Japanese Gluttunous Act Number 2
Ok ok, so there are still a few stories from the last week or two that I would like to catch you up on. HOWEVER...I figured I would focus my attention on writing each night (or ridiculously early morning - 3AM - in this case) about the day's events.
Today started simply enough. I woke up at about 9:15 and went to the cafeteria to see how breakfast was looking. Today's breakfast of champions included white rice, squash (which I put into the white rice), Miso soup, and some white fish. Certainly not the bacon, egg, and cheese omelette I might have awoke to in America, but it's all delicious nonetheless! I'm pretty much a chopstick master at this point, in case you were wondering.
So I ate breakfast and talked to Hatchan for awhile, let Kio (two year old kid that is obsessed with anything that has buttons and lights up) play with my digital camera for a bit, cleaned some dishes, and then practiced some trombone.
Noon came around and Chris and I still hadn't heard anything about what adventures the day might bring. Maybe it was just going to be a nice, quiet, relaxing day at Aichiyo? There haven't been many of them so far. I decided to take adventage of the time and go for an hour and a half run. I've got this great course I do around Handa City that takes about 45 minutes, so I would just loop it twice. After loop number one, I ran inside to change CDs before the second half...Chris was playing poker and informed me that we were going to Nagoya at 2:30PM. Ok...except that the current time was 2:15PM...no problem.
Quick shower, grab the camera, and I'm on my way! The long run will have to wait until tomorrow. Chris, the Thai guys, Kio (older Kio, not 2 year old Kio), Mitchi, Coz, Hatsumi, and myself loaded into two cars and were on our way.
Turns out they took us to some huge mall in northern/central Nagoya called Aeon. Hatsumi tells us to meet back in about an hour and fifteen minutes...so we all split up and find whatever tickles our fancy. I hadn't eaten in awhile and had just finished a run so I was starving...priority number one.
Thankfully, since I'm a genius, I remembered that I was caught in a similar situation about a week and a half ago. Let's go back in time, shall we?
We were at a different Aeon mall. It was about 5 o'clock and I was SO hungry. Dinner was usually at 7 at Aichiyo...so I still had awhile to go. I find a bakery and go to town on three (or was it five??) danish-type items. I was full and decided that would be dinner for the night. No harm, no foul. UNTIL...we meet back up with Coz and he tells us he's taking us out to dinner. Two HUGE dinners with a 15 minute break in the middle was even a lot for yours truly.
Ok...back to the situation at hand. I didn't know if we were going to eat dinner afterwards, but I wasn't going to fall into that trap again. So I'm walking around and I find this parfait shop/cafe. Cool, I had been craving some good ice cream...this would be perfect! I'll get a moderate-sized parfait with little pieces of chocolate cake in it and that will hold me over until dinner.
It was delicious and I happily paid the 766 yen. Matt, way to learn from your mistakes! Years of drum corps "check and adjust"ing has transferred to the real world.
I pat myself on the back, do a little present shopping, look through the meager English section at the bookstore and meet back up with everyone else just in time!
Just as predicted, Coz and Hatsumi suggest that we get some food. Of the fifty restaurants in this place...my luck should have it that we're right back at that parfait shop/cafe/restaurant. We weren't eating dinner either...we were just stopping in for some ice cream.
Ok ok, Matt...you didn't have that much earlier...you'll be ok for another! After all, you ran earlier! Coz asks who wants ice cream, the Americans and Thais all raise their hand (that makes six because Junt isn't with us) and he points to something that had my attention the first time I walked in the store.
Enter..."The Unbelievable." (That's really what the beast translates to.) Try to imagine an ice cream sundae called "The Unbelievable." Actually, don't worry about it, let me help you out! Possibly the world's biggest parfait...topped with chocolate cake, vanilla cake, cheesecake, flan, cookies, at least six different kinds of fruit, and a whole lot of whipped cream...this monstrosity clocks in at exactly three liters of ice cream.
Here we are about to get started! They even gave us gold spoons with little bells on the end to somehow further enhance the experience.
Let's get a closer look, shall we?
The Thai guys were fading, but Chris and I battled through the pain and kept downing scoop after unbelievable scoop of parfait! We were setting new standards for dairy consumption...and topped it off by drinking the melted remains from the bucket afterwards to further prove our dominance.
Eat your heart out, ladies! :)
Ok, back in the van, where Mitchi emcees another round of "teach eachother dirty words in your native language." We get back at 6:35...just in time to jump in for the movement portion of their prayer service. I wish I could take a video of this just so you could see how ridiculous I look. Each week they change the dances they do to their prayers...but they never teach them (I'm assuming you learn as party of your religious studies when you're younger). So every Monday Chris and I are left to try to copy and figure it out (this is 30 minutes of dancing, mind you)...by Sunday we are good at faking and copying as we go...but then Monday rolls around and we have a new one to make fools of ourselves with.
I'm not really complaining because it's our choice to go. And I like it...it's nice having everyone at Aichiyo (and a bunch of people off Aichiyo) come together for a little bit.
7:00...dinner. My stomach is about to explode so I ask to wrap my sushi and save it for a late night snack or maybe breakfast the next day. No problem.
On Mondays and Fridays we don't have rehearsal, so we usually set up a big Aichiyo baseball game, followed by the guys playing our (now almost daily) soccer match. There were twenty people involved in yesterday's baseball game which is a record for us! :)
Coz even came in to pinch hit once. He was going head to head with his son and grounded out...but it was a solid swing. He also presented us with a new bat and ball he got at the mall today. So between ice cream, the shirts he bought Chris, myself, and the Thais, plus the bat and ball...generous guy.
