Road Tripped!
Well, it's 3am and I'm hopped up on sugar from carnie food (elephant ears and homemade lemonade) and a brownie and ice cream snickers bar. This is how I eats in America. What better time to rehash my road rash in America? Once again, I'm writing this for my own purposes, so it won't necessarily be entertaining. On the other hand, it's being written at 3am, and my mind works in funny ways in these hours. Who knows?
Oh, and I know there isn't as much impact without photographic evidence, but that will be coming once we get back to Japan this weekend.
Day 1!
Mayumi and I left around 9am. First stop? Lunch with Nate! Nate lives in Westfield, Indiana. A well-to-do town that has creepy lifelike statues of people. An old lady carrying a bag of groceries, a little child with a watering can, and a fat man permanently hogging a third of a bench. Nate told us the creator of voice mail lives in the town, along with the irony of him having his phone number unlisted. I really want to hear his message, too. "Hi, I'm not in right now, but you can leave a message. Thanks to me." At least that's how I imagine it goes. Nate treated us to some great pizza, tea, and root beer. It was wonderful and a surprising late addition to the road trip itinerary.
We continued on and hit Cave City, Kentucky by nightfall. Checked into the Super 8 (living the high life) and went out in search of dinner. We probably had our best meal of the night here, at a small little place called Rosie's Kitchen. The outside was pretty unappealing, but inside was a bundle of deliciousness. It was an all you can eat buffet. Mayumi loved the salad dressing. It came in spray-on bottles. There wasn't a lot of selection, but what they had was great. Homemade fried chicken, and ribs that were cooked outside, with 3 homemade sauces. So tender, so wonderful. This is what really got my belly to start hitting American Size.
At night, I realized I didn't bring any socks on the road trip, which I'd need with non-sandalled shoes. A Walmart in the next town was the only thing open. Mayumi and I listened to country music on the radio all the way to Walmart and then watched shirtless guys fighting in the Walmart parking lot next to their pick up truck, before laughing it off. I was happy to show Mayumi this little slice of culture.
Day 2!
We wake up, rock the Super 8 breakfast, and go caving. We do the 4.5 hour cave hike, including the timeless lunch in the Snowball Room. They surprised us with a new "No Bags" rule being implemented by Homeland Security (Note to Homeland Security: I don't think caves are a prime bomb target). Since we had decided to take our own lunch, that meant stuffing sandwiches, carrot sticks, and granola bars into our pockets. The cave tour was fun. I had done it when I was younger, but it was Mayumi's first time. Afterward, I pondered getting a KY hat from the gift shop ahead. It would be funny to wear in Japan for it's Japanese meaning - or at least a good gag gift.
After the hike, we moved on to Nashville, where we met up with Ashley, Yosuke, and their two kids. I worked with Ashley on the Michigan Boat, and knew Yosuke from LCC/MSU (before he knew Ashley). We all met up with Cara, who I worked with at Mongolian BBQ, at Dave & Buster's, a truly American Restaurant/Bar/Arcade/Bowl
ing Alley/Whatever Else. We ate then gamed then went back to the Onuki's place. Yosuke served me up a tall glass of shochu and tea, and I was out.
Day 3!
We go back into Nashville to find the legendary Mexican Popsicle place. It doesn't open until noon, so we use the GPS to find a restaurant to do lunch first. The Frothy Monkey has a nice name and is nearby, so we check it out. It's an internet cafe. A soup and salad later, and we're back to the Mexican Popsicle place. Mayumi gets a Rice popsicle, and I get Hibiscus. After, we shared a Lime. The most interesting flavor they had was Cucumber/Chili Pepper.
We moved on from Nashville to Athens, Georgia. On the way, we hit rush hour traffic in Atlanta. One of the worst cities for traffic in the US. It wasn't pretty, and we ended up in stop and go traffic before realizing there was a car pool lane that was at least slow go, instead of stop and go. We go to Katie M's house in Athens and meet her family before she arrives home. Her sister cooked a great dinner for us. It was strange meeting her sister - same style of speech, same mannerisms, just different hair color. Katie has a big family and they were all really nice. Katie hooks us up with her bedroom, which is like a mini-apartment above the garage. At night, we go out to a brewery where her and Mayumi drink cheap beer and I drink girlie drinks. Later, my friend Lisa from high school joins us. We move on to another bar which has a game called cornhole - at least that's what I think it was called. It involves throwing bean bags into an inclining wooden plank with holes in it. More fun than the description. Lisa and I dominated.
