the scary thing

First up, a little English lesson during the 10am coffee break.  We learned about the difference between dating, being engaged and being married.  It was interesting to hear about the traditional process of engagement in Japan which I'm pretty sure includes the guy asking her parents' permission.  Tough.

I explained that in the US, if the guy has a big salary he buys a big diamond.  Small salary = small diamond.  Pronounced DI-ah-mond in Japan.  Sounds much more grand.

Mid-week trip to Iwakuni!  A lovely city in Southern-ish Japan.  This was my second time visiting Iwakuni and my first time visiting its famous Kintai-kyo!  A beautiful, old bridge that was built in 1673 and has been rebuilt and restored many times over.  I learned this from my guidebook, not the signs nearby written in Japanese.  Okay maybe they were written in English too but I didn't slow down long enough to look.  My colleague was nice enough to plan the quick sightseeing stop on our way from the train station to our office location in Iwakuni.

Au naturale.  Being bossy, probably.

Toooourissssst.  Love.

With my patient and super funny coworker.  He endured a combined four hours of English conversation and "lessons" on the train to and from Iwakuni.  At least now he knows the difference between a question and a Christian.

After a few meetings and presentations, our hosts had a nice dinner and "drinking party" planned for the evening.

This was only part of the meal but I thought the "flat fish" deserved a photo.  We also had sashimi, mizudake (maybe, meat cooked with water??), lots of other things.

So good.  I asked if the "flat fish" had both eyes on one side of its body.  The answer was yes, so I'm guessing that this was a flounder.  

Family photo.  We all crouched and then the photographer did, too.  So precious.  The guy above me spent some time in Atlanta with me earlier this year and each time I see him, his English seems to be improved.  Really impressive.  With as much trouble as I've had with Japanese (real life example coming up), people who are learning and succeeding with new languages are so amazing to me.  He takes lessons from a military wife at the US base in Iwakuni.  He said his favorite restaurant that we (and another colleague) went to in Atlanta was Six Feet Under for the Southern style seafood and awesome rooftop patio atmosphere.  

This was a really fun (and long!) trip with my colleagues.  I left my apartment at around 8:15am and got back maybe around 11pm.  I'm really impressed with the Japanese train system... considering we left our homes in the morning, traveled around 500 miles roundtrip, had a few hours of meetings, a few minutes of sightseeing, another few hours of dinner and then still got home by bedtime.  Really, really amazing.

So since you guys are well versed in the dangerous thing already, next up is the scary thing.  Since I've been in Japan, I've told you all about the fun foods that I've eaten and awesome dining out experiences with coworkers.  But when I'm by myself for meals, I usually cook at home or just pick up some kind of take-out from the grocery or a convenience store.  The ease and anonymity of being able to go into the grocery store and spend as long as I want sorting through things and perusing the aisles is really comforting to me.  I don't really have to be able to communicate effectively or actually talk to anyone at all.

Quick side story- the last comment just reminded me of it.  This has nothing to do with the other story that I'm about to tell so don't think that I'm trying to dramatically lead up to something exciting.  I'm not.  So I was at a new-to-me grocery store this week and I had already checked out and was at the little table where you go to bag your groceries.  I haven't mentioned this before but in Japan, you buy your groceries and they're put back into your basket while you're handed a few plastic bags.  You then take your bags and basketful of groceries to a little side table area and bag them yourselves.  Very efficient.  Very nice system.  Also, no one has overflowing grocery carts here.  Just a small cart with room for two baskets to sit.  I have to take a photo of this because that is not a good description.  ANYWAY.  I was bagging my groceries and this little old lady next to me turned to me and said somethingsomethinginjapanesesomethingAMERICAsomething.  I nodded and said, "yes, America!"  And she laughed and started talking again and then started naming off US cities.  WashingTON, New York Cityyyy, Las VEgas, SeATtle, etc.  I tried to tell her "Atlanta" but ended up just saying yes to WashingTON.  She kept talking to me and I kept apologizing for not being able to understand.  Eventually she said goodbye and walked out.  I finished bagging up my groceries and headed to the door and of course since she was traveling at old lady speed, I passed her on the way out.  As I was walking up behind her, I could hear her mumbling "Americaaa" and laughing to herself.  So sweet.  Pointless story.  But it made me happy.  Because strangers rarely talk to me in public.  When they do, it makes me very happy.  Especially little old ladies.

