Saturday, March 30, 2013

Sunny in Japan

   Today was the first sunny day since I arrived. I only took two pictures during the day, though!

  

    That building with the red awning is a coffee place that I ate at twice. An old lady runs it seemingly single-handedly. There are about 4 short tables with tiny sea green padded chairs that give it a diner-from-a-parallel-universe feel. There are roughly ten million potted flower plants and a bunch of pictures of her dog. Both times I ate there I was the only customer there.
   It's the only place I've been able to find good coffee, but unfortunately, she only gives you about 5 ounces of it. Also, everywhere I've been gives you these tiny little creamers, rather than fresh cream or milk. This is probably because dairy is so much more expensive here.
   The owner had the TV on the whole time, so I got to watch a morning show that was doing an extensive report on a weird looking mushroom-like vegetable and all possible ways to cook and eat it. This is how it went: The TV personality would go to a restaurant. A chef or food expert would show them how to prepare a dish using the mushroom. Then the TV personality would eat it and say something like, Wow! This is so good. Wow, so tasty. Yum! Then he'd move on to the next place and do the same thing all over again. "Ah, so tasty! So delicious."
   Meanwhile, in the upper right hand corner of the screen, a panel, including the TV personality himself, and then some other random people, are watching the segment with you, nodding, and making "Ahh, hmmm" sounds. That little box showing someone's reactions to what you're watching is there in almost every single variety or morning show. So if you are ever watching Japanese TV and don't know how to react, just look at the person in the upper right hand corner. Oh, ok, here I say "Ahhhhh!"
   
   This evening, I went exploring a bit farther away from my hotel, in one of the higher-end parts of town. People were dressed nicely and there were lots of brand name stores. I also spotted several groups of foreigners.


   This was a mall we happened across. All the stores were closed, but we took the elevator up to the 9th floor and looked down. It was pretty cool.

  

No comments:

Post a Comment