, then went through some great pantomimes and sketches to figure out what time to return to pick it up.
Man: "Come back in one hour."
Me: "Eh? Tomorrow?"
Man: "No, one hour. It's easy, doesn't take long to make." After a few reptitions of this and my obviously not comprehending any of it, he gestured to the clock behind him. I looked at the clock and saw it said 12:30pm. I guess my look was as deer-in-the-headlights as you could get because he finally took a pad of paper and drew a clock, indicating 12:30 and then another showing 1:30. This I understood and jauntily took off...and came back at the designated when I picked up my hanko and with more jumbled conversation, where I think I managed to say my parents are from Korea, I somehow received a very nice case (complete with ink pad!) for free. I guess this was payment for pestering him all afternoon.

But in any case, I accomplished this much with next to no language skills. Just think what I could do if I could talk even a little. I'm going to take over Japan...