Seduction

All by myself, submerged in a culture definitely not my own, I find myself being seduced by a man. He follows me around the city, a whisper in my ear when I need it the most. He makes my heart race and my cheeks warm—at times, my lips match his.

He is Robin Thicke and he is on repeat on my iPod. I am Lost Without him and only wish he’d Teach me a lesson or two about love...
...

So today was Nagoya day and boy was I ever glad that I had Robin with me. While
there were things to see, I wasn’t so hot on them. Nagoya is a city, but not as big or bright as Tokyo. Nagoya has shopping, but nothing as unique or artsy as Osaka. Nagoya has temples and shrines, but nothing as quaint as Morioka. Best I got was my favourite dish of noodles from vending machine!

Well, not quite.

I don’t know if you know, but here, some restaurants are simply food counters and no one handles any cash. Instead, you buy a ticket for the meal you want from the vending machine out front, and then exchange that ticket for your food.

Unfortunately I couldn’t read the buttons, but I knew that I wanted what the other guy was having. Luckily, the chef was nice enough to come out and help me figure out which button I wanted to push. I was going to ask the other diner himself, but the chef noticed my lost-ness first.

I ALMOST bought a Jinglish (or, according to Jean and Mrs. G “Japlish”) shirt for myself, but I didn’t think it was ridiculous enough. I should have bought that other one in Morioka instead.

Oh, right, did I finish up about that? (Did I even mention Osaka?) Alright, let’s get in gear here.

I think my highlight of Morioka was nothing that I saw, but was something I did.
And I literally didn’t have to leave home to do it. And by home I mean, Jean’s.

Jean and Mrs. G have been teaching English in Morioka for almost 2 years now and during this time they’ve been living in a small town-house sort of building. It’s fairly nice—two floors, a living room, and all the amenities. Oh, and it’s got rice paper windows. That’s right, rice for windows. While this adds to the aesthetic appeal of the place, it doesn’t help the fact that they’ve got no central heating at all.

The whole time that we were at the house, the three of us huddled upstairs in area with the space heaters, and then bundled up under the blankets for the night. I personally didn’t find it that bad (c’mon, I was a Girl Guide in CANADA), but it was definitely different to be able to wake up and see your breath in the morning...while you’re brushing your teeth. That was definitely my favourite experience while staying there.

My second favourite experience while in Morioka was the meal we had together that night. We tried a style of dining called Wangu Soba which is basically an all-you-can-eat style, except that they serve you in bite-sized portions at a time. The table is set with your bowl, a backwash bowl, an assortment of dressings, and a box of matchsticks. The procedure is as follows: You get noodles dumped in your bowl from the huge tray of bite-sized portioned bowl the waitress is standing there holding, you dress the noodles, you slurp the noodles, dump the excess liquid into the backwash bowl, count your bowl with a matchstick, and hold your bowl out for more which the waitress promptly delivers.

I ate 55 bowls, Mrs. G managed somewhere between 60-70, and Jean slurped an astounding 86 bowls of soba (soba, by the way, is the kind of noodle they serve you). I think I would have liked a little more had the lady not had to loom over us with her tray of noodles, and if I had known how to ask for a refill on all the dressings. I like to take the moments between bowls to add stuff to them, while the other two seemed content with just quantity. Either way, it was YUM.



I can’t believe I neglected Osaka like that. I guess it was because I was all caught up with my Bad Luck Fortune Fortune.

So yes, my Osaka stay started off with that beautiful meal of sashimi with SD. That night, Squiggly and I took off to wander the streets on our own, getting acquainted with our surroundings. We found tons within the little alleys around our hotel (most memorable was probably that stress squeezer that was a single boob—nipple and all—that I should have bought or at LEAST have taken a picture of) but didn’t do too much as both of us wimped out early with angry feet.

The rest of the weekend was successfully filled by SD’s purchase of a train pass that also included free admission to a ba-gillion tourist locations. We only made it to a handful, but it was WAY more than worth it.






So, next (I’d say “tomorrow” but I don’t know when I’ll get around to being not-lazy enough and actually post this) I’m off to an out-lying area of Nagoya with a CASTLE! I’d go farther, but then I’d be stranding Squiggly seeing as I have the only room key between the two of us.  Despite the prospect of it being much more eventful than today, I think I’m still going to take Professor Thicke along for the ride—I think I’m seriously falling for this guy!