７月２１日Day 118: Yakiniku, Gyoza, and Finals

Today, my friends and I went to Ginza for our last yakiniku tabehoudai trip.

I probably ate my weight in meat at this restaurant. It was so cheap, only ¥1,200 for all you can eat for an hour. It's also the only restaurant in the whole of Tokyo with Diet Coke. I suspect this cheap price (and presence of aspartame-sweetened beverages) can be attributed to the fact that owner and clientele of this place are both Chinese. I don't think this statement is racist at all-- Chinese people have a very sensible idea of how to get people to buy things-- MAKE THEM CHEAP (and made by 5-year-olds in a sweatshop). But in all seriousness, NO ONE was speaking Japanese in that restaurant. If they were, it was clearly their second language, a mere bridge that all the foreigners hesitantly crossed to get waiters to change their table grills.

We ate fast, we ate a lot, then we went to a toy store.

I went home with a belly full of meat and (for some reason) complete motivation to study for my impending doom err... finals.

Unfortunately, upon my arrival to the lounge, where most of my studying goes down, I heard the mouth watering sound of the gyoza van:

GYOOOOOOOZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA♪

GYOOOOOOOOOZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA♫

The entire time I've lived in Heiwadai, I've been trying to hunt down this goddamn van. I heard it once, wasn't hungry and never heard it again. I thought the ramen van was satisfactory as far as four-wheeled oily Japanese snacks go, but then my friends started getting the gyoza while I wasn't around...

I heard tales of its delciousness and grew jealous and spiteful. Why hadn't I found the van? How did the driver know to come by Azalea while I wasn't there? Was he secretly watching my every move, hounding the train station waiting for me to leave Azalea House so he could tempt all the other kiddies with his deep fried dumplings!?

Today, I heard the old man's voice cry out from the van again... The proverbial ice cream man of Heiwadai. That voice... that scraggly old Japanese voice... advertising the gyoza, taunting me with it's greasy goodness knowing that I had just essentially consumed a Chinese cow in Ginza a mere hour before... another wasted opportunity, another wasted day. Another day without that goddamn gyoza.

"Not today," I said, "NOT TODAY."

I shamelessly stormed out of the lounge, wallet in hand, and got some yasai gyoza. 12 pieces for ¥500, not bad.

The van promised it in done in 3 minutes (without using water... wtf?), but it was closer to 5. The longest 5 minutes of my gyoza-consuming life. I thanked him kindly and skipped merrily on my way.

I brought the greasy morsels up to the lounge and ate 9 of them, while my friends Fady and Harriet consumed 3 between them. We were all already full, but that didn't stop the gyoza from excreting its juicy deep-fried goodness into all of our eager mouths.

It was almost a religious out of body experience.

... considering the amount of beef we had recently devoured, this gyoza-inspired euphoria might have also been indication of some sort of delirium brought on by mad cow...

But hey, the guy included individually-packaged soy sauce and ponzu. That's not the mad cow talking, THAT's craftsmanship.

OH! And that's not even the extent of my morbidly obese day!

My good friend Oski sent me a care package from the good ol' U S of A complete with Mac & Cheese, coconut-covered marshmallows, blue raspberry Twizzlers, M&M's (peanut AND regular), Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Twix, Pop Tarts, Twilight-themed candy hearts(...?), and an awesome mix CD! PLUS: menus and pamphlets of all his favorite places in New York that I have to visit the next time I go.

...AND WHAT HAVE THE REST OF YOU SENT ME, EH? It's not too late! 10 days left! Haha, only kidding...

Not about the 10 days though.

Omg, I'm not ready to go home.

~☆ : THANKS OSKI : ☆~

６月１５日 Day 83: The Best Midnight Snack EVER

Yesterday at about 11:45pm, my friend Nick and I were hungry. On our way to 711, we ran across a ramen truck and feasted. Epically.

The ramen truck is basically what it sounds like, a truck that sells and makes ramen. The trunk is essentially a huge hot plate with basins of boiling water. It was cheap, convenient, and ridiculously satisfying.

We were already about half way to 711 and the driver was kind enough to drive behind us all the way back to our apartment to make our ramen. He then told us to get our own bowls so we could take it back inside with us. He had cases of fresh chashu, bamboo, egg, kamaboko and onions. Delicious, and environmentally friendly. AMAZING. And it was only 600円, ALSO AMAZING.

