Learning to Bow

The name of my current read is Learning to Bow: Inside the Heart of Japan by Bruce Feiler. My friend Heather was kind enough to loan it to me. I started reading it today on my train ride to meet my conversation student, Osami. I found it so entertaining that I was laughing out loud on the train, receiving curious looks from my fellow travelers. The book is about an American man who spends one year teaching English and American culture at a rural school in Japan and consequently his encounters with the Japanese culture. One of my favorite sections so far:

Several weeks into my stay, Mrs. Cherry Blossom [yes, that is her real name, translated into English]...hosted a welcome party for me along with some of her friends. As the party began, spread across the table at the center of her living room floor was a marvelous assortment of traditional Japanese party fare: heaping trays of sushi; bowls of pickled vegetables, tofu, and potatoes; plates of salads and compotes. In front of me, however, she had discreetly placed a small plate of egg salad sandwiches with a knife and fork tucked beneath a napkin. Moved by her thoughtfulness but by then quite completely accustomed to dining with chopsticks, I plucked a pair from the center of the table and joined with the other guests in prying nuggets of food from the trays and putting them into my mouth.

I had not lifted the first bite of raw fish halfway to my lips when the whole conversation stopped dead and everyone turned to marvel at my unimaginable skill.

"That's amazing," swooned a lady to my left as she focused her glasses on my fingers.

"So skillful," said another.

They were so genuinely impressed that they beckoned our hostess from the kitchen to witness this display of manual dexterity by the foreigner. She came rushing to my end of the table, dripping her serving spoon into my lap, and exclaimed, "Can you use chopsticks?"

I laughed out loud again on my train ride because this exact situation had happened to me just a few minutes prior. I've been meeting Osami for lunch every week for 3 months now. The location of our lunch depends on our mood, though pasta and Italian tend to occur frequently either because he enjoys the cuisine or thinks I won't enjoy something else, or a combination of the two, I'm not sure. (Those "western style" restaurants tend to have forks and knives on the table instead of chopsticks.) Today we ate at a steak restaurant, although I'd stated the Japanese restaurant would be fine.

This was a very Japanese style steak restaurant, chopsticks carefully arranged on the table. As our multi-plated meals came out to us, Osami was shocked as I picked up my chopsticks, broke them apart and dug into my salad.
"Ohh!" he said, quite surprised. "We can get a fork, it is no problem."
"Oh no," I responded, "this is fine," and ate away. He just kind of stared at me - "You can use chopsticks? You learned to do that here [in Japan]?"
"Nope, I used them in America, too, at Asian restaurants." This really distorted Osami's world. I tried to tell him I can't hold the chopsticks the Japanese way, so I must have learned from a Chinese restaurant, but he was very impressed.

While this wasn't the first time I'd used chopsticks in front of Osami, it might as well have been.

Australia Part Three

Tuesday morning, Laura and I left Perth in search of better things. We drove 3 hours south to Margaret River. MR is known for it's wine (woot!). Happily, our hotel was much nicer, even romantic! With 20 or so rooms, all named after different types of wine, it was a fun set up. Laura and I had an awesome dinner and bottle of wine at Wino's. Wednesday we drove further south, stopping at Mammoth Cave, and Leeuwin Lighthouse, and the beach! On Thursday we took an all day winery tour, where we met lots of fun people, lead by our fun tour guide, Silvano, and his friend, the grub, George. We decided to bite the bullet and purchase some wine and attempt to bring it back to Japan. On Friday, we drove back north to Perth, and spent hours waiting around at the airport, returning the car, and not reporting the damage. (I backed into a pole in the parking lot of our hotel in Perth. But the rental agent gave me a form that someone else had already filled out to mark the damage on the car. She had me cross out his signature and sign next to it. The previous signer had marked a scratch right where my scratch appeared. And I let the rental agency deal with it instead of paying $3,000...) We had to do some sweet-talking to the airlines agent to get our overweight baggage (3 bags, plus a case of wine - more than 23kg/50lbs). But apparently she'd had good experiences with some of the navy guys and made some calls to get our wine aboard - yay! Laura was a really great travel buddy, a really great planner, and a lot of fun to be with. This is a good thing since we spent 5 days 24/7 together! After the longest bus ride from Narita to Zama, and the help of Kelly to get from Zama to Atsugi, we parted ways and finally got home.

Perth Part Two

So I never finished my analysis of our Australian Adventure. To view all 500 or so pictures, click here.

So 4th of July - no fireworks. It was winter. No red-white-and-blue all over. Oddness. Dave and I had lunch at my new favorite restaurant - The Brass Monkey. Yes, I already ate there two nights previously, but it was so delicious that I needed to share the experience with Dave. We spent 4th of July walking about Perth - stopping in Target! - then a trip to Fremantle, and capped it off with the movie The Hangover.
Fremantle was such a cool town. I'd love to go back and spend more time there. It practically screams FORMER BRITISH COLONY. We walked around an old battlement, surveyed the Shipwreck Museum - complete with skeletons and sunken ships, including the hull of the Batavia, and gold and silver coins. We stopped by the Fremantle Markets and watched some buskers - or street performers. The movie theater was interesting. It was townhouse style - narrow and tall. Three stories, fading art-deco (with need of maintenance), great architecture, just lacking some TLC. It was smelled faintly of pot and sure enough as we were exiting, we saw a policeman in pursuit on foot - aka - sprinting after an unseen culprit.

The next day was wine tour day. We piled on the bus at 10am, and were blissfully sipping wine by 11am. We visited a total of three vineyards and one 2second stop at a chocolate "factory" (store.) It was a really fun afternoon with fun people.

Monday was Dave's last day ashore. We had lunch at an awesome little off-the-beaten-path cafe called Tiger Tiger. I enjoyed it, Dave would have preferred it if they had sold beer and meat. We looked around a 2nd had book store, which was neat. We had dinner at Little Creatures - a microbrewery restaurant. There was talk of the ferry boats not being able to get from the dock to the ship - this sparked hope that we'd get an extra day together - HAH. Yeah Right. We tried to catch a home-grown Aussie Rules Football game, but no luck. Instead we saw the movie Transformers 2. (Pause - It was $17AuD per person on a Monday night! CRAZY!) The movie wasn't that great but it was fun to see together. We drove back to the hotel, packed Dave's bags, and put him in a taxi at 1230am. :(

New Purchases

There was a small bazaar in Yokosuka this weekend. This is what I picked up: 1) Obi decor. 2) Nighlight for the hallway when visitors get up in the middle of the night and can't see... and for when i go downstairs and can't see.


Obi is the material that Kimonos are made out of. This was part of a Kimono. Now it's my wall decoration. I saw it and immediately fell in love with it. Plus it was "50% off" (which means the vendor just marked it up to begin with, just to make me feel like I got a deal). Their ploy worked.


This nightlight was also love at first sight. I saw it previously at another vendor, but he didn't have any unopened ones available. Out of 20 different designs I liked this one best. Even though there were many variations on pink. I just liked the fans.

So hopefully this will help Annie (and myself) from falling down the stairs.. As the Wrigleys can attest, they are tricky until you get used to them (slightly narrower and curved).


The guest bedroom and the "office" (junk) room were switched and finished before the Wrigleys got here in June. But I never posted new pictures of it.

The new Obi hanging fits in perfectly in this room! I didn't even plan it!

Also new to the household is this new desk chair.
Way more comfortable than the $10 wooden one I had before - where i felt like it would break beneath me at any moment. This blue one is nice because it a) compliments the colors of my rooms b) is cushoned c) is new!