...where everybody sings and eats noodles!There is a small ramen restaurant that I walk past at least twice a day. It has a vending machine out front with menu items to order. After money has been accepted and a selection is made, a small ticket is printed. Unfortunately, the menu has no pictures, and neither does the ticket. Well, there is one picture on the vending machine, but it doesn't appear to be connected with any single item on the menu. The first time I went there, it was a cold, damp day, I was really hungry, and it seemed to be the only restaurant open. I had to pick something on the menu, but what should I order? I decided that choosing the most expensive item on the menu would be a good idea, especially because I was so hungry. I put in 1050 yen, collected my ticket, and handed it to the cook inside. I soon received a large bowl of ramen wih slices of roast pork, a "post-it" size peice of dried seaweed, and a bowl of rice. I enjoyed this meal very much, even though the seaweed tastes better when it is dry. Over the past several months, I would say that I've eaten there about once or twice a week. I think my menu choice strategy turned out to be a one. So, if you have trouble ordering something in a restaurant some day, think about ordering the most expensive item, especially if you cannot read anything on the menu!
Recently, I've noticed that at the same restaurant and with the same ticket, I sometimes only get a bowl of ramen without the rice. It kind of bothered me; if I was ordering the most expensive meal on the menu then I should get
all of the meal. However, I never said anything. I wouldn't even know where to begin! It seemed that late at night is when the ramen bowl would be served to me wihout rice and, in the afternoon, I would get the added bowl of rice. In Tokyo, the restaurants generally serve less expensive fare in the afternoon. I thought that, maybe, the late night menu somehow offered less food for the money. Last night, I discovered how very wrong that thought was.
After returning from the movies, I decided that popcorn was not enough of an evening meal, and went to the ramen shop. (I went to see "Wanted." Here's my short review of the film: Who knew being an accountant was such a dangerous profession!) I pushed the button for the same roast pork ramen with rice, gave the ticket to the cook and looked for a chair. Of the seven (!) chairs in the restaurant, six were occupied. I slid into the last chair in the corner. Of course, the ramen came without rice. After finishing my meal, I noticed that the cook was talking with a young couple (OK, maybe they were just friends) and they seemed to know each other. I handed the empty bowl to the cook and said, "Excuse me," in Japanese to the couple. They turned around and asked me where I was from. They were both smiling and the young woman, I'll call her "L", spoke much better English than the young man whom I will refer to as "K". After saying that I was from New York, the couple introduced themselves and said that they were from Korea. They both pointed to the cook, "W", and said he recently came to Japan from China. They were all in Japan, and knew each other because they were all in the same class studying the Japanese language! At this point, "K" starts to sing "We Are The World" and starts to really get into the song. Before it starts to turn into Karaoke Night, "L" asks him to stop singing, or that he sings like a coyote, or maybe his shoelace was untied; I'm not quite sure. K did, however, stop singing and explained that he wanted to learn how to speak better English. I am sure that whatever amount of English K knew, it was because he listened to plenty of American pop songs, especially Michael Jackson. Since L was the most fluent of the three in English, most of the conversion occurred with L and she translated for K. As an interesting side note, I learned that the Koren language doen't really have any Kanji characters, but that the rules of grammar were the same as those of the Japanese language. All of the Kanji that is used in Japan was borrowed from China long ago. I asked them if they came to the ramen shop often; it turns out that they came every Saturday night. I offered to meet everyone again next Saturday, said my goodbyes, and left. As I made my way back home, I suddenly realized that because W was just a student of the Japanese language, he probably never did read the entire menu ticket. And me, not being a student of the Japense language, never did ask about getting a bowl of rice with my ramen. I'll have to change that next week.
Turns out that they were watching some live action show. There were several going on in different section of the convention hall. A little later on, I saw a smaller venue live action show with this yellow fellow:
Actually if you click on the picture to see the larger size, rotate the picture because they were all plugged in via USB ports and acting like they were all in heat. I think it was the best toy at the show, even better than the kissing robot.
