2002-08-06 - 10:37 a.m.
first a note: you might have noticed that the "older entries" page hasn't been updated even though my diary has... that's a problem over at diaryland, and the administrator's on vacation! you can still access recent entries by clicking the "previous" button on the bottom of this page.
Now back to our regularly scheduled program.
On Sunday, Saori and I went on a little roadtrip with Kirstie and Kei to escape the Tokyo heat. We drove for about an hour and a half north of Tokyo to the Chichibu National Park area, where we strolled around a small town and played in a river.
When we brought out the food, a really funny cultural difference was revealed. Kirstie pointed at how Saori was eating her corn on the cob, and Kei was doing it the same way! First, they picked out an entire horizontal row of corn with their fingers, pinching one kernel at a time and twisting it off the cob. After making this initial groove, they used their bottom teeth ONLY to eat the corn very neatly, row by row, turning the cob in a downward direction. The result was a perfectly clean cob that looked like it'd been eated by a meticulous squirrel. And, as our friends proudly pointed out, no corn in the teeth!
After swimming and corn-eating, we went back to the small town for dinner. We stopped at one tempura restaurant and Saori asked if they could make me vegetable tempura. No, they could not, the woman replied. This inflexibility at restauarants is something I won't miss. The restaurant sells tempura that is all vegetables with two pieces of shrimp -- yet they were unwilling to take out the shrimp and throw in two more vegetables because that's not how it's done! We found a place down the road that was willing to do it, but only after 2 other places said no.
On the way back to Tokyo, we stopped at the Suupaa Sento (Super Public Bath). It was great, the interior all done in stone with lots of ferns, six baths, and two saunas, plus an outdoor bath. The baths varied in temperature and medicinal purposes. After an hour or so of soaking we took turns trying out the massage chairs and foot massagers in the lobby and then headed up to the restaurant to eat (yet again). Saori and I got a table while Kei and Kirstie lingered downstairs. The waitress came over and seemed shocked by my presence. After we'd placed our order, she turned to Saori and said "Gaijin-sama desu ka?" "Is she a foreigner?"
My days as a foreigner are numbered though. Yesterday I stopped by the orientation for new JETs to help out for about an hour, and I was SO GLAD not to be in their shoes! Not because I regret my year in Japan, but because the first weeks were terrifying. As Lela told me once, "We never, ever, have to come to Japan for the first time again." And that's a good thing.