Okay, back to the scary thing.  Sorry about the sidetrack.  So picking up dinner from grocery and convenience stores is appealing to me in the same way that traveling by train is.  You can step on, realize that you're going in the wrong direction, step off to board another train, and no ones knows the difference.  Speaking from lots of experience.  So after being in Japan just over three weeks, I decided that tonight was the night to venture out to dinner.  By myself.  Alone.  With no Japanese speaking help. So naturally I pulled up Google Maps for my neighborhood and typed in "restaurants".  I live in a very residential area so there aren't so many restaurants nearby.  I found an area that I pass by a few times a week on the bus that seemed to have a few in close proximity.  I figured I could walk by them and scout one out from outside.  There was also a convenience store conveniently located in the same area so I could always drop in and pick up dinner there if I got scared.

The first few I walked by appeared to be really well lit from inside and looked too intimidating.  I wanted somewhere dark and private where I wouldn't have a lot of attention for my inevitably awkward ordering experience.  So I passed by about three options and knew that I only had one left.  So it was this one or the convenience store.  I decided to suck it up and just walk in. 

Also, please bear in mind that I don't read Japanese either so I had no idea what kind of restaurant this was from the outside.  Honestly, I wasn't even sure that it was a restaurant.  But I took my chances and said a little prayer that the door would be locked so that I could turn around and go home.  But unfortunately (or fortunately) it slid open and I was greeted with a small room of six tables, one lone gentleman smoking and watching a tv in the corner and the cook sitting at another table also watching the tv.  I took a seat at the table and quickly noticed a grill installed in the center- Korean BBQ.  On one hand, I love Korean BBQ and could probably happily eat it everyday.  On the other, I think it's a little strange for one person to be sitting at a table with six chairs having Korean BBQ, alone.  So. 

The waitress came over and brought me water, a bowl of sauce and a bowl of cabbage leaves.  I had no idea what to do next because the only writing I saw on the walls and on the menu was in Japanese and I haven't really learned any restaurant vocab at this point.  Probably should have thought that one through a little bit more.  I spent a few pointless minutes flipping through my vocab book and working up a sweat and eventually motioned the waitress over to try and talk to her.  I'm literally laughing outloud as I write this because it was such a ridiculous conversation.  I had no idea what to say.  So I just started naming off some types of meat and saying things like, "I like everything", "I'll eat anything", "do you have a house specialty".  Ha!  She called the cook over and neither of them spoke any English.  It was great.  So sweaty.  It wasn't really that I was embarrassed, because I know I can't speak Japanese and I walked willingly into this situation.  It was just kind of helpless and probably I looked really pitiful.  Or dumb.  I'm not sure.  

Somehow, they got the idea that I didn't really care what was for dinner and the waitress must have texted a friend or used a translation service on her phone to show me the message "how much do you want to spend?"  So smart!  I didn't even think of that.  So I told them 2000 yen, hoping that was enough to get a good dinner at this place.  That's around $25 maybe.  So they both nodded and went back to the kitchen.  In a few minutes I had a plate of raw beef, rice, kimchee and soup sitting in front of me.  They showed me how to grease the grill with what looked like a hunk of lard and I got to cooking.  

When I was finished, I had a good amount of food left so the waitress brought me a sheet of paper where she had written, "do you want take-out?", so I nodded.  Then she came back again with the paper and had written "do you want raw meat or cocking meat?".  Cocking, please.  She brought my (cooked) leftovers all nicely wrapped up and ready to go.  So nice.

Overall the experience went really well and wasn't as scary as I'd imagined.  The waitress was really patient and the translations were the star of the night.  Only after I left did I remember that the electronic translator that my supervisor had given me was in my bag.  Oopsies.  

So, do I want to go to a restaurant by myself again?  Not really.  Will I be working on my restaurant vocabulary?  Yes.  Absolutely, yes.

Exciting happenings:  Skyping with my aunt!  It was so nice to see a face from home (well... Florida) and catch up.  If you want to set up a Skype date, just let me know! :)  Talking about baseball and the Atlanta Braves during today's coffee break.  Sports = universal language.  Learned the word for crazy sports fan but I don't remember it anymore.  Apparently we have a few in our office.  

New words: McDonald's is pronounced something like "mac-a-don-aldos".  Interesting.  Watashiwa eh eggo dake, Nihongo hanaseimasen- I only speak English, no Japanese please.  Or something like that.  Sometimes I get confused when my coworkers translate to English.  Dozo- please; mizu- water; daki- boil; izakaya- type of restaurant where they serve a variety of foods (specific, I know). Cappa- described to me as some kind of imaginary animal (but not monster) that has something to do with a story about the Chinese "silk road" and the birth of "Gandal" music??  This story was told to me by my coworker on our train ride home.  I don't remember what the point was.  There may or may not have been a little bit of beer involved.