Day 4!
It's almost 4am now and I'm tired. To Be Continued!
(Being continued at 1pm the next day)
Mayumi and I woke up and went into Atlanta. While in Atlanta, we heard on the radio that they were having record low temperatures, dropping into the lower 70s at night. Brrr! We had our sights set on some Churrascaria - the Brazilian restaurants with a salad bar and an unlimited amount of chicken, pork, beef, and bacon wrapped chicken, pork, and beef, sliced off onto your plate in front of you. My favorite restaurant in Japan is of this style, so we decided to go to the chain in America (and Brazil), Fago de Chao. It was really good and I felt ready to explode, but I'd still take Estrela in Kyoto over it. Next, we went to the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta - the biggest aquarium in the world. Lots of fun and took way too many pictures. They had 4 whale sharks that would vaccuum the entire sea into their mouth every so often. The sea dragons were also really cool. The World of Coke museum was just outside the aquarium, but we had heard from numerous sources that it isn't really worth it. We just got a Vanilla Coke out of the vending machine (Mayumi's first Vanilla Coke) and drank it in front of the museum. We headed back to Athens, and at night hung out with Erin from Japan and Katie again. Spanish tapas for dinner, and bar with shuffleboard for drinks. Mayumi and I were the victors.
Day 5!
We wake up and go to breakfast with Katie. Before breakfast, she stops by and buys us a couple big slices of cake made by Ted Turner's personal chef. Then, we had breakfast at Mama's Boy. Mayumi experienced grits for the first time and wasn't a fan. We drive from Athens, GA to Knoxville TN. GPS recommended driving through Atlanta and Chattanooga, but I found out it would only be about 20 minutes longer driving through the mountains. Not really a question of which would be more pleasant. In the mountains of Tennessee, we find a roadside park that was an Olympic site for the Atlanta Olympics. It was for kayaking. We ate the red velvet cake on a rock and swam in the pool of water (without waiting 45 minutes....CRAMPS!) before continuing on to Knoxville.
In Knoxville, we went to the Luchauer's place. I hadn't seen Erik since high school, and hadn't really talked to Sonya since Mrs. Botary's 7th grade class. It was great catching up with them. We had thai food for dinner and followed it up with ice cream at the local high school hangout. Delicious!
Day 6!
Woke up, showered, and played Erik's drum set for about 15 minutes. I'm still bad. Then we drove down to Gatlinburg. Well, most of the way. We stopped at Ripley's Farm Miniature Golf place. We played two games (buying three was almost the same price as buying 1...they're such con men.) We ended up giving away the 3rd game to someone else. After that, we decided to keep driving rather than enter Gatlinburg, so we could get as close to DC as possible. We drove to a city called Rocky Mount and stayed at a Motel 9 that used to be a Super 8. What merits the promotion from 8 to 9? Holes punched in the bathroom door, seedy people hanging around outside, yelling in the hallway at 6am, a broken remote control, and bed bugs. Seriously, Super 8s...That's all you need if you want to make the jump. Oh, we also ate at our first Chick-Fil-A too.
Day 7!
On the road we go, we brunch it up at Cracker Barrel. Neither of us can leave just one remaining peg in their triangle of dooms that they have on each table. We finish the drive to DC and meet up with Naomi, who we taught with in Japan.. She lives on Connecticut, in the middle of everything. We have wine/beer on her rooftop and go out to dinner with some of her friends at a Mom & Pop Korean place. Next, we crash a party - one of her friend's friend's lived there. We hung out there, but Mayumi and I were burping Korean burps. Mayumi was tired, so we took a cab back to Naomi's place.
Day 8!
