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sake: japanese for water, july 1 - 15, 2001
July 15, 2001 16:12
i started to reply to a mail sarah wrote and began telling a story. then i thought, hmm...i'd like to tell other people this story. then i thought, hmm...i'll make a list of people who might find that story interesting. so i put all you kids on it, thinking that ideally i'd write you guys every week to keep you uptodate with anything interesting that happened here in japan. but if you're worried about receiving thousands of mass mails from me, then you don't know me very well. most likely i'll get one out a month. but if i have something interesting, i'll send it along. if you know of anyone who i left off the list who might like to receive steve updates, hook me up with their addresses. anyway, so this week's story...,
i went out with the boss and some kids last friday, we drank from ...let's see, 5:30 to 10 something. ha. this is not uncommon in japan. tsukiai drinking is when the real decisions and communication takes place. although not always the case, a lot of times people use after work drinking to let out their complaints and true opinions about things, though they keep them in when asked at work. and of course, drinking is just fun. so anyway, we had lots of beer, with lots of japanese food that you usually only eat with beer, yakitori (chickkabobs...), karaage (fried chicken chunks), and nankotsu (chicken cartiledge-my favorite). oh, and then my next favorite (not really) shiokara (literally it means salty and spicy- it refers to, however, salty, spicy, slimy squid. yum.) i couldn't eat all mine, but neither could another japanese guy sitting next to me. he said it wasn't the best he'd had. i have had better myself. we generously gave our leftovers to my boss, who explained that it tasted so much better when mixed with rice and natto, or gooey, decomposed soy beans. i think he was dropped as a child.
anyway, after a bunch of beer it was time for the traditional nijikai (as i said before, the second party). we bought japanese sake for a gift to take over to my boss's old boss's house to bring as payment or letting us use his house to drink it in. ha. that was great. we sat and talked with this old japanese guy who started out with nice straight white teeth, but soon gave way to his more comfortable, more humorous, more natural dental state of maybe three or four sparsely located upper mincers. his gummy laugh filled up most of the japanese style room as we argued about beer preferences, the baseball team, and consuming the ether alcoholic rice wine like water. oh man...,if i would have known the effects of rubbing aclohol in chemistry class...my coworker passed out on the tatami mat floor as i talked with the lady of the house about the traditional japanese deco she had going on. it's amazing how well foriegn languages flow when you're drinking. maybe you just don't realize how horrible your grammar is...or just don't care, but a couple of drinks and i felt like a native. ha. anyway, none of us able to take any more and remain semi-sane, we then walked ... no staggered about 3km back home.
ah...yeah, we'll have to do something like that if someone decides to come visit. speaking of which, there are tons of places you can see, lots of temples and interesting people, and crazy ass stuff you can eat. for example, went to tokyo this weekend with a bunch of friends from tsukuba. my tall japanese friend named shun is going to palau to teach kids phys ed. haha. he's going to be in a tropical paradise for 2 or 3 years where in the winter, since it's cold, the only good sport is scuba diving. lucky bastard... anyway, we had a farewell party for him, so we went to tokyo's kabukicho, which has to be the most seediest place in all of the world. haha. not really, but we walked past some shady shady places, places where my friend cam admitted that it would probably be more interesting if we didn't have the girls. anyway, we went to a korean sashimi place where they brought out tons and tons of raw squishy sea things to eat. i ate jellyfish, some slimy chewy thing like an eel, fish guts, raw snails pulled right from the shell, and uh...lots of other stuff i can't even remember the name of but i know it was raw and squishy. the snails were the best out of the strange stuff, with a pleasant salty taste. everything was very fresh. oh, then the main course came out. two huge split open raw fish, eyes and mouth smiling, with all the meat cut beautifully laying on top of a bed of daicon (japanese raddishes). that was excellent. i must have eaten 15 pieces. but the korean style of eating it is interesting, you take a leaf of lettuce, a leaf of some kind of spicy plant (i don't know what it is but in japanese it's called sanshuu), put in a huge slice of garlic, a slice or a really spicy pepper, and some of that great spicy korean red sauce. then throw in a piece of sashimi, wad it up and stuff it in your mouth in one gulp. without a doubt, i ate the most spiciest, slimiest, rawish, crap i've ever had in my entire life. i was surprised with the jellyfish though, it was crunchy, and rather good. i've decided that the secret to eating raw, dead, slimy things is not to not relish their slimy succulance while they are in your mouth, but instead, bask in the glory of your success of actually swallowing it. only then are you sometimes rewarded with a rather pleasant after taste.
wow, ok, enough of all the food talk. i'm getting hungry. so, until something interesting happens to me again, i'm off. today's mission: buy a broom and a bicycle..........oh and food.