bubble college friendship and wearing black with navy

Aaaaand one week later :)  This past week has probably been the busiest yet.  Or maybe I think that at the end of every week??  My last post was on HALLOWEEN and it feels like that was a really long time ago.  So I'm afraid I've forgotten a lot of fun details already.  Hopefully the following collection of stories will still be entertaining.  Fortunately for you, each day was really busy but I didn't take a ton of photos.

I tried to check my little red notebook to figure out when the next two photos were taken, but let's just say that it was sometime in the past week.  My coworker and I went grocery shopping and then out to dinner where I tried soba noodles for the first time.

The soba noodles are cooked and cold in the basket.  You take some with your chopsticks, dip them in the cold soup (with chives at the bottom of the photo) and then EAT THEM.  So good.  There was also a small bowl with rice and tempura veggies and shrimp- "temdom" I think.  The rice bowl dish is called domburri in general, but when you put something on top the name changes to something specific.  So a ricebowl with tempura is "temdom", with egg is "tamagodom" or beef is "gudom".

One happy customer.

Over dinner, my colleague asked if I had gotten everything I wanted at the grocery.  There was actually another item on my list that I was a little afraid to ask about because I was sure it would be another "caffeine free coffee??!" or "egg whites only??!!" situation.  But I'd really been wanting to make better coffee at home so this motivated me to ask.  

"Make coffee with milk.  Milk, use small machine (hand motions and whirring sound) to make milk fluffy."  Fluffy?  Frothy?  Bubbly?  Enter- electronic translators and a moment of understanding.  What I wanted was a milk frother but it's a little difficult to describe when you have a limited English vocabulary to work with.  But my colleague almost immediately knew what I was talking about and said that she had one in her closet that she had only used once.  She said she would lend it to me during my stay in Japan.  So nice.  The next day she brought it to me in the office, and you can imagine what I made the next morning...

A beautiful, fluffy cappuccino.  Since this day, I've switched from making coffee to matcha (green tea powder) lattes.  I came across these in a coffee shop in a nearby train station.  I can't remember why I ordered it... I must have had one before.  But they are SO GOOD and the fluffy milk makes them unbelievably good.  I'm still working on my technique but I'll have to take a photo because they look very strange.  Bright green.

At work on Wednesday, my colleagues and I spent a few hours burning things in one of my favorite labs.  I'm not sure that I should even post a photo so I'll just give you a confusing, vague description to go along with it.

Basically we burn things and then talk about how they burned, how they looked, what they smelled like (ha!  okay not really but sometimes it stinks), all those fun things.  I really enjoyed this experience and was so thankful for my colleagues' patience with answering my questions and indulging my many, many, many photos.

Thursday was a national holiday and I decided that I would try to relax as much as possible considering how busy everything had been.  Of course, I did too much and was exhausted by the end of the day.  But it started out well enough...

Skyping into small group!  So SO fun and a big thank you to Alex for arranging the technical stuff.  It was honestly so nice to see a bunch of familiar faces and hear everyone talking and laughing.  I do miss my friends and my routine in Atlanta.  

Look at those sweet smiling faces :)

Here's a cooking photo since it's been a while since I've posted one.  I still cook a lot, it's just never anything very exciting or photo-worthy.  Looks like I'm about to make a crab/spinach/onion/tomato omelette for breakfast!

On Friday, I headed into Osaka to meet with a few colleagues and visit customers.  It was a really long day but I met a few colleagues for the first time and really enjoyed spending time with them.  At the end of the day, they surprised me by planning dinner at Outback.  So funny!  I had no idea that Outback would be in Osaka.  

Are you wondering if they still have blooming onions in Japan??

Because they do.  My colleague ordered a bunch of different things and we just shared and grazed for a few hours (Japanese style).  It was a nice ending for a really nice day.  This was my first really Western chain restaurant experience while in Japan.  I haven't even been to McDonald's yet!

On Saturday, I spent a few hours shopping and running errands around Ibaraki.  Since I know this is what ya'll have been waiting for (probably not), here's a little taste of the beautiful Engrish that you can find all over Japanese clothing.

Most of the above photos are from baby clothing.  So strange.  So fantastic.  I really wanted to buy a few of the tee shirts for Annabelle but I just couldn't see Rachel putting her in something that said "Skul bone, the presents to cool babies".  I could be wrong, though.