We wake up and thanks to Facebook, find out that Mike I. - a Michigan Boater the following year - was also in DC. We take that info and store it. Then Naomi and her friend, Gabe, take us all around DC - the grand tour. We see the White House and say Hi to Obama. We wave to the snipers atop the building. We have a bland hot dog from the vendor. We see the Washington monument. We go to the Museum of Natural History. We view the insect zoo inside the Museum of Natural History sponsored by Orkin. We get really sleepy inside the Museum of Natural History. We go to Teaism, a great cafe in DC. Mayumi and I get tea and naan. We sit down, and a couple women come in with strange dolls. They start doing their hair and taking their pictures. One doll is blue with black horns, another has a deer face. One talks about how she just got a new albino. It's all pretty great. I sneak one picture, then decide to ask if I can take a picture. So you'll have a couple doll pictures coming up. Next, we went to the Museum of Modern Art, and treated the museum as our own photography studio. Mayumi and I appreciate art in a different way from most people. Then we took a carousel ride, saw the Lincoln Memorial, and met up with Mike for dinner at the Matchbox. I had a very American burger there. When we finished, the four of us (minus Mike) went to the Russian Tea Room, or at least DC's version of one, and had martinis. It was a dark, ominous room. I imagined there being many secret rooms - in one, Russian Mafia were playing high stakes poker with young Russian women in lingerie serving them drinks, and in another room a cop was getting tortured for knowing too much. Just because I didn't see it doesn't mean it wasn't happening.
Day 9!
We wake up and decide to go back to Teaism for breakfast before moving on to New York. We gather all our stuff, and leave Naomi's apartment (she's long since gone to work). We're carrying everything to our car when, wait, where's our car? We take a second look at the three parking signs stacked on top of each other, and realize that our car wasn't supposed to be parked there from 6-9am on M-F. We were safe on the weekend, but now being 9:30am, we realized our car had been towed. I called the phone number on the sign and a recorded message tells me that my car has been taken to a lot, and I'll need to show my license and registration. The registration must be mine, or I must get a notarized letter from the owner of the car. Now, this scenario presented numerous problems. First, I didn't have my actual driver's license. I was using a temporary license that had been stapled to my old driver's license (my new driver's license came in the mail the day we left for the road trip). This would be fine, BUT my old license got detached from my temporary license, and I somehow lost it the previous day. All I had was the temporary license paper - no photo attached. Next issue is the registration. Of course I didn't have it. It was in the car, like it's supposed to be. Oh, and it's not my car - it's my Mom's....who lives in Michigan. I assume a notarized letter would have to be sent via snail mail. Would they seriously need that? Anyway, I see a traffic enforcement cop and double check where my car would be. She tells me to call a different number. I call that number, eventually am able to speak to a living person, and they connect me with the towing company which tells me my car is at a different spot. Mayumi and I take a taxi to the seedy part of town and I enter a doorway. There's an old apathetic looking man behind glass. I explain they towed my car this morning. He asks what car, I tell him a silver Saturn. He asks for my driver's license, I give him the crumbling temporary license papers. He says he needs something with my picture, I give him my passport. He goes and makes a copy and tells me to drive off. Easy as that. I didn't even need to prove that the car was mine. There's a ticket on the windshield, I'll just have to pay that online at my leisure.
So we drive up to Brooklyn. We ended up paying over $20 in various bridge and highway tolls, but at least the traffic wasn't bad. We head in to Brooklyn to my Aunt & Uncle's place. They live in one of those 4 story buildings all pressed up against each other in Park Slope, a really nice part of Brooklyn. We had the whole top floor to ourselves (they rent out the bottom floor, like most everyone does). We get in, have wine and beer in the garden and catch up. My cousin, Ben, and his new wife, Cara, come over with their two Boston Terriers as well. Mayumi and I last saw them around 6 years ago when we were in NY. We go to dinner at an Asian Fusion type restaurant that was really delicious. Ben & Cara chose the place, Aunt Sally and Uncle Dan paid, and Mayumi and I just benefited from our benevolent hosts. I had some delicious duck and the greatest cocktail - a Dark & Stormy...Ginger Beer and Dark Rum. Mmmm.... Cara treated us to ice cream on the way home, and we went to bed stuffed.
Day 10!
We take a walk with Aunt Sally through Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. After we get back, Mayumi and I head down to the Times Square area. We fill up on Cheesecake, and tea (or coffee) then go to see Shree, Dan, Alan, and Efrem - a JET All-Star Reunion, supplemented by Dan's roommate, Ian. It was great to see everyone again. It wasn't all-you-can-eat, all-you-can-drink, like Japanese beer gardens, but we still ended up spending less. I went for Sangrias and pulled pork, while Mayumi did Sam Adams Cherry Wheat and chicken fingers. It was just a great group of people.
Day 11!
