Lunchtime had finally come – that hour of the day when the stress and anxieties of work melt away and you can lose yourself in a mess of food and gossip about students. I’ve still been cooking almost every day, but on Fridays I like to take a break and buy a bento (boxed lunch set) on the way to work. I’ve recently found a nice little shop where they make and sell all sorts of great lunches for less than 500 yen. On that particular day I was in a hurry so I just popped in and grabbed the first one that appeared to have a good variety of meat, fish, and vegetables. So that day at work when the microwave timer dinged and I greedily hustled the lunch back to my classroom, I wasn’t fully sure what I’d find inside. A bit of mystery is half the fun of a bento, I think.
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Pizza is heinously expensive in Japan. In fact, it would probably cost less to have one overnight air mailed here from the States than to purchase it locally. But I guess that’s the price of foreign luxury. On Saturday I got together at my apartment with two of the Japanese teachers, Yuji and Mariko, and my fellow American Claire and we threw a pizza party. Speedy delivery service may be built into the exorbitant price here, as I suppose part of the cheapness of pizza delivery in America is that you can expect to wait anywhere from an hour to three days for it to arrive. On Saturday we called in the order from work and they said it’d be at our door in 30 minutes. As per usual Japanese punctuality (on time = late) it arrived in 15 minutes, just after I stepped in the door myself.
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The eel shop looked ancient – the cackle of the great iron grills and the gentle moan of wooden floorboards had almost medieval depth to their voices. After passing through a sliding doorway draped with a noble blue, eel-embroidered curtain, the antiquity of the place was heightened by an inviting aroma of charcoal and sweet barbecue glaze, punctuated by the crisp, almost tart oak smell unique to grilled eel. It was heavenly; an experience I’ve been drooling for ever since I stepped onto Japanese soil.
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This week is the peak of the cherry blossom season. There’s been a bit of a frenzy in town as the sakura trees bloom en masse and the sun concedes just enough warmth during the day for it to be really pleasant outdoors. This past weekend people flocked in from all over to really choke up the streets of Shizuoka with spring festivities. There have been parades with marching samurai, women in kimonos, and gigantic wooden carts bristling with bold calligraphied banners and costumed characters from Japanese lore. They clamber along the streets blaring old Japanese music and doing wild dances. It’s a nice sight.
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