Maybe I mentioned it last week but I'm trying to learn one of the Japanese alphabets, Katakana.  A lot of imported words are written in Katakana and it's just an alphabet of sounds.  So this character equals "fa" and another equals "ku" and so on.  There's a bunch of Katakana used in advertising and on food packaging so I'm practicing reading it as much as I can.  But it's slow going.  I just need to get some flash cards and learn it Biology style.

Here's an example from the pet store in the Ibaraki mall.

This literally says "ro-n-go ko-to chi-wa-wa"

So you have to read the words, say it to yourself and then ask yourself what could this be translated to in English.  Long-coat Chiwawa (or long-haired).  It's actually pretty fun to figure things out.  But I'm really slow right now and I still don't know the whole alphabet.  

Guess who finally made it to Beard Papa's??  After church on Sunday in Osaka (which was really fun again, more new friends), I met my colleague for a movie at the Ibaraki mall.  We went to see Sourcecode.  However it took me until the opening credits to figure this out because the title had been translated to "Mission: Eight Minutes".  Very tricky, Japan.

After the movie, we picked up supplies for dinner (and a pair of fresh'n natural cream puffs from Beard Papa's...) and headed to her house to cook.  She cooked a really nice spread of Japanese dishes and we had a good time hanging out.  

The night before, I had made plans with my German friend to meet up for Nepalese food in Osaka.  My colleague also came along for this.  She was really nervous about her English speaking abilities but luckily my German friend has been in Osaka for seven months so we were all able to talk pretty easily.  And the Nepalese food was AMAZING.  But this is coming from someone who's favorite food is probably Indian and the two cuisines seem very similar.

This week, I'm heading into Osaka almost every day to meet with colleagues and then either attend customer meetings or something similar.  On Monday, I traveled around Osaka with colleagues that I had just met the previous Friday.  We had lunch at a really nice Japanese restaurant up on the top floor of a hotel in south Osaka.

Looks like Japan is ready for Christmas!

This was a diagram identifying the sights from our view at the restaurant.

Sushi for everybody.  So good.

Dessert was a bowl of bitter matcha (green) tea and two little squares of sweets made from sweet potato. You were supposed to sip the tea and then take a bite of the sweets to even out the bitterness.  Really nice.

Here's an example of when blister prevention outweighs any kind of desire for my wardrobe to match or look good.  I knew that we'd be doing a lot of walking and these shoes feel like they'd hurt my feet after a long day.  So the easiest solution was for me just to wear socks with my flats. 

Yes, you are seeing black pants, black and gray argyle socks and navy shoes.  I love Japan because no one cares and there will always be another person on the train wearing something more strange.

During another shopping experience, I got a better tutorial on how to handle the face bag.  Helpful.

AND here's my first contribution to the Japanese Engrish industry.  It says "Sweet smile, happy stroll road".  I didn't want to get too crazy too soon so I think this is a good safe tee shirt to start with.  Hopefully I'll be adding more to my collection over the next few weeks.

Today's lunch was another first.  Handmade (right in front of us!) udon noodles in a curry sauce.  With a side of tempura pumpkin (love).  So good.  Soooo good.

During another trip today with coworkers, we stopped at a convenience store where I quickly zeroed in on this awesome hot drink vending machine.  It made me a perfect little matcha latte on the spot.  Another reason that I love Japan.

I thought I'd end with a little view of my apartment for the past week.  When I'm busy and stressed, it is immediately reflected in my living space.  So tonight after I got home from work, I spent a few minutes cleaning up while dinner cooked on my baby stove in my little frying pan.  Things are much more organized now and not quite so hectic.  The next two weeks are going to be really busy as I'm going back and forth to Osaka every day this week (which means early mornings and late nights), sightseeing with colleagues both days of the weekend and all the while preparing for my boss' visit on Monday and Tuesday of next week.  Ridiculous.  But I'm still enjoying the adventure even in all of the rush :)

Awkward moments:  Standing outside of my apartment before work, I was about to ride my bike for the first time in a week or so.  I absolutely could not get the kickstand to go up.  I think I convinced myself that because it had rained and I hadn't used my bike in a few days, the kickstand must have been rusted stuck.  I was pushing on it and kicking it and was about to give up when I looked up and made eye contact with a man across the street. I guess my helplessness was evident because he walked over, said some words in Japanese, and easily moved this little lever that I'd never noticed before that moment and then pushed my kickstand back.  Apparently my bike has a kickstand lock that would prevent your bike from falling over if the kickstand came loose or something.  Thank you, kind stranger.  