Mayumi and I went to the Japanese area of town, near NYU and got ramen at Ippudo. It was very authentic. Half the wait staff was Japanese, and the other half seemed to speak fluently. The only thing inauthentic was the price - about double what one would pay for ramen in Japan. Oh well, we had a hankerin'. When we got out, it started storming, so we hopped into a bookstore for about a half hour. Thunder like I haven't heard in years - we don't get too much in Japan. It's kind of a nostalgic sound.
In the evening, we barbecued with the family. My other cousin, Adam, and his girlfriend, Young, came as well. It was my first time ever seeing a post-pubescant Adam - I hadn't seen him in about 15 years. It was my first time meeting Young, Korean born, Nashville raised. She was really nice. Of course it was Mayumi's first time meeting either of them. Aunt Sally barbecued burgers and hot dogs in the rain and we reminisced on the old days at Grandpa's house - and the horrors of Sign of the Beefcarver.
Day 12!
We went out to Central Park and walked around for a couple hours, tiring ourselves out. We had lunch at this place that had horribly gigantic sized burgers. I had a 7 oz. "Beefburger Wyoming Style". Yeah, that's as bad as it sounds. The mammoth burger had bacon on it and was covered in barbecue sauce. I inflated like a balloon. Then we met up with Devin! Our old roommate and good friend. We walked, talked, and drank Oi Ocha (distributed in NY now!!!) We went to Birdland, the famous jazz club. Duke Ellington's grandson, Paul, was the bandleader the last time we were there. This time around, Lou Donaldson, student of Charlie Parker, headed the band in town. Great jazz, incredible BBQ wings, and wonderful company. The drummer and pianist were both Japanese. Afterward, Devin went in search of a certain bar to go to, couldn't find it, so we went to some Bleaker St. sports bar. We had the honor of watching the most surreal scene of an old balding man walk up to the photo booth in the bar, and just stare at it for minutes on end. He then caressed parts of it before walking out of the bar. It made my night. We knew nothing could top that, so we said our goodbyes.
Day 13!
The trip from Brooklyn back to Michigan. There was a nasty accident that happened on the highway, probably just about 10 minutes ahead of us. There were about 6 cars/semis involved. One semi was flame-seared, cars were crushed, and another semi was deep in the ditch without its trailer a half mile down the road. We got through that and some construction to get home at precisely 11:59, saving me from the hassle of writing about a Day 14.
Oh, and I know there isn't as much impact without photographic evidence, but that will be coming once we get back to Japan this weekend.
Day 1!
Mayumi and I left around 9am. First stop? Lunch with Nate! Nate lives in Westfield, Indiana. A well-to-do town that has creepy lifelike statues of people. An old lady carrying a bag of groceries, a little child with a watering can, and a fat man permanently hogging a third of a bench. Nate told us the creator of voice mail lives in the town, along with the irony of him having his phone number unlisted. I really want to hear his message, too. "Hi, I'm not in right now, but you can leave a message. Thanks to me." At least that's how I imagine it goes. Nate treated us to some great pizza, tea, and root beer. It was wonderful and a surprising late addition to the road trip itinerary.
We continued on and hit Cave City, Kentucky by nightfall. Checked into the Super 8 (living the high life) and went out in search of dinner. We probably had our best meal of the night here, at a small little place called Rosie's Kitchen. The outside was pretty unappealing, but inside was a bundle of deliciousness. It was an all you can eat buffet. Mayumi loved the salad dressing. It came in spray-on bottles. There wasn't a lot of selection, but what they had was great. Homemade fried chicken, and ribs that were cooked outside, with 3 homemade sauces. So tender, so wonderful. This is what really got my belly to start hitting American Size.
At night, I realized I didn't bring any socks on the road trip, which I'd need with non-sandalled shoes. A Walmart in the next town was the only thing open. Mayumi and I listened to country music on the radio all the way to Walmart and then watched shirtless guys fighting in the Walmart parking lot next to their pick up truck, before laughing it off. I was happy to show Mayumi this little slice of culture.
Day 2!
We wake up, rock the Super 8 breakfast, and go caving. We do the 4.5 hour cave hike, including the timeless lunch in the Snowball Room. They surprised us with a new "No Bags" rule being implemented by Homeland Security (Note to Homeland Security: I don't think caves are a prime bomb target). Since we had decided to take our own lunch, that meant stuffing sandwiches, carrot sticks, and granola bars into our pockets. The cave tour was fun. I had done it when I was younger, but it was Mayumi's first time. Afterward, I pondered getting a KY hat from the gift shop ahead. It would be funny to wear in Japan for it's Japanese meaning - or at least a good gag gift.
