Before I start with this one, just wanted to share a
tidbit of interesting info. I was talking with my
students the day that Amber left. I told them about
her train problem and asked if they had heard what
happened with the trains. They said that they had not
heard any news but usually when the trains are held
up, it is because someone has committed suicide on the
train rails. They said that the Chuo line is called
the Suicide line because that is the railway where
most people kill themselves. Miho said that train
suicide is common, even as common as ONCE A WEEK!
That blew my mind! They said that it is mostly
businessmen who do it. I said, "Why don't they just
drink themselves to death?" (Maybe that missing enzyme
prevents alcohol overdose...) What a violent way to
die. Anyway, just thought I would share that
interesting fact with you...HEY! If I gotta hear about
it, SO DO YOU!
Boy, I really set the mood for THIS e-mail...OK, so
Sunday, I muddle through the day and feel like
crawling in bed when I get home but that was Amber's
last night in Japan so I wanted to take her out. I
wanted to take her to the tempura restaurant that
Kazuko and her hubby took me to. They had excellent
maguro (raw tuna) and yummy shrimp tempura. I called
Kazuko to see if she wanted to meet us there but she
already had plans. She was so cute, she kept
apologizing for not being able to meet us for dinner
and meet Amber. So Am and I decided to go by
ourselves...this was going to be a challenge since the
menu is all Japanese script. So we get to the
restaurant and like many other restaurants, it has a
display window with the different dishes displayed in
it. So, genius that I am, I had the idea of writing
down the kanji of the dish that looked the best. This
way, we could just show it to the waitress and we
would know exactly what we were getting. So we copied
down the kanji of a shrimp tempura dish with miso
soup, rice, maguro, and some other mystery dish. We
showed it to the waitress and all was well...or so it
seemed. The first thing she brought out was a kind of
appetizer that I did NOT recall seeing in the display
window. This THING had the texture of jello. It was
clear jello with "goodies" inside. These "goodies"
appeared to be small tentacles. It looked as if a
baby octopus had been tossed in a blender for 5
seconds, then mixed into this clear, salty jello cube.
This is NOT something you want to see OR taste with a
hangover. But since I pride myself on trying
everything once, I had one bite of this baby octopus
jello cube and had to think about something else to
take my mind off what I had just put in my mouth. I
don't need to tell you that salty baby octopus
tentacle jello cubes are NOT delicious. And to add
insult to injury, when we went to pay our bill, they
CHARGED us for those things! Try disputing a bill
with a non-English speaking person...it ain't goin'
NOWHERE! Amber attempted to argue but quickly learned
that is was like beating a dead Japanese businessman
on the train tracks. We paid and left and decided to
cleanse our palates at BASKIN ROBBINS. AHHHHH, good
old American goodies. Fortunately, even Japanese
Baskin Robbins doesn't carry octopus tentacle ice-cream
(although they DO have RED BEAN ice-cream...what's up
with beans?) Of course Amber had to order THAT flavor.
I am surprised she did not ask for octopus tentacle
cube carry-out. I think she was adopted...
After dinner and wonderful, delightful, delectable,
super-stupendous Baskin Robbins ice-cream, we went
home and watched TV until 11:00pm. We called it an
early night because Amber had to leave the next
morning and I was still sleep-deprived from the night
before. We had to get up at 9:00am, get Amber to the
train station by 10:30 to catch her 2:00pm plane and
get me to work by 1:00pm. The plan sounded simple
enough...
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