Anyway, I grabbed my new bike and my carefully written down directions and map, and went to go to the nearest 99 yen store, シャプ99. After getting back and looking at the actual map, I can pretty confidently say that I went past it six times without seeing it. Worse, I got completely and utterly confused while trying to get back home; I got completely and honestly lost.
Part of the problem is that most of the streets here don't have names or numbers. Part of the problem is that they don't have zoning here as they do in America; industry, commerce, and housing all mix together everywhere, so that nothing looks terribly different from the other parts. The streets are narrow, twisty, and lined by houses on hills, so the visibility is short. I don't know the layout of the different villages yet. My Japanese is just good enough to really get me in trouble with local directions. But the very worst thing... one of the roads I already know of in the area is 50...
...but this sign doesn't mean the road number is 50.
That sign means the speed limit is 50 kph. Whoops...
Anyway, all I have to show for my two hour trip is a package of udon noodles and some shrimp and naruto to mix them with. After looking at the location of the supermarket where I got the stuff, and looking at the roads, it looks like I simply missed turning left where I should have, because I had no idea what road I was on. I wound up going northwest on 162; the sun was just slightly left of straight forward, so I figured I was going west, and at that point was worried because some village signs showed me as being on 162, and my conception of going west on a north-south road made me really uneasy (it was actually more like west-northwest, and farther north on the map than I thought it was). Eventually I saw an enormous building ahead, which really stood out from the crowd of small houses and buildings, and made my way to it, thinking it might be the campus. It turned out to be the 北都クリーンセンター (North Kyoto "kuriin" Center). I have no idea what that is, but there was a police officer out in front of it who gave me directions back. I once again missed the turn onto the road with my dorm, but wound up next to the store where I bought food last night; finally recognizing something, I managed to make my way home--but not before one last wrong turn that had me going back up the hill I just came down. That's the surest sign that it's time to regroup....
However overall flat Kyoto may look on a map, there are certainly hills, and they're steep. The road back down from the whatever-it-is center had a 400 meter stretch that goes down 40 meters. Going up that kind of pitch on a too-small single-speed cruiser bike is no easy task. I wound up getting pretty tired. I've also decided that however long I think the trip is going to be, from now on I'm bringing my riding gloves. My hands are a bit grumpy with me right now.
Although it was a perfect opportunity for taking a lot of pictures of the city, I didn't take any pictures outside. I was a bit too distracted with not knowing where I was. Too bad, because I really did get to see a lot of the place... although to be honest so much of it looks so much the same from the road. More pictures will come in time.
I don't mean to sound like I'm distressed or unhappy about this. Getting lost is part of getting used to a new place, and I did it in Albuquerque too. This place is simply different from what I'm used to, so the strategies I've used for getting unlost in the US didn't work so well. I got to see a lot more of the city than if I hadn't gotten lost, and that will probably be useful later on. Also, especially having studied the map afterwards, I think it has helped with my sense of the scale of this place. Because of the proportions of this place and the size of the roads, it's difficult for me to synchronize my impressions of distance between the map and reality. Anyway, it was a learning experience, and it was actually pretty amusing, too.
Now it's time to put those noodles I got to good use.
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