I tried to sleep, I really did. I woke up around 1:00 AM this morning and pushed to sleep some more. Suddenly the bed was too hard, the pillows not thick enough, the room too cold, then too hot. It just wasn’t going to happen. It was time to get up. I tossed and turned until 4:00 AM, and then finally admitted defeat. I got out of bed and started catching up on my work email.
Sometime around 6:00 I grabbed a shower and then headed down to breakfast. I was excited for more lychee, only to discover that it’s not something co-workers have every morning. I’m wondering (hoping, praying) it’s every other morning at a minimum. I’ll report back tomorrow! Today I’m delivering training all day at my work. I headed back to my room, changed from early morning clothes into a dress shirt and sports coat, and grabbed a taxi to the office. Though it’s been almost a year to the day, I still remember the way to the office. I remember the building, the train running just outside, and the building entrance (all metal, even though it’s a sliding door).
The morning of work was… well, interesting. Ask me about it in person, but I think overall the training went well or as well as it could have. The highlight of my day was definitely lunch. At lunchtime, the office leadership team came and got me, and we headed across the way for sushi. It is probably the freshest fish I have ever had in my life. I even ate a salmon roe roll (yep, fish eggs). It was literally bursting with salmon flavor, yepwhiskey it’s exactly like it sounds and all I could do was smile while I chewed it. As I’ve said many times, I’ll try just about anything once… and the salmon roe roll I’ll eat again. That was a weird experience, but it was also very delicious! I’m excited for more sushi while I am here. All of the nigiri I had (fish on top, rice underneath) was layered in flavors and noticeably different from my experience in the US. Certain nigiri, like the shrimp, had a noticeable layer of wasabi underneath and just enough to have a great flavor to it. I also talked my colleagues into getting some miso ramen next week for lunch, I have a feeling I’m going to be spoiled on all sorts of local dishes while I am here, and I couldn’t appreciate it more if I tried! Here’s a picture of lunch, just so you can get an idea.
The afternoon wound up quickly, training ended early and I sat in a conference room that had been reserved for me until the day ended officially at 6:00 PM. Dinner had been planned at a very traditional Japanese barbecue restaurant and I was excited. I’m always willing to try new food and new experiences, and this would definitely be one. We left for dinner in a cab, and ended up at a restaurant where the raw ingredients were spread out across a short bar in front of the whole place, and patrons would sit across the counter. You would order whatever you wanted barbecued, and they would cook it right in front of you.
I got to pick the first round of food and drinks. There was everything there from whisky to beer, and fish to vegetables I had never seen before. We ordered whisky mixed with a sparkling soda, and pork belly with miso flavoring. The miso was amazing, and so was the pork! If this was what dinner was going to be like… I was in for quite a treat! The next round was a purple-ish potato vegetable that you ate squeezing it loose from the skin as you dipped it slightly in salt to enhance the flavor. This was also great, and there was a spicy chili flake container that contained some magic ingredients that I would put on anything and everything. It made everything tasty! What followed was a smorgasbord of small dishes of all sorts. I remember many I liked, including a fish that was cooked in a wriggling shape on a skewer (everything was cooked over an open flame on skewers right in front of you, well… across the countertop from you), many more potato-ish dishes, and even a prawn as big as my hand (I owe Jen a thanks here for teaching me how to eat crawfish not three months ago, it came in handy here). The prawn was delicious, fresh and meaty, and with the chili peppers I couldn’t have asked for more.
The remains of a prawn… and some ray fin there in the background.
There were also some odd foods at dinner, though. I stuck to my statement that I’ll try anything once, and soon a platter came out of fish that looked like anchovies that were about four inches long. Cooked whole, the eyes had boiled away to carbon on the grill… and the entire fish had become edible. My coworkers both dove in, so I did too, starting with one fish from the head about halfway down. I bit into the fish, finding it chewy like those old condensed fruit bars. It was also sinewy, requiring me to chew and chew to get it into something I could swallow. It mostly tasted salty, very salty, and fishy like anchovies. I thanked my coworkers but told them one was enough of the fish. I can only count a handful of times as an adult I’ve struggled with food, and not even a revulsion to food just times when I’ve decided not to have more of a certain type, and this was one of those times. The texture and taste weren’t pleasant to me, and there were so many delicious alternatives (including some of the best chicken I’d ever had that came out after). My coworkers happily finished that round of food and the night wrapped up with some pictures with the chef (and his big grill paddle), and a cab back to my hotel. I dropped quickly into bed. Tomorrow was the tour I had booked to Tokyo with the website Triplelights, and I’d get to meander all over Tokyo to see its amazing sights!
