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Warabi or not to be
You know, most of today sort of went by in a blur.
I was pretty hungry by the time I got out of GEOS, but decided to just go back to Warabi and then figure out the food situation. The Giants-Carp game was still tied at 8-8 in the 12th inning when I got on the train, but the Giants had won 9-8 by the time I got off the train.
I looked in at the ekimae gamecenter as I always do to see if Pop'n was open, and it was, so I played a game. Halfway through my first song a guy came in and pretty much just stood behind me waiting to play, so I was annoying and went ahead to get an extra stage and all. Dumb thing is, I play all 25's or so these days, which would have made me a fantastic player in Seattle 4 years ago, but which means I'm a pretty sucky player in Japan terms.
I had originally sort of thought I'd stop in at Ohtori's ramen shop for some miso ramen on my way home, but he's a huge Giants fan and I just didn't want to hear about it tonight, plus it looked kind of crowded, so I kept walking. I was about twenty feet past the ramen shop when I hear from behind me, in reasonably good English, "Excuse me."
"Hmm?" I turn around. It's a Japanese lady in her mid-30's or so.
"Are you an English teacher here?" She walks up to me and we continue walking down Sun Road.
"I am, yes... why?"
"I have two kids and I want them to continue learning English, but I don't know where to go. Do you work at AEON? Nova?"
"Actually, GEOS."
"GEOS? Where?"
"Yeah, in Akabane."
"Oh. Akabane. That's sort of far."
She ended up walking the entire rest of the way down Sun Road with me home -- that's over a kilometer, for those counting. She showed me a picture of her two kids, and my immediate question upon seeing them was "Your husband is American, right?" Yeah. Turns out she married a guy in the Army, then they moved to California, but then he started cheating on her. A LOT. So she decided to move back to Japan and bring the kids with her. Now, of course, the kids are in Japanese school and pretty much never speak English.
I didn't really know what to tell her, but I said if she came to Akabane GEOS, I could at least find her some information about our children's classes. If nothing else, she got 15 minutes of practicing conversation with me, but I mean, that's sort of what I do. She told me about some shopping center further up road 35 that she said had some decent shops for gaijin-sized clothes, so maybe once my legs heal and I have a bike again, I'll check it out.
I went into my apartment and then remembered that I was hungry and didn't really have much here to eat, so I went back out. I want to go to this one ramen shop that's literally around the corner from me to see how it is, but I couldn't tell if it was really open so I didn't go in. The katsu-ya was also closing in like 10 mins by the time I got down there, so I ended up at a different ramen place.
"Miso ramen, kudasai..."
"Miso ramen ja nai no ni, miso tonkotsu wa ii?"
"Anou... tabetakoto nai kedo, tabetemitai!"
"Daijoubu yo ne. Hai, miso tonkotsu hitotsu ne."
I really have no idea what miso tonkotsu is -- according to Jeff it's a pork broth soup. I guess I could believe that. What I got was some sort of pork broth soup with some miso paste in it and scallions and mushrooms and sprouts and some noodles that weren't really exactly what I was expecting, but it was nonetheless good. The surreal part was that whatever was playing music there (CD? tape? I dunno), came up with Hotel California, and I'm listening to these two guys in Japanese having a conversation about how this song makes them feel really old, they remembered listening to it back in college or whatever. Then they asked the owner if they had Desperado.
I really wanted to laugh, but instead I just finished my noodles and paid and left.
I might go back to this place sometime -- they had some interesting-looking kinds of ramen, and they're open until 3am, and it's not too far a walk, so we'll see.
I was pretty hungry by the time I got out of GEOS, but decided to just go back to Warabi and then figure out the food situation. The Giants-Carp game was still tied at 8-8 in the 12th inning when I got on the train, but the Giants had won 9-8 by the time I got off the train.
I looked in at the ekimae gamecenter as I always do to see if Pop'n was open, and it was, so I played a game. Halfway through my first song a guy came in and pretty much just stood behind me waiting to play, so I was annoying and went ahead to get an extra stage and all. Dumb thing is, I play all 25's or so these days, which would have made me a fantastic player in Seattle 4 years ago, but which means I'm a pretty sucky player in Japan terms.
I had originally sort of thought I'd stop in at Ohtori's ramen shop for some miso ramen on my way home, but he's a huge Giants fan and I just didn't want to hear about it tonight, plus it looked kind of crowded, so I kept walking. I was about twenty feet past the ramen shop when I hear from behind me, in reasonably good English, "Excuse me."
"Hmm?" I turn around. It's a Japanese lady in her mid-30's or so.
"Are you an English teacher here?" She walks up to me and we continue walking down Sun Road.
"I am, yes... why?"
"I have two kids and I want them to continue learning English, but I don't know where to go. Do you work at AEON? Nova?"
"Actually, GEOS."
"GEOS? Where?"
"Yeah, in Akabane."
"Oh. Akabane. That's sort of far."
She ended up walking the entire rest of the way down Sun Road with me home -- that's over a kilometer, for those counting. She showed me a picture of her two kids, and my immediate question upon seeing them was "Your husband is American, right?" Yeah. Turns out she married a guy in the Army, then they moved to California, but then he started cheating on her. A LOT. So she decided to move back to Japan and bring the kids with her. Now, of course, the kids are in Japanese school and pretty much never speak English.
I didn't really know what to tell her, but I said if she came to Akabane GEOS, I could at least find her some information about our children's classes. If nothing else, she got 15 minutes of practicing conversation with me, but I mean, that's sort of what I do. She told me about some shopping center further up road 35 that she said had some decent shops for gaijin-sized clothes, so maybe once my legs heal and I have a bike again, I'll check it out.
I went into my apartment and then remembered that I was hungry and didn't really have much here to eat, so I went back out. I want to go to this one ramen shop that's literally around the corner from me to see how it is, but I couldn't tell if it was really open so I didn't go in. The katsu-ya was also closing in like 10 mins by the time I got down there, so I ended up at a different ramen place.
"Miso ramen, kudasai..."
"Miso ramen ja nai no ni, miso tonkotsu wa ii?"
"Anou... tabetakoto nai kedo, tabetemitai!"
"Daijoubu yo ne. Hai, miso tonkotsu hitotsu ne."
I really have no idea what miso tonkotsu is -- according to Jeff it's a pork broth soup. I guess I could believe that. What I got was some sort of pork broth soup with some miso paste in it and scallions and mushrooms and sprouts and some noodles that weren't really exactly what I was expecting, but it was nonetheless good. The surreal part was that whatever was playing music there (CD? tape? I dunno), came up with Hotel California, and I'm listening to these two guys in Japanese having a conversation about how this song makes them feel really old, they remembered listening to it back in college or whatever. Then they asked the owner if they had Desperado.
I really wanted to laugh, but instead I just finished my noodles and paid and left.
I might go back to this place sometime -- they had some interesting-looking kinds of ramen, and they're open until 3am, and it's not too far a walk, so we'll see.