After the hike, we moved on to Nashville, where we met up with Ashley, Yosuke, and their two kids. I worked with Ashley on the Michigan Boat, and knew Yosuke from LCC/MSU (before he knew Ashley). We all met up with Cara, who I worked with at Mongolian BBQ, at Dave & Buster's, a truly American Restaurant/Bar/Arcade/Bowl
ing Alley/Whatever Else. We ate then gamed then went back to the Onuki's place. Yosuke served me up a tall glass of shochu and tea, and I was out.
Day 3!
We go back into Nashville to find the legendary Mexican Popsicle place. It doesn't open until noon, so we use the GPS to find a restaurant to do lunch first. The Frothy Monkey has a nice name and is nearby, so we check it out. It's an internet cafe. A soup and salad later, and we're back to the Mexican Popsicle place. Mayumi gets a Rice popsicle, and I get Hibiscus. After, we shared a Lime. The most interesting flavor they had was Cucumber/Chili Pepper.
We moved on from Nashville to Athens, Georgia. On the way, we hit rush hour traffic in Atlanta. One of the worst cities for traffic in the US. It wasn't pretty, and we ended up in stop and go traffic before realizing there was a car pool lane that was at least slow go, instead of stop and go. We go to Katie M's house in Athens and meet her family before she arrives home. Her sister cooked a great dinner for us. It was strange meeting her sister - same style of speech, same mannerisms, just different hair color. Katie has a big family and they were all really nice. Katie hooks us up with her bedroom, which is like a mini-apartment above the garage. At night, we go out to a brewery where her and Mayumi drink cheap beer and I drink girlie drinks. Later, my friend Lisa from high school joins us. We move on to another bar which has a game called cornhole - at least that's what I think it was called. It involves throwing bean bags into an inclining wooden plank with holes in it. More fun than the description. Lisa and I dominated.
Day 4!
It's almost 4am now and I'm tired. To Be Continued!
(Being continued at 1pm the next day)
Mayumi and I woke up and went into Atlanta. While in Atlanta, we heard on the radio that they were having record low temperatures, dropping into the lower 70s at night. Brrr! We had our sights set on some Churrascaria - the Brazilian restaurants with a salad bar and an unlimited amount of chicken, pork, beef, and bacon wrapped chicken, pork, and beef, sliced off onto your plate in front of you. My favorite restaurant in Japan is of this style, so we decided to go to the chain in America (and Brazil), Fago de Chao. It was really good and I felt ready to explode, but I'd still take Estrela in Kyoto over it. Next, we went to the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta - the biggest aquarium in the world. Lots of fun and took way too many pictures. They had 4 whale sharks that would vaccuum the entire sea into their mouth every so often. The sea dragons were also really cool. The World of Coke museum was just outside the aquarium, but we had heard from numerous sources that it isn't really worth it. We just got a Vanilla Coke out of the vending machine (Mayumi's first Vanilla Coke) and drank it in front of the museum. We headed back to Athens, and at night hung out with Erin from Japan and Katie again. Spanish tapas for dinner, and bar with shuffleboard for drinks. Mayumi and I were the victors.
Day 5!
We wake up and go to breakfast with Katie. Before breakfast, she stops by and buys us a couple big slices of cake made by Ted Turner's personal chef. Then, we had breakfast at Mama's Boy. Mayumi experienced grits for the first time and wasn't a fan. We drive from Athens, GA to Knoxville TN. GPS recommended driving through Atlanta and Chattanooga, but I found out it would only be about 20 minutes longer driving through the mountains. Not really a question of which would be more pleasant. In the mountains of Tennessee, we find a roadside park that was an Olympic site for the Atlanta Olympics. It was for kayaking. We ate the red velvet cake on a rock and swam in the pool of water (without waiting 45 minutes....CRAMPS!) before continuing on to Knoxville.
In Knoxville, we went to the Luchauer's place. I hadn't seen Erik since high school, and hadn't really talked to Sonya since Mrs. Botary's 7th grade class. It was great catching up with them. We had thai food for dinner and followed it up with ice cream at the local high school hangout. Delicious!
