The Weekend

Saturday there wasn't a cloud in the sky. When I entered the base gate I could see the snow topped mountains, which I've never seen from there. I was on my way to the math workshop and of course didn't have my camera on me. I really want a photo of those mountains and it doesn't seem often that we have clear skies and they can be seen well. I believe one is a volcano and it's just absolutely beautiful.

On Saturday we typically go out to try a new restaurant. This use to be exciting for me until most Japanese food turned out to be disappointing. I don't like pork or seafood much and they love to cook it here. I can understand the seafood since we're on an island, but I'm not sure about the pork fetish. They seem to cook the food in such a way that the smell and flavor is extremely strong. Which is great if you love pork and seafood, but if you tolerate it like me, you will probably find it disgusting. The Japanese love ramen noodles and there are tons of ramen shops around. When you order a bowel of ramen, they bring a huge bowl of ramen soup. They add vegetables, boiled eggs, and meat usually. I ordered a pork ramen soup one time that Miiko recommended and I thought I'd be safe because it wasn't seafood. Wrong. They love to add paper seaweed to the majority of their dishes! So now I had in front of me a huge bowl of noodles, soup, veggies, pork and seaweed giving it a strong fishy odor and flavor. Not that surprising, I didn't finish every last ounce like everyone else at the table.
After spending a month in South Korea and three months in Japan, you would think I could eat with chopsticks by now. I loved the training chopsticks Pierce bought me and the small rubber trainer I took from Erica, but unfortunately I lost them pretty quick. At least I entertain Gian with my chopstick skills. He loves to watch me eat, he says it's pitiful. He's tried to teach me numerous times, but it just is not clicking.
I don't understand why they use Chopsticks anyway. A fork and spoon is by far easier. We always wondered why the Asians were the smart kids in school. Living here I know why now. They have a complicated language made up of three sub languages that take them till their senior year in high school to learn. So between making their life complicated with such a difficult language, they use chopsticks to eat. I could keep up at dinner if I ate with a fork and a spoon.
Gian loves how it is customary to slurp away when you're eating soup and how it's completely acceptable. I still can't find myself to do it and remind him when he's home we don't slurp our food up! I feel like a pig that has brought it's head close to the bowl to slurp and chow down. And like a pig would, the slurping causes splashing and so I feel greasy all around my mouth.
So Saturday we went to a ramen house Miiko told us was good and Gian's been wanting to go. It was a tiny hole in the wall with a counter and stools that wrapped around the kitchen. We ate at the counter, but there was also an area where you remove your shoes and sit on the floor with a low table to eat. I prefer the stools. I don't know how they keep their feet from falling asleep from sitting on the floor for so long. Guess they're just use to it, along with using chopsticks. The menu only has ramen soups and I remember one have lard in the description. Their favorite ingredients seemed to be lard and butter. Yum.
I ordered the mountain veggie ramen soup expecting to see a bowl filled with giant broccoli, carrots, etc. The only veggies I saw were small green beans and Asian onions. The rest was ramen and soup. When they were bringing the food to us one of the bowls had a large seaweed paper sticking out of it. I just hoped it wasn't mine, but nope, it was Gian's. He absolutely loves the food here. At least they have fantastic bakeries and pastry shops to make up for the food. Everyone in the states thinks we're living in food heaven because of what they think is Japanese food. I'm sure I made Grandpa and Grandma laugh when they asked in their last letter if I found somewhere to eat besides McDonald's. Sure did, and it's the best Mexican restaurant ever! The good thing about this ramen house was that I found a dish that was edible, although I didn't care to finish it. It wasn't worth the calories in my opinion. I can't find a photo online and I didn't want to take one at the restaurant cause I'm sure they would have thought of it as ill mannered, but at the barn on the shelf above us were these bowls and inside of them looked like pork in a net. But, the pork was seemed to be pure fat, perhaps this is where they got their lard! It sort of killed my appetite, good thing I wasn't that hungry. Towards the end of the meal they put more bowls up on the shelf and one had cooked pig feet. Glad I didn't get one of those in my soup and saw that after I decided I was finished eating.

After dinner we went to the movies to see Valkyrie. The story of an attempt to assassinate Hitler. Too bad it didn't work and since the history books didn't say Hitler died this way, we sort of knew where they were going with the story. It was a total dude flick, but Gian accompanies me to plenty of chick flicks so I was his date.

Today we tried to get the prelude washed but there was a huge line and learned from Saturday to never wait in that line again. I took the blue beast to get washed and it took an hour. So instead, today we bought car detailing products so we can just avoid going to the car wash machine. Later we ended up in the Miss Veedol plaza looking for a hundred yen shop. We didn't find the shop, but we bought yummy chocolate bread. We had lunch at McDonald's and it just reminded me how I can't wait to take my friends there because it just beats stateside McDonald's by a mile. At the hundred yen shop we bought some office supplies and random knickknacks. They're very popular here and for good reason. They're nothing like dollar shops at home and they have such a huge selection and decent quality for just a yen. The ones at home seem to have cheap junk, but not here! Often you can find things there for a dollar that would cost a couple dollars elsewhere. My favorite thing to do there is to read the English descriptions. It's so bizarre. I think they translate Japanese directly to English and that's why it comes out so bad. Or do they really mean to say those things? Who knows...

We had dinner at home and the pasta came out great now that I got the right sauce for it. Good thing mom is a great cook because I'd be really deprived here without her recipes! Math test is tomorrow and that marks the six week mark for this class, so only two more weeks! I can't wait for it to be over. Yesterday I started to gather my scholarships information for next semester and saw I missed the deadline, oops. If there is no way around it, I'll be taking two months off because it's worth it two wait two months versus paying $1300. Maybe I'll get lucky and will get a job interview, or find good volunteer work.