Exciting things:  You guys know that I've been playing outside at "recess" (after lunch) and have been the only girl.  Well on Friday I invited some of my lady coworkers to join.  They came and I think they really liked it!  Some were playing catch and some were batting.  I also found out that our office is having an organized "ground golf" tournament this week and next, kind of like mini golf.  Apparently I've been drafted as the pinch hitter.  So fun.

I found a gift for one of my coworkers that I'm really excited about.  I'm not going to tell you what it is because I know some colleagues read this blog but it involved me talking to sales staff at a shop and going back to pick it up a week later.  So a win for the whole living in Japan personal challenge issue.

Skyping with small group and some other friends.  Calling Mom and Dad over the weekend even just to talk for a few minutes.  So nice.  OH and I found out the old adventure van has finally found it's resting place in a junkyard.  So sad but so happy that it's over and done.  For those of you that have no idea what the adventure van is, it was my first vehicle and the one that I drove in highschool.  So many good memories.

Words:  At a restaurant, you yell to get the wait staff's attention.  Instead of the waiter just coming to you.  You say "sumimasen" which means something like "excuse me" but when in a restaurant you leave off the "m" so it just sounds like "suimasen".  I haven't done this yet but maybe one day.  "Mizu" is water.  "To" like toh is and.  "Nande?" or "doshite?" is why.  "Koko doko?" is where am I or what is this place.  "Nanji?" is what time is it.  "Kakoe" is the way to describe good looking guy.  This may or may not have come up during a discussion with a coworker about Robert Pattinson.  

Mom, please tell me if there are typos because I put this together pretty fast :)  Love you!

all you can eat bread and another cash-mergency

My coworkers asked me to join them for a ladies only lunch on Saturday.  Well, ladies and kids I guess.  I was supposed to meet my coworkers at our office at 11:20am on Saturday but ended up getting scooped up during my walk over to the office by one coworker who spotted me walking.  After everyone arrived and we did a little carpool rearranging, we headed to Takatsuki, a city next to Ibaraki where I live.  The restaurant was a kind of European style bakery and we were planning to have a fixed price lunch... basically a few courses of food along with all you can eat BREAD.  Heaven.  If you know me, you know about my love of bread.  So I pretty much loved this place and never wanted to leave as long as the bread kept coming.  

I think the babies had fun, too.  How cute are they??  The little girl in the middle and I especially bonded over our headbands and love of picking up donguri (acorns).  But that came later.

This isn't a great photo but here's the whole group.  Look who's holding the sweet baby!  That would be me.  He let me hold him for about the time it took the photo.  

Can you spot what I was surprised to find on the table?  Silverware.  It hadn't really occurred to me that I've hardly used forks and knives during my time in Japan.  So, a fun surprise.

After a lovely lunch and lots of chatting about what women normally chat about (shopping, husbands, kids, single men in the office, eating too much, boyfriends... you get the idea) we got back in our cars and headed to the "expo park".  Some type of world fair was held in Osaka in 1970 and this park was built for the festivities.  Maybe this guy will look familiar to you...

The Tower of the Sun designed by Taro Okamoto for the world fair.  The park is HUGE and we spent a few hours walking around and playing.  There wasn't a ton of English conversation happening but I had such a nice time with the ladies and getting to know them a bit better.  Of course, kids are the same in every country so also got to play and laugh a lot with them.

Take one...

...two

...three!

I'm still trying to learn all of their names (and pronounce them correctly!) so I can't really tell you who they are but look at these sweet faces!  My coworkers told me that these flowers are called cosmos.  Not sure if that translates or not.  Such a fun day.  So thankful for the ladies in my office and their infinite patience with me.

Saturday was probably the big Halloween party day in Osaka but I was so tired from our day at the park that after I came home and made dinner, I went to bed pretty early.  Not so exciting but my Halloween options were pretty much don't go out or go out and stay out aaaaaall night until the trains start running again at 5am.  I'm sure it could have been so fun but I had already decided that I wanted to try and go to a new church on Sunday morning and didn't think staying out all night would be so helpful.  

I found the church before coming to Japan while Googling "christian church osaka".  There weren't many links that even came up but I found this one, did a little digging in and decided that it might be nice to check out.  It's actually a brand new church and their launch Sunday was this past week.  So that's why I haven't really gone to any other churches here (besides being super busy on the weekends) since I've been waiting for this one to start up.

