Wednesday, July 09, 2003
I apologize to my devoted readers for not posting last night. My brain was a little preoccupied with maintaining balance and vision after my excursion last evening. Let me explain...
Dr. A took me to Tsuchiura, a neighboring town, to see a new construction home that belongs to his friend. Surprisingly, he knows everyone in that town, too, or so it would seem. His friend, Suzuki-san, owns a store that sells paper lanterns and Buddhist items, such as beautifully decorated prayer cabinets that hold all of the little statues and candles, incense, the little statues, the whole shebang. It was a pretty neat store and I was tempted to buy one of the hand-decorated paper lanterns. They come with fancy stands to make them like a piece of furniture, you would have to see it to really know what I am talking about and I can't find an example online. He already has a pretty sweet pad on the top floor of the tallest building in town. Now he has an even sweeter pad just a couple of blocks away. I took some pictures, but they were very boring. There's not really any furniture yet, other than the new table and couch. No decorations or anything yet, they just got the keys this past weekend. It does have a wine fridge in the kitchen, already stocked with some of his favorites. As a matter of fact, we took a few bottles with us to dinner. The house was amazing and smelled great, like the tatami mats that were in some of the rooms. Most of the windows have these automated security shutters that roll open and shut sort of like a garage door. I don't know if it's to keep burglars out or just for protection from the elements, maybe both. He had some awesome adjustable lighting in some of the rooms, not like dimmers, but you press a button on the remote and get different kinds of light. And the toilet seat automatically raises when you approach it and automatically closes and flushes after you get up. It was crazy. I wish my pictures hadn't been so boring, maybe I wouldn't have deleted them. The craftsmanship of the house was unmatched by anything I have ever seen in the States, but I digress.
After checking out the house, we went to have dinner. We brought some wine with us from the stocked fridge in an empty house. First, we stopped at this restaurant to have beef stew. Maybe I should be more specific, beef tongue stew. I know what you're thinking, and I know you're wrong. It was awesome! The chef kept thanking me for complimenting his food by sopping up all of the gravy with my roll. Oh, man, it was good. It was like eating regular beef stew, without too much pepper and with tender, non-fatty meat. It was something that could turn a vegetarian back into an omnivore.
After that, we went to a small sushi shop a few blocks over. They said it was good ahead of time, that it was a famous restaurant. I had no idea they were serious until I tasted the first piece. It was all melt-in-your-mouth fantastic. I tried pretty much everything he had to offer. Apparently, the sushi chef is very famous. I saw a picture of him serving Hideo Nomo from a commercial shot in '93. And the prices were alarmingly expensive. For some of the sushi, it was 2500 Yen for one piece. That's about $20 US for those who don't know the exchange rate. It was honestly the best sushi I have ever eaten. We also had some soup with a big ol' shrimp in it. You can see it in the foreground of this picture of sushi lady. We also enjoyed more wine and I got to sample Japanese brandy, called shochu. It was essentially 86 proof sake, made pretty much the same way brandy is made from distilling grape wine.
After all of the good food, we stumbled back to Suzuki-san's penthouse pad where his wife was preparing tea and honeydew melon in brandy. Notice a trend for the evening regarding beverages? Well, at least the tea was non-alcoholic! I took this shot of Tsuchiura at night from his balcony. A little overexposed, but still pretty amazing.
After that, we dropped in on a bar that Dr. A apparently knows more people at. The former Ms. Ibaraki to be exact in this case. Maybe we should call her Mrs. Ibaraki now? If you don't know, Ibaraki is the prefecture that Tsukuba and Tsuchiura are in, sort of like a state, but not like a state. Ibaraki is sort of large, so I am sure the crown is quite honorable. Ol' Cookie took a picture of me and one of the servers. I still haven't been able to answer Josh's question about why Japanese people always flash the peace sign when being photographed. It is a strange phenomenon no one has been able to explain to me. I'm sticking with my original hypothesis that they never found out John Lennon is dead. Another of the servers was wearing an interesting shirt. I am curious to know if she was fully aware of the translation of the phrase featured on it. In Engrish, it pretty much said "World's Largest of... Source Natural Gas." I am assuming that it meant "World's Largest Source of Natural Gas." I tried my best to read the back of the shirt without being too obvious but I never got a good perspective. To be honest, I was afraid to be behind her for long enough to read it just in case the claim was true!
