On Sunday we were driving to Kuniko’s school in our new car, and out of the blue we were rear-ended at slow speed. The guy behind us was driving a Mercedes Benz, which is a good car to be hit with, and he leaped out of the car and apologized when we got out to check out the damage. I think he probably felt like crap when he hit us, and then I jumped out of the passenger side and he must have thought, “Oh man, I gotta do this in English?” The look of relief on his face when Kuniko stepped out of the driver’s side was perfect.
Anyway – like most things in Japan – it works differently around here. The first thing he said was “I’m so sorry!” in Japanese, and Kuniko said, “No, no, don’t worry about it” in Japanese, and then we drove off to the side and exchanged business cards. I took pictures of both bumpers, but clearly ours was the loser. His license plate did most of the damage, but it really is just some deep scratches and one or two punctures through the bumper. The next step is that his insurance company will call our Honda dealer, and they’ll pay for everything to get back to normal. They’ll give us a car to drive while ours is being repaired, so it really won’t affect us much. And in the end, nobody was hurt, and that’s the important thing.
For dinner we finally visited the Thai restaurant that opened here in Okubo. First there was an Indian restaurant, and now a Thai restaurant – Okubo is getting more and more international. This place was designed to look like a street market in Thailand, and they did a good job of recreating the feel of eating from a food stand. The food was above average – not as good as our Japanese standard Baan Thai, but better than any others we’ve tried in Japan. And considering that it is a few minutes walk from our house, it is very much more convenient. The price was a little high for what we got, but I’m fine with that. The staff were all Thai, and very friendly (especially to a fellow foreigner like me). So overall it gets a good review, and I’ll try to go back as much as I can to help them stay in business. Okubo is full of old people that probably are not big fans of Thai food. I don’t know if they’ll be able to make it.