Maybe you remember my running out of cash saga from a few weeks ago?  Well that basically happened again on Saturday... one of my colleagues had to buy my way into the expo park because of my lack of funds.  It was kind of an accident but I knew that I needed to get to Osaka as soon as I could to get more cash.  So on Sunday before church, I ventured to Osaka and went in search of a Citibank ATM.  I had written down the name of the building and some general directions but still had a hard time finding what I was looking for.  It was also rainy and I was running late for church so in general a bit of a stressed situation.  But I decided that getting cash was my number one priority since I hadn't had breakfast (fridge also empty at this point haha) and was hungry.  Now this cashless situation was a bit different from last time because now I have a fully loaded transit card.  So no chance of getting stranded in a train station or anything.  That made the situation completely stress-less, it was just the fact that I was running late for church that I didn't really like.  Soooo after some searching I found the building, went to the seventh floor like I had written and found the bank to be closed (of course) with no ATMs.  Annoyed that I had rushed and stressed over being late only to find no ATMs, I went back downstairs to the street level.  Sitting right by the entrance that I had just rushed through were two ATMs.  So I got a bit of cash and went back out into the drizzle to try and find my way to the church. 

Here's what cheap, lazy people do when they don't want to draw a map or use data roaming on their phone for Google Maps.  Pull up directions on your computer and then take a photo.  Easy breezy.  Walking to church from the main train station area took me around fifteen minutes and I was happy to spot an American at the entrance to the church venue so that I didn't have to guess as to where it was.  The church has rented a dance club type space through the end of the year so that they're in a central location with easy access to train stations.  

I probably spent around two hours at the church including the service and then lots of talking afterwards.  The church is being planted by an organization that wants to plant churches in a bunch of big cities all over the world.  Very vague, yes.  But I guess just go to their website if you're interested in more detail :)  Everyone was SO nice that I met and it was really refreshing to have easy conversation and to meet people that relocated to Japan from the US and have been living here for a few years.  I'm hoping to go back when I have free Sundays and may also try to hang out with some of the people I met during the week.

After church, I spent a few hours in Umeda (main train station area in Osaka) doing some shopping and relaxing.  My only goals for the day were to pick up a few gifts for colleagues and get supplies for Halloween in the office.  So I headed back to Ibaraki to meet up with my coworker and do some Halloween grocery shopping.

My main idea was to make caramel apples.  Pretty much the whole plan hinged on my ability to find meltable caramel so that's the first ingredient that we looked for at the grocery.  I bought a few bags of individually wrapped milk caramels and hoped for the best.  I also got some plain cookies and mini cupcakes for decorating.  As you can see, the caramels melted really well and I was so happy that it worked out.  My coworker told me that candy apples are more common in Japan so maybe the caramel apples were a new experience.

For toppings (toppings?  not sure what to call this) I used peanuts, coconut and these salty, fried ramen noodly things.  The green dots are macha (green tea) chocolate drops.  I also dipped the cupcakes and cookies in caramel since I had plenty leftover from the apples.

I had a lot of fun making all of this... apparently I forgot about my love of crafting and baking since I haven't done it in a few weeks.  Full disclosure- the bulk of the crafting came after dinner when I got back to my apartment but for continuities sake I'm posting out of order.  

I can't remember how it came up but my coworker was in the mood for sushi and really wanted rolling sushi in particular.  I'd heard of this kind of restaurant but hadn't tried it yet in Japan so I was definitely excited to try it out.

We sat at a bar with all the fixings for sushi laid out- green tea powder and hot water, ginger, soy sauces, etc.  Plates prepared with single serving portions of various types of sushi continuously rolled by on a conveyor belt that looped through the dining room past all of the diners and once through the kitchen.  The belt was reloaded with fresh plates as people took their picks off of the moving buffet.  Each plate cost 105 yen (around $1.40) and there were also special dishes with higher prices as marked on a picture menu at our seats.  You could also press a little intercom button and place a special order.  Your order would come out via the conveyor belt on a special plate marked "reserved".  So efficient. 

It was really interesting to see all the different sushi options and try some new things.  The strangest dish that I tried was a cooked shrimp hand roll with a little slice of cheese and squiggle of mayonnaise (I think?).  I can't say that I've ever had cheese on sushi.  Everything I had was good and it was also fun to see what my coworker picked out and tried.  

When we decided that we'd had enough, my coworker called the waitress over and she whipped out this ruler thing to hold beside our stacks of plates and quickly see how many plates we each had.  She marked it down on our ticket and we paid at the door.  Seven for me.  Seventeen for him.  

