Sunday my friend Akiko and I hung out in quiet Kasugai and hit up the coffee shop in Shimizuya (the large mega shopping/food store) for some coffee and then had lunch at a pasta restaurant called Goemon across the street. Spaghetti Carbonara is oddly popular in Japan and Goemon so far has the best, it is sort of like Alfredo sauce pasta with ham and peas and is very good. From there we watched a movie on cable before she had to head back to Nagoya to meet up with her study group. I would love to tell you I was highly productive the remainder of the day but instead I took a long nap, made some dinner at home and called it a day. I am finding it more and more difficult to get a lot done on the weekends. It seems the grand plans of traveling all over Japan when off from work was a great plan indeed but after the long but fun and rewarding days at school I am just as happy lying down and watching a movie on cable. This is a development I am hoping to rectify in the coming New Year, but then again it could signal that Japan is starting to feel less like an extended vacation and more like my home.
Monday after running a couple of errands around town I headed into Nagoya to grab some dinner as well as check out the large Christmas display outside Nagoya station. After some searching I found Yabaton on the 8th floor of the Meitisu Department store that is connected to the train station. I had heard many times about Yabaton, as it appears to be the Pat’s Steak’s of Nagoya, a local restaurant of universal acclaim. I have spoken a couple of times of my affinity for the local specialty called Tonkatsu and apparently Yabaton is the best place to eat it. Basically tonkatsu is a breaded and fried pork cutlet usually served with a thick barbecue like sauce on a bed of shredded cabbage. When I entered the restaurant I sat at the counter where shockingly the chef was able to surmise I was not a local. After talking for a few minutes he explained he had lived in the US for a while, strangely Nashville, Tennessee of all places before returning to Japan a few years back. He also explained that Yabaton had looked at opening an outpost in New York City and that he had hoped to be one of the chefs chosen to cook there since he liked living in the US. Unfortunately the parent company found real estate in NYC too expensive and decided against the venture. As he assisted me in ordering the tonkatsu “seto” (set meal) he told me I had to try Yabaton and Nagoya’s specialty, namely the “aka miso” (red soybean) sauce for which they are known. As he was quite a good chef he was correct on the miso, as it was far superior to the barbeque sauce you normally find served with the dish in other parts of Japan. After finishing my set meal with rice, miso soup and a couple of glasses of cold green tea I thanked my friend and headed out to check out the lights. Rest assured anyone who makes a visit to Japan could count on eating here, as it was one of the best meals I have had thus far in Japan. After descending the escalators to the ground floor I spent about an hour checking out the grand Christmas display of lights outside of the station before heading home to Kasugai. As I talked about before Christmas is an odd holiday here since no deeper meaning is bestowed upon the holiday but the decorations I have seen here rival everything short of Fifth Avenue in New York City for there beauty and their elaborateness. As for work during the week my co net began preparations for her ultimate departure from Japan and the new teachers soon arrival to Kasugai.
Saturday I finished at work and both myself, Kerin and one of our Japanese teachers headed into Nagoya for another night of partying at Maverick in Fushimi where my friends Ryan, Tommy and Shane were heading up a 2nd DJ card. After having some drinks with the large group that showed for the show some of the group began catching last trains home to their particular towns while the hard-core people of the group (any idea which group I was in?) prepared for an all nighter. Fortunately Tommy had set up an after party at a club several blocks away after Maverick shut down at 2AM where about 6 or 7 of us headed over to in the light drizzle that was beginning to fall. For the next few hours we enjoyed some drinks and listened to the music at the club, which was small and was run by a high octane Brazilian guy that Shane knew from DJ’ng in the Nagoya. The truly interesting part of the night was I making my entrance into the 2nd floor smallish club and having about 100 Japanese people turn around in unison and stare at me as the place seemed to be mostly local unlike Maverick which gets a heavy group of foreigners who frequent it. Secondly was a cute Japanese girl putting a gun to my head as I entered only to find the bar for some unknown reason hands out 38 special cap guns to all patrons for what reason I have yet to determine. All in all having a gun pointed at me is not what usually passes for Saturday night fun but we all ended up having a good time. I even made a Japanese friend who spoke not a word of English who hung with our group much of the night, so named by me as “okii aka” (Big Red) because of his size and his bright red hoodie. After the club started closing down we all walked to a guy’s apartment we met at the club and hung out for about an hour until the morning trains starting running. I am not sure what everyone else did because I passed out on the guy’s couch within minutes of arriving and slept for an hour until Ryan woke me explaining it was time to leave. Unfortunately for us one of our friends passed out on the guy’s futon and was unable to be revived. As we headed to the train to go back to Kasugai we laughed as we imagined scenarios our friend might find himself in passing out at a random guy’s place with no one around. Most of them centered on a Silence of the Lambs ending where he awoke at the bottom of a hole being ordered to “place the lotion in the basket” but alas we got word the following day all was well and he was on his way home.
Another week in Japan comes to a close with some drinking (shocker!). Catch up with me next week to see what random guy’s couch I fall asleep on next.
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