Food, Drink and Registration!

Yesterday, together with our Prof., our lab went out to an all-you-can-drink izakaya.  It certainly was an interesting experience.  I only had about 3 pints of the same beer so it wasn't all worth the 3000yen ($37) price tag but I had a good time so I can't complain.  There were around 12 of us around this long table (almost at floor level but it did have a whole in the middle under the table so that you were seated normally).  I definitely didn't take enough pictures because I wasn't really prepared for it (i.e., need to carry camera everywhere since the one on iphone isn't all that good).  Plus it was raining heavily outside!

The first interesting thing was that in the lobby area (which looked like a Japanese rock garden) we had to take off our shoes and put them into these little wooden lockers (with wooden keys!).  Walking in the restaurant was done with no shoes.

There was a 90min time limit on our all-you-can-drink.  The drink menu did have an assortment of things but pretty much everybody wanted beer so I went with beer.  Beer came in large pitchers (Asahi I think was the brand) but there seemed to be only 1 choice).  The Japanese custom is (very much like in Canada) to pour others drinks (and others will pour yours too).  The different custom is that you keep the beer glass with your two hands and hold it while the beer is being poured.  I did the pouring once and the people were quite excited that I'm trying to follow the Japanese custom.

The really interesting thing was the food.  This izakaya was all about chicken.  So we basically ate chicken in at least 5 different ways.  There were chicken shish-kabobs (some from chicken stomachs), some sausages, various kinds of chicken meat breaded and deep fried (one was cartilage which was quite crunchy).

At the end was some rice based dish that you were supposed to eat once and then add some sauce/broth boiling on special stands and eat again.  So it was quite an interesting experience!

Today for lunch we went to a soba place which was quite nice and tasty.  I would say this handmade soba in this grandpa&grandma restaurant was the best I've had.  I had some with a fried shrimp, some daikon radish, green onions, and real wasabi!!  There was also breaded & deep fried leaf of some kind!  Was delicious!

This was the menu - as you can see I definitely wouldn't be able to order anything other than randomly at this place :P.  Although randomly it would still be good :P  In case you're not familiar with Chinese/Japanese numbers, those are prices at the bottom, followed by the yen symbol 円。I guess I could read "soba" (そば) since it was written in hiragana (one of the easy alphabets that I know mostly)!

In the afternoon, I biked to my ward office (the city office for the part of the city where I live) to pick up my alien registration card!  It was a nice bike ride, around 5km from university and about 4km back home.  But, I'm finally a fully registered alien! :P  I no longer need to carry my passport with me which will make my pockets less full.  This card is basically an ID that I can use anywhere it is necessary and states that I am actually residing in the city.  There is a large "Japan Ministry of Justice" hologram on the card.

After resting a bit at home (well basically waiting for my phone to recharge since somehow the battery life is horrible on this thing and it lasts like a day) I went for dinner to the big AEON mall near me.  I walked around to find a restaurant and decided to try this place that had basically hamburger patties.  And that's what it turned out to be but it was basically a fancy hamburger restaurant.  Pretty interesting.  I also ordered some rice, salad and pumpkin soup package.  The soup was so tasty!

The hamburger was quite nice too although it isn't something I would eat very often.  But my beef craving is satisfied for the next while.  Overall, the cost of the whole thing was around $17 so a bit on the high side - but had to be tried!

While on the topic of food, here is some mochi with red bean paste.  It is supposed to bring luck and chase away evil and is often eaten during the autumn equinox.

Also, I didn't know that there are oranges grown in Japan, but I bought some from a fruit store in an underground mall around a subway station near downtown.  They looked green but were quite tasty.  No seeds and not overly sweet.