Dr. A took me to Tsuchiura, a neighboring town, to see a new construction home that belongs to his friend. Surprisingly, he knows everyone in that town, too, or so it would seem. His friend, Suzuki-san, owns a store that sells paper lanterns and Buddhist items, such as beautifully decorated prayer cabinets that hold all of the little statues and candles, incense, the little statues, the whole shebang. It was a pretty neat store and I was tempted to buy one of the hand-decorated paper lanterns. They come with fancy stands to make them like a piece of furniture, you would have to see it to really know what I am talking about and I can't find an example online. He already has a pretty sweet pad on the top floor of the tallest building in town. Now he has an even sweeter pad just a couple of blocks away. I took some pictures, but they were very boring. There's not really any furniture yet, other than the new table and couch. No decorations or anything yet, they just got the keys this past weekend. It does have a wine fridge in the kitchen, already stocked with some of his favorites. As a matter of fact, we took a few bottles with us to dinner. The house was amazing and smelled great, like the tatami mats that were in some of the rooms. Most of the windows have these automated security shutters that roll open and shut sort of like a garage door. I don't know if it's to keep burglars out or just for protection from the elements, maybe both. He had some awesome adjustable lighting in some of the rooms, not like dimmers, but you press a button on the remote and get different kinds of light. And the toilet seat automatically raises when you approach it and automatically closes and flushes after you get up. It was crazy. I wish my pictures hadn't been so boring, maybe I wouldn't have deleted them. The craftsmanship of the house was unmatched by anything I have ever seen in the States, but I digress.
After checking out the house, we went to have dinner. We brought some wine with us from the stocked fridge in an empty house. First, we stopped at this restaurant to have beef stew. Maybe I should be more specific, beef tongue stew. I know what you're thinking, and I know you're wrong. It was awesome! The chef kept thanking me for complimenting his food by sopping up all of the gravy with my roll. Oh, man, it was good. It was like eating regular beef stew, without too much pepper and with tender, non-fatty meat. It was something that could turn a vegetarian back into an omnivore.
After that, we went to a small sushi shop a few blocks over. They said it was good ahead of time, that it was a famous restaurant. I had no idea they were serious until I tasted the first piece. It was all melt-in-your-mouth fantastic. I tried pretty much everything he had to offer. Apparently, the sushi chef is very famous. I saw a picture of him serving Hideo Nomo from a commercial shot in '93. And the prices were alarmingly expensive. For some of the sushi, it was 2500 Yen for one piece. That's about $20 US for those who don't know the exchange rate. It was honestly the best sushi I have ever eaten. We also had some soup with a big ol' shrimp in it. You can see it in the foreground of this picture of sushi lady. We also enjoyed more wine and I got to sample Japanese brandy, called shochu. It was essentially 86 proof sake, made pretty much the same way brandy is made from distilling grape wine.
After all of the good food, we stumbled back to Suzuki-san's penthouse pad where his wife was preparing tea and honeydew melon in brandy. Notice a trend for the evening regarding beverages? Well, at least the tea was non-alcoholic! I took this shot of Tsuchiura at night from his balcony. A little overexposed, but still pretty amazing.
After that, we dropped in on a bar that Dr. A apparently knows more people at. The former Ms. Ibaraki to be exact in this case. Maybe we should call her Mrs. Ibaraki now? If you don't know, Ibaraki is the prefecture that Tsukuba and Tsuchiura are in, sort of like a state, but not like a state. Ibaraki is sort of large, so I am sure the crown is quite honorable. Ol' Cookie took a picture of me and one of the servers. I still haven't been able to answer Josh's question about why Japanese people always flash the peace sign when being photographed. It is a strange phenomenon no one has been able to explain to me. I'm sticking with my original hypothesis that they never found out John Lennon is dead. Another of the servers was wearing an interesting shirt. I am curious to know if she was fully aware of the translation of the phrase featured on it. In Engrish, it pretty much said "World's Largest of... Source Natural Gas." I am assuming that it meant "World's Largest Source of Natural Gas." I tried my best to read the back of the shirt without being too obvious but I never got a good perspective. To be honest, I was afraid to be behind her for long enough to read it just in case the claim was true!
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