8/11/14

Today in class, I was going over body parts with some 5th grade boys, and pointed to my nails. “What are these?” I asked innocently enough. After a short conference, one of the boys blurted out, “Clothes!” I giggled, “No, that’s this,” and tugged at my shirt. He looked confused. Short conference. Then, very clearly, “CLAWS.” One of the other boys pointed at a picture of Sully from Monsters, Inc. Indeed, he did have claws, and they were labeled as such. I had to draw a distinction between claws and nails, which was pretty fun.

My Mondays run from 330 to 9pm, which isn’t great, but not terrible. After work today I was hungry and tired, so I decided to be brave and hit up some random izakaya close to my apartment. I went by several, and finally landed on one located on the street that leads directly to the nearby Hachimanju shrine. It sounded well populated, so I knew the food had to be edible at least. The two women working there were incredibly friendly, and prodded me with questions in mostly Japanese which I mostly didn’t understand. I ordered the soba, and the women seemed surprised when I chose hot rather than cold (frankly, I only ordered it hot because I don’t know the word for cold). They made me promise to get the cold soba next time (which they guaranteed was tastier), and were pleased to find out I knew how to eat it.
We all did the best we could, and they said my Japanese was good (not true), and that my use of chopsticks was excellent. There was a group of salary men in the back (I sat at the bar) making a ruckus and having a good time. One of them came over to ask for something, and started talking to me instead. He called me cute, complimented my Japanese, asked where I was from, and jokingly suggested that he take English classes at my school. The second time he came over, he asked for napkins (they just use tissue boxes for that here, occasionally), and chatted me up a bit more, this time complimenting my nose.

Soon, his buddies got up and started filing out. Each of them either shook my hand or wished me a good night in English (or both) as they passed me on their way to the door. It was very quaint, and perfectly good natured, and the two-woman staff seemed to enjoy it very much.
At that point I was the last patron in the restaurant, so I asked for the bill and was told my total was 500 yen (about $5). I paid and was about to leave when the cook asked in Japanese if I ate onigiri. I sid yes, and she told me to wait while she wrapped up two onigiri for me as a gift. I bowed about a dozen times on my way out the door, and promised to come back. They close at 11pm.

8/10/14
It’s nice to know that no matter where I go, kids will look at me like I’m furniture.  Even if I make faces and weird noises, or wave frantically like I’m having a seizure, no reaction whatsoever.  This happened today at a coffee house.  It’s reassuring in a depressing little way.

4pm
After spending too much time at the tourist center to keep in touch with peple, I went to a ramen spot I’d noticed earlier, only to find it closed.  I wandered a couple blocks and turned down a little side street to find a line of people standing outside a shitty little restaurant.  Not knowing what they sold or what it cost, I jumped in line, assuming it must be tasty and affordable if all these working-class people were willing to wait in the rain for it.

Once at the front, I noticed a small sign with a photo of what looked like jajamen, which I can now recognize by sight as a direct result of living in the tourist center, where they play a video on repeat that cycles through  the same information in four different languages, and introduces the various reasons you should really fucking enjoy yourself in Morioka: festivals (drums and horses), nature (“Soon, the mountains turn color…”), tofu and liquor (so much sake), and of course the star of the show, noodles.  There are three types that are famous in Morioka: reimen (“chewy”), wanko soba (“a bountiful feast”) and jajamen, the most delicious noodles I’ve had in quite some time.

Back at the restaurant, I asked the guy in line behind me, “Jajamen desu ka?” and he looked at me like I was mentally damaged.  Naturally: who stands in line for well over 40 minutes for a mystery meal?  He said yes, then asked where I was from and what I did for a living.  We had a very broken chat about that, and after a particularly long pause, I got up the courage to ask if the jajamen was served hot (it was a cool day, I wanted hot noodles).  So I asked in my best broken Japanese, “Jajamen-wa, atsui desu… ka?”  He said, in very clear English, “Yes.  Very very hot.”

Twenty minutes later we were both seated at the bar, next to each other by chance.  He helped me order (the only options are small, medium, or large, which is awesome, ￥450, ￥550, ￥650 respectively), then showed me how to eat it (doused in vinegar and thoroughly mixed).  After he finished off the noodles, he took one of the brown eggs from one of the bowls on the bar and cracked it into his empty dish.  He mixed it up a bit with his chopsticks.  I watched, horrified.  He lifted the bowl, and I was sure he was going to slurp it down, but he handed it to the cook, who ladled in some hot water from the pot where fresh noodles were being boiled.  He let it sit for a moment until the egg was cooked, which ended up as something like egg-drop soup, added some of the meat miso that came on the noodles, mixed it up and ate it with a spoon.  Each bowl for raw eggs was coupled with a bowl for the shells.

This place has become my go-to spot when I have a hard day, or am feeling depressed.