Ok, gotta run, have a great day! Or night...or whatever it is over there when you read this.
Today started simply enough. I woke up at about 9:15 and went to the cafeteria to see how breakfast was looking. Today's breakfast of champions included white rice, squash (which I put into the white rice), Miso soup, and some white fish. Certainly not the bacon, egg, and cheese omelette I might have awoke to in America, but it's all delicious nonetheless! I'm pretty much a chopstick master at this point, in case you were wondering.
So I ate breakfast and talked to Hatchan for awhile, let Kio (two year old kid that is obsessed with anything that has buttons and lights up) play with my digital camera for a bit, cleaned some dishes, and then practiced some trombone.
Noon came around and Chris and I still hadn't heard anything about what adventures the day might bring. Maybe it was just going to be a nice, quiet, relaxing day at Aichiyo? There haven't been many of them so far. I decided to take adventage of the time and go for an hour and a half run. I've got this great course I do around Handa City that takes about 45 minutes, so I would just loop it twice. After loop number one, I ran inside to change CDs before the second half...Chris was playing poker and informed me that we were going to Nagoya at 2:30PM. Ok...except that the current time was 2:15PM...no problem.
Quick shower, grab the camera, and I'm on my way! The long run will have to wait until tomorrow. Chris, the Thai guys, Kio (older Kio, not 2 year old Kio), Mitchi, Coz, Hatsumi, and myself loaded into two cars and were on our way.
Turns out they took us to some huge mall in northern/central Nagoya called Aeon. Hatsumi tells us to meet back in about an hour and fifteen minutes...so we all split up and find whatever tickles our fancy. I hadn't eaten in awhile and had just finished a run so I was starving...priority number one.
Thankfully, since I'm a genius, I remembered that I was caught in a similar situation about a week and a half ago. Let's go back in time, shall we?
We were at a different Aeon mall. It was about 5 o'clock and I was SO hungry. Dinner was usually at 7 at Aichiyo...so I still had awhile to go. I find a bakery and go to town on three (or was it five??) danish-type items. I was full and decided that would be dinner for the night. No harm, no foul. UNTIL...we meet back up with Coz and he tells us he's taking us out to dinner. Two HUGE dinners with a 15 minute break in the middle was even a lot for yours truly.
Ok...back to the situation at hand. I didn't know if we were going to eat dinner afterwards, but I wasn't going to fall into that trap again. So I'm walking around and I find this parfait shop/cafe. Cool, I had been craving some good ice cream...this would be perfect! I'll get a moderate-sized parfait with little pieces of chocolate cake in it and that will hold me over until dinner.
It was delicious and I happily paid the 766 yen. Matt, way to learn from your mistakes! Years of drum corps "check and adjust"ing has transferred to the real world.
I pat myself on the back, do a little present shopping, look through the meager English section at the bookstore and meet back up with everyone else just in time!
Just as predicted, Coz and Hatsumi suggest that we get some food. Of the fifty restaurants in this place...my luck should have it that we're right back at that parfait shop/cafe/restaurant. We weren't eating dinner either...we were just stopping in for some ice cream.
Ok ok, Matt...you didn't have that much earlier...you'll be ok for another! After all, you ran earlier! Coz asks who wants ice cream, the Americans and Thais all raise their hand (that makes six because Junt isn't with us) and he points to something that had my attention the first time I walked in the store.
Enter..."The Unbelievable." (That's really what the beast translates to.) Try to imagine an ice cream sundae called "The Unbelievable." Actually, don't worry about it, let me help you out! Possibly the world's biggest parfait...topped with chocolate cake, vanilla cake, cheesecake, flan, cookies, at least six different kinds of fruit, and a whole lot of whipped cream...this monstrosity clocks in at exactly three liters of ice cream.
Here we are about to get started! They even gave us gold spoons with little bells on the end to somehow further enhance the experience.
Let's get a closer look, shall we?
The Thai guys were fading, but Chris and I battled through the pain and kept downing scoop after unbelievable scoop of parfait! We were setting new standards for dairy consumption...and topped it off by drinking the melted remains from the bucket afterwards to further prove our dominance.
Eat your heart out, ladies! :)
Ok, back in the van, where Mitchi emcees another round of "teach eachother dirty words in your native language." We get back at 6:35...just in time to jump in for the movement portion of their prayer service. I wish I could take a video of this just so you could see how ridiculous I look. Each week they change the dances they do to their prayers...but they never teach them (I'm assuming you learn as party of your religious studies when you're younger). So every Monday Chris and I are left to try to copy and figure it out (this is 30 minutes of dancing, mind you)...by Sunday we are good at faking and copying as we go...but then Monday rolls around and we have a new one to make fools of ourselves with.
I'm not really complaining because it's our choice to go. And I like it...it's nice having everyone at Aichiyo (and a bunch of people off Aichiyo) come together for a little bit.
7:00...dinner. My stomach is about to explode so I ask to wrap my sushi and save it for a late night snack or maybe breakfast the next day. No problem.
On Mondays and Fridays we don't have rehearsal, so we usually set up a big Aichiyo baseball game, followed by the guys playing our (now almost daily) soccer match. There were twenty people involved in yesterday's baseball game which is a record for us! :)
Coz even came in to pinch hit once. He was going head to head with his son and grounded out...but it was a solid swing. He also presented us with a new bat and ball he got at the mall today. So between ice cream, the shirts he bought Chris, myself, and the Thais, plus the bat and ball...generous guy.
Ok, gotta run, have a great day! Or night...or whatever it is over there when you read this.
posted by Matt at 7:23 PM
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