Rolling sushi will definitely happen again in Japan.  The setting is really fun and I love the delivery method.  It's also nice to have a little bit of lots of things instead of just ordering one type of sushi.  And again, I'm continually amazed at the patience and kindness of my coworkers.  Maybe it's just Japanese good manners, but I appreciate it either way.  

Usually I like to segment posts by the weekend, BUT since I'm already typing I'll go ahead and tell you about today.  I think the caramel apples and other snacks were a success... sometimes I forget that you have to kind of announce things and invite people to eat what I brought.  In my office at home, I usually just put cookies or whatever up at the front and by the end of the day people have figured out that I brought them.  So, not quite the same official announcement and invitation to try.  But still fun.  

It seems like my colleagues and I are getting in the routine of going down to one of the lab break areas for the 10am coffee break, going to play outside after lunch and then going to the downstairs engineering lab for the 3pm break.  This is really fun for me because there's not much English but I still get to laugh when someone translates for me and hang out with colleagues that I don't see on a normal daily basis.  After lunch today, some of us played a kind of croquet/golf game.  But the field was all mushy and wet so maybe tomorrow we'll play a real game.  I'm not sure what my lady coworkers must think of me playing with the boys everyday, but maybe I can convince one or two to join.  It's so nice to take a few minutes outside and enjoy the weather.  Especially considering it's almost dark when we leave the office.

This morning I scouted out a meeting room on the other side of the building from our office that was sunny and empty.  In the afternoon, I camped out for a few hours by myself to work on a few things and spend some time processing all the information I've been absorbing.  I think my brains needs as much time to process and rest as it does to absorb and learn and I haven't really given myself enough time to think through all of the presentations and meetings in the office.  So this week I'm going to be more intentional about spending some time by myself away from the distractions of our office so that I can do a bit of thinking.  I love the group atmosphere of the office because I enjoy being with my colleagues, but at this point I'm not acclimated to the point of really being able to concentrate.  Everything is a distraction to me so if I'm doing anything past checking and replying to emails, it can be difficult for me to focus.

Aaaanyway.  Here are some photos that I took when I left the office today.  It wasn't that late, maybe 5:30 or 5:45 but it's getting dark earlier and earlier.  

I think our office looks so  nice in the evening- warmly lit windows with the barely lit sky and a few palm trees just for fun.  I guess it looks pretty industrial but the building is pretty interesting.  I'll have to take some more photos during the day so you can see the strange architecture.  It was designed by an American.  With asbestos.  So my choice of the word strange is not a reflection on Japanese design.  Ha.

Another busy week ahead.  Time is going by entirely too fast.  There's a national holiday on Thursday and I'm imagining some fun activities like a pedicure or massage.  Or maybe just napping and reading.  Whatever it is, it will be relaxing!  Tomorrow, I have to go to the grocery store.  I cooked my last onion, can of tuna and bag of noodles in a curry sauce for dinner tonight.  All I have really have left is peanut butter, jam, instant miso soup and coffee.  But for me coffee isn't worth it without milk so that won't be happening for breakfast tomorrow.  I actually texted my coworker tonight to ask what time the grocery store opens in the morning in case I had time to go before work (and before it gets so crowded so I can peruse every aisle at my favorite leisurely pace).  But she translated my question as a request to be taken shopping so I spent some time trying to sort that out before figuring out that the store doesn't open until 10am.  So.  Looks like I'll be going shopping after work tomorrow.  On my bicycle.  In the dark.  Since it's getting dark at like, 5:30pm now.  Wish me luck.

New words: oishi- tastes good.  After talking to the preacher's wife at church, she suggested that I learn one of the Japanese alphabets called Katakana.  This could be completely wrong but I think it's an alphabet of characters that represent sounds so that you can make words in Japanese based on foreign (imported) words.  There are forty something characters in the basic Katakana alphabet and she said that once I memorize these, I should be able to read some things at the grocery store, signs of stores, etc.  That would be really nice so today I started working on learning them.  I may or may not have used some of my alone time today in the office as Katakana study hall.

Other exciting things:  my coworker told me about a Japanese music group called Spitz.  So I'm going to Google them at some point.  I'd Spotify but after they found out that I was streaming from Japan they blocked my account and are holding my playlists hostage until I either upgrade or go back home.  So sad.

I can't think of anything else and unfortunately I took very few notes in my little red  notebook over the weekend.  Only directions to the ATM and church.  

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.