To wash it all down, Nick and I watched some Frasier while we slurped away at our bowls of greasy Japanese goodness. Needless to say, we were very, very happy with our midnight snack. To think, American college students have to boil their own crappy instant ramen. WE GET IT DELIVERED--FRESH!! d(^O^)b

Jealous?

Today, to make up for that horribly irresponsible, yet strangely fulfilling midnight snack, I went for a run with my friend Jordan in 65% humidity. I felt sticky all day because my foot-length skirt basically serves as a portable steam-room for my legs, so I thought the running would cool me down and also make me feel a little less guilty about the ramen. I WAS DYING. The sun wasn't even out when we were running at about 6pm and I was sweating buckets. I also forgot to take my make-up off before we started running, so I'm almost certain I was racooning it all the way home.

Whatever, it was worth it for that ramen X}

４月２２日 Day 29: Kate Gets Lost

Today was full of lessons in epic, epic failure.

Today in Modern Japanese fiction, I learned this new phrase, 生きよ堕ちよ (ikiyo ochiyo) which means, "To live is to fall," and that is exactly what I did.

I went to school and endured Japanese class with my Thursday/Friday sensei who I really don't like. The class' lesson today was a HUGE step backwards, we learned short/informal form (食べる、食べた etc.) because apparently people still don't know how to use it in Japanese M2... Naturally, I dozed off because I had actually retained that information. I even saw a Korean guy smacking his head against our textbook in frustration, muttering to himself, "OMG SERIOUSLY?!"

Sensei definitely noticed my lack of interest and made me read aloud, which is probably my biggest weakness. She was so passive aggressive about it too, "Who's listening, who's listening...? AH-- KEEEITO-SAN! Nemui desu ka? (Are you sleepy?)" DAMN RIGHT, I'M SLEEPY... GAAAAHHH! I wanted to punch her in the face!

Anyway, I went to Modern Japanese Fiction, which was lovely and not a complete waste of my time. My professor is this sophisticated Chinese woman who married a Japanese man. When telling us about formal Japanese speech that no one uses anymore, she said, "My mother-in-law used to speak like that. She's dead now. Haha." EVERYONE burst out laughing. PRICELESS.

Then I went home, went to the grocery store and then to the post office to withdraw money. I thought I'd be real slick and take a shortcut. I had been taken down that road before and saw all the familiar landmarks, but I got SO lost...

On top of that, it was raining cats and dogs and windy as all hell. So rainy and windy in fact, that my umbrella broke (X_X). Great. Lost and wet with a busted umbrella. Here's the path I took: (green represents the eventual path I took to get home.)

1. Started at the grocery store outside the train station, picked up some essentials and school supplies.
2. Walked to the post office. Withdrew money. Got cocky.
3. Tried to take shortcut home from post office. Walked for about an hour, saw familiar buildings and landmarks from previous excursions, with no idea why I was lost. Got about 3/4 of the way home gave up, and turned around, drenched.
4. Serious backtracking. Ended up back at the train station, walked home in a complete circle. Bought a new umbrella, completely humiliated.

My hair and jeans were basically soaked through. My legs had denim stains on them because they were so wet. I had arranged for my friends and me to eat in Harajuku (at a restaurant I had never been to before), so I hopped in the shower, washed the shame off, and e-mailed a map to my phone so I wouldn't get lost going to this restaurant.

We went to Sakura-tei, where my new friend Kana works. We had okonomiyaki, yakisoba and every dessert on the menu (for 10% off, thanks to Kana). It was delicious. Guess it kinda made up for the fact that I got uber lost.

Hey, it wouldn't be an international experience if I didn't get completely lost every once in a while, right? BLEH, hope it doesn't happen again any time soon... Golden Week is coming up!

Ugh, I have Fundamentals of Religion tomorrow. Not excited. The professor basically just yaks about his opinion on religion, pisses people off, and then gets too whimpy and Japanese to calm down the arguments, side comments and personal anecdotes that people subsequently feel compelled to share. UGH.

At least I have Contemporary Japanese Society afterwards, which is by far my favorite class. THEN IT'S THE WEEKEND AND I'M FREEEEEEEEEEEEE~!