Day 6!
Woke up, showered, and played Erik's drum set for about 15 minutes. I'm still bad. Then we drove down to Gatlinburg. Well, most of the way. We stopped at Ripley's Farm Miniature Golf place. We played two games (buying three was almost the same price as buying 1...they're such con men.) We ended up giving away the 3rd game to someone else. After that, we decided to keep driving rather than enter Gatlinburg, so we could get as close to DC as possible. We drove to a city called Rocky Mount and stayed at a Motel 9 that used to be a Super 8. What merits the promotion from 8 to 9? Holes punched in the bathroom door, seedy people hanging around outside, yelling in the hallway at 6am, a broken remote control, and bed bugs. Seriously, Super 8s...That's all you need if you want to make the jump. Oh, we also ate at our first Chick-Fil-A too.
Day 7!
On the road we go, we brunch it up at Cracker Barrel. Neither of us can leave just one remaining peg in their triangle of dooms that they have on each table. We finish the drive to DC and meet up with Naomi, who we taught with in Japan.. She lives on Connecticut, in the middle of everything. We have wine/beer on her rooftop and go out to dinner with some of her friends at a Mom & Pop Korean place. Next, we crash a party - one of her friend's friend's lived there. We hung out there, but Mayumi and I were burping Korean burps. Mayumi was tired, so we took a cab back to Naomi's place.
Day 8!
We wake up and thanks to Facebook, find out that Mike I. - a Michigan Boater the following year - was also in DC. We take that info and store it. Then Naomi and her friend, Gabe, take us all around DC - the grand tour. We see the White House and say Hi to Obama. We wave to the snipers atop the building. We have a bland hot dog from the vendor. We see the Washington monument. We go to the Museum of Natural History. We view the insect zoo inside the Museum of Natural History sponsored by Orkin. We get really sleepy inside the Museum of Natural History. We go to Teaism, a great cafe in DC. Mayumi and I get tea and naan. We sit down, and a couple women come in with strange dolls. They start doing their hair and taking their pictures. One doll is blue with black horns, another has a deer face. One talks about how she just got a new albino. It's all pretty great. I sneak one picture, then decide to ask if I can take a picture. So you'll have a couple doll pictures coming up. Next, we went to the Museum of Modern Art, and treated the museum as our own photography studio. Mayumi and I appreciate art in a different way from most people. Then we took a carousel ride, saw the Lincoln Memorial, and met up with Mike for dinner at the Matchbox. I had a very American burger there. When we finished, the four of us (minus Mike) went to the Russian Tea Room, or at least DC's version of one, and had martinis. It was a dark, ominous room. I imagined there being many secret rooms - in one, Russian Mafia were playing high stakes poker with young Russian women in lingerie serving them drinks, and in another room a cop was getting tortured for knowing too much. Just because I didn't see it doesn't mean it wasn't happening.
Day 9!
We wake up and decide to go back to Teaism for breakfast before moving on to New York. We gather all our stuff, and leave Naomi's apartment (she's long since gone to work). We're carrying everything to our car when, wait, where's our car? We take a second look at the three parking signs stacked on top of each other, and realize that our car wasn't supposed to be parked there from 6-9am on M-F. We were safe on the weekend, but now being 9:30am, we realized our car had been towed. I called the phone number on the sign and a recorded message tells me that my car has been taken to a lot, and I'll need to show my license and registration. The registration must be mine, or I must get a notarized letter from the owner of the car. Now, this scenario presented numerous problems. First, I didn't have my actual driver's license. I was using a temporary license that had been stapled to my old driver's license (my new driver's license came in the mail the day we left for the road trip). This would be fine, BUT my old license got detached from my temporary license, and I somehow lost it the previous day. All I had was the temporary license paper - no photo attached. Next issue is the registration. Of course I didn't have it. It was in the car, like it's supposed to be. Oh, and it's not my car - it's my Mom's....who lives in Michigan. I assume a notarized letter would have to be sent via snail mail. Would they seriously need that? Anyway, I see a traffic enforcement cop and double check where my car would be. She tells me to call a different number. I call that number, eventually am able to speak to a living person, and they connect me with the towing company which tells me my car is at a different spot. Mayumi and I take a taxi to the seedy part of town and I enter a doorway. There's an old apathetic looking man behind glass. I explain they towed my car this morning. He asks what car, I tell him a silver Saturn. He asks for my driver's license, I give him the crumbling temporary license papers. He says he needs something with my picture, I give him my passport. He goes and makes a copy and tells me to drive off. Easy as that. I didn't even need to prove that the car was mine. There's a ticket on the windshield, I'll just have to pay that online at my leisure.
