Okonomiyaki
Today my temporary roommate Zach and I hit the town to find a bite to eat. Very few places were open, maybe because it was early Sunday (around noon), but we did manage to find a small Japanese restaurant that was serving food. I tried okonomiyaki, which is like a plate-sized pancake/potato cake with vegetables and meat inside. I had ika (squid) in mine, and it was mighty tasty. I tried to finish the whole plate, but hungry as I was I just couldn't do it. The food wasn't what made the restaurant so great, though. It was the people. The owner (Tanaka-san, a tiny old man whose Japanese I cannot understand) and two guys at the counter talked with my friend and I, asking questions like where we are from, if we are students at the university, how old we are, have we ever tried Japanese food before, etc. It was a great opportunity to practice my Japanese, and the people were very nice- they couldn't speak a lick of English, so they were very patient with my broken Japanese. And one of the guys at the counter even bought food for my friend and I. First he bought us watermelon slices- very fresh and sweet- and told us to try it with salt (it's supposed to make the taste sweeter). It's not bad, but I prefer no salt on my fruits. Then he gave us these tomato slices which were pretty good, and then he gave us this plate of cucumbers and mayonnaise. A winning combination in my opinion; my friends didn't like it very much so I ate almost the entire plate. The owner tried to explain the word tsukemono to us, and kept referring to vegetables, water, salt, and cucumbers and cabbage, but we couldn't figure out the relationship. I'll have to look up the word in my dictionary later. After the food, we got to watch a game of Japanese chess (Shogi)- it seems very complicated. My roommate was following the game pretty well, though. Then using the same game board and pieces the people at the restaurant showed us another game where you throw down tiles and move around the edge of the chess board. Now this one I really didn't understand at all. But the next game was really simple: the game tiles were thrown into a box, then the open box was slammed down onto the board quickly and removed so the tiles were stacked upon one another, and you had to use your finger as a levy to make the tiles stand on end. The trick is, if the tile falls flat then you lose your turn. I guess it's kind of like jenga meets pick-up-sticks. It's harder than it looks, because those wooden tiles have a tendency to slip on the board. So after an hour or two of fun conversation and games, we left the restaurant. A fantastic place with very friendly people that I plan to eat at again.