吾语录 - Our Blogs: Natasha's experience in Japan

One of the reasons why I always wanted to travel to Japan, is partly because of the food. I love raw stuff, sushi and everything. Every day I travelled, food has become part of my objectives on the day. I was looking forward to 3 meals in a day. I planned for my breakfast. I had limited time to catch the early train, so, Duncan always wanted me to get the breakfast ready the night before. Not far from our hotel, there’s a convenient shop, 7-eleven. Most of my breakfast would be from this convenient shop.

Either Bento set or kind-of-rice-ball sushi, I had them finished with satisfaction. That was a day I wanted to taste a different breakfast, so I bought a Japanese instant noodle. It tastes totally different from those in our country. I don’t know how to describe, it just tastes very good. That was one of my breakfasts.

As for lunch, I’d prefer to purchase those from machine. The first time I saw this machine outside a restaurant at Asakusa. I had ‘hard time’ to purchase anything from this machine as I can’t read Japanese !! Well, when Duncan was with me, he did most of the food ordering, while I don’t do anything but ready to eat. Buying food from this machine is much cheaper than you dine in those normal order-to-eat restaurants.

The problem had finally arisen when I was all alone. I chose to have my lunch at one of the train stations. Restaurants are just few steps away when you exit from the station. That is something I like too whereby you can easily find a place to eat in a station. I chose to have my lunch that day at a so-called convenient restaurant with food ordering machine. To those working Japanese, lunch is rather rushed for them and you won’t be surprised to see restaurants with no chairs at all and everybody is standing at the bar to have their lunch.

I had my coins ready to prepare for the machine. Too bad, I didn’t think there’s any kanji looks like Chinese character and I can’t read the menu at all. I quickly approached a middle-age man standing next to me. Again, how am I supposed to tell him what I want to eat? I saw some displays of ramen or lunch set at the window. I tried to point which one I’d like to have and get him to show me on the food ordering machine. Apparently, he doesn’t understand though and I don’t seem to know what he tried to tell me. *Chicken and duck speaking.

No choice, I tried my luck to those buttons that seem answering my questions. A ticket drawn out from the machine and the lunch set was ready when you passed over the ticket to the waiter. I was in the queue of all working Japanese man with suits on and carried a briefcase. When I got my food ready, it was a relief that I had something which is edible, ramen with a roll of fried tempura. Thank god :)

Usually I’d have dinner with Duncan when we met up at somewhere. Most of the time, our dinner was the most expensive one. We had the raw stuff and Yakitori (BBQ set). Dinner was never a problem to me.

I noticed something when we had dinner at one of the restaurants one day. Most of the customers in this restaurant are male Japanese. They were smoking and laughing loud while drinking their Japanese wine, I guess. It was 9 somethings when we had dinner that night. Japanese men don’t go home after work. They will usually hang around with colleagues or friends in the wine bar, restaurants or Pachinko (one kind of Japanese game for gambling) shop. Duncan explained to me, if a Japanese husband goes home early, it means the husband does not work hard enough to earn money for the family. Now I realized why these people would rather enjoy themselves in the restaurants.