So we drive up to Brooklyn. We ended up paying over $20 in various bridge and highway tolls, but at least the traffic wasn't bad. We head in to Brooklyn to my Aunt & Uncle's place. They live in one of those 4 story buildings all pressed up against each other in Park Slope, a really nice part of Brooklyn. We had the whole top floor to ourselves (they rent out the bottom floor, like most everyone does). We get in, have wine and beer in the garden and catch up. My cousin, Ben, and his new wife, Cara, come over with their two Boston Terriers as well. Mayumi and I last saw them around 6 years ago when we were in NY. We go to dinner at an Asian Fusion type restaurant that was really delicious. Ben & Cara chose the place, Aunt Sally and Uncle Dan paid, and Mayumi and I just benefited from our benevolent hosts. I had some delicious duck and the greatest cocktail - a Dark & Stormy...Ginger Beer and Dark Rum. Mmmm.... Cara treated us to ice cream on the way home, and we went to bed stuffed.
Day 10!
We take a walk with Aunt Sally through Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. After we get back, Mayumi and I head down to the Times Square area. We fill up on Cheesecake, and tea (or coffee) then go to see Shree, Dan, Alan, and Efrem - a JET All-Star Reunion, supplemented by Dan's roommate, Ian. It was great to see everyone again. It wasn't all-you-can-eat, all-you-can-drink, like Japanese beer gardens, but we still ended up spending less. I went for Sangrias and pulled pork, while Mayumi did Sam Adams Cherry Wheat and chicken fingers. It was just a great group of people.
Day 11!
Mayumi and I went to the Japanese area of town, near NYU and got ramen at Ippudo. It was very authentic. Half the wait staff was Japanese, and the other half seemed to speak fluently. The only thing inauthentic was the price - about double what one would pay for ramen in Japan. Oh well, we had a hankerin'. When we got out, it started storming, so we hopped into a bookstore for about a half hour. Thunder like I haven't heard in years - we don't get too much in Japan. It's kind of a nostalgic sound.
In the evening, we barbecued with the family. My other cousin, Adam, and his girlfriend, Young, came as well. It was my first time ever seeing a post-pubescant Adam - I hadn't seen him in about 15 years. It was my first time meeting Young, Korean born, Nashville raised. She was really nice. Of course it was Mayumi's first time meeting either of them. Aunt Sally barbecued burgers and hot dogs in the rain and we reminisced on the old days at Grandpa's house - and the horrors of Sign of the Beefcarver.
Day 12!
We went out to Central Park and walked around for a couple hours, tiring ourselves out. We had lunch at this place that had horribly gigantic sized burgers. I had a 7 oz. "Beefburger Wyoming Style". Yeah, that's as bad as it sounds. The mammoth burger had bacon on it and was covered in barbecue sauce. I inflated like a balloon. Then we met up with Devin! Our old roommate and good friend. We walked, talked, and drank Oi Ocha (distributed in NY now!!!) We went to Birdland, the famous jazz club. Duke Ellington's grandson, Paul, was the bandleader the last time we were there. This time around, Lou Donaldson, student of Charlie Parker, headed the band in town. Great jazz, incredible BBQ wings, and wonderful company. The drummer and pianist were both Japanese. Afterward, Devin went in search of a certain bar to go to, couldn't find it, so we went to some Bleaker St. sports bar. We had the honor of watching the most surreal scene of an old balding man walk up to the photo booth in the bar, and just stare at it for minutes on end. He then caressed parts of it before walking out of the bar. It made my night. We knew nothing could top that, so we said our goodbyes.
Day 13!
The trip from Brooklyn back to Michigan. There was a nasty accident that happened on the highway, probably just about 10 minutes ahead of us. There were about 6 cars/semis involved. One semi was flame-seared, cars were crushed, and another semi was deep in the ditch without its trailer a half mile down the road. We got through that and some construction to get home at precisely 11:59, saving me from the hassle of writing about a Day 14.