Kendo Shop

Kendo has been going pretty well, so I decided to go shopping for some kendo gear. My Sensei had recommended a store to me, and also phoned them to let them know I was coming, which was a great help. At the store I was halfway through explaining in halting Japanese that I was from the Chuo-Taikukan Kendo club, when he finished the sentence for me and said with a smile, "I know". He measured me up for some Hakama (those massive pants) and Dogi (thick shirt) which I can start wearing to lessons now. However I won't start using the armour until August, so I wanted to shop around a bit - I've heard they can cost $1000 to $4000. I asked whether I could buy second-hand armour anywhere, and he didn't really understand. I found out later that the dictionary I used had translated second-hand as meaning the hand of a clock that ticks once a second! I tried again saying I wanted to buy cheap old armour, and he seemed to avoid answering directly. This kind of response is pretty normal if a Japanese person doesn't want to offend you with a "no", or "i don't know", but can be confusing because I'm not sure if I'm expressing myself properly. I decided to take the hint and let him measure me up for some armour and see how much it would be. While he was doing this I realised that it would be almost impossible to find a secondhand suit of armour that fit me well, so it's better to get a new set anyway. I think my sensei had told him exactly what I needed, because I hardly told him a thing and he prepared everything for me. He said the second cheapest set would be good for me, and when he told me he'd give me a discount making it cheaper than the cheapest set, I was amazed, and couldn't refuse. It will end up costing me about $800. Arigatou Gozaimasu!

We spent the next half an hour choosing some Kanji characters to be embroidered on my armour. The wearer's surname is put on the armour to identify them, but because my name is in English, and the machine can only do a limited set of Kanji, I had to choose some characters that sound like my name. Wooller becomes Ura in Japanese, so I had to choose one sounding like "U", and one sounding like "ra". We looked up the meaning of each character I could choose from using a combination of his dictionary and mine, my horrible Japanese and a few English words he knew! The "U" character I chose is related to rain. I originally wanted to choose one that meant rabbit, but when I said I liked it, he pretty much ignored me and went onto discuss other ones! Later, I said I really did like it, and he did the same thing, so I took the hint! I was confused, but later Chihiro told me that people are never named after animals in Japan. The "ra" character I chose means thorn, so my name in Japanese will be Rainthorn. Ok, so it won't really inspire fear in the hearts of my enemies, but I like it.