A while back Mr. Komuri had invited me to a traditional Japanese lunch in Sasaiyama. He said it was about an hour drive away, so it’s not exactly convenient to get there – it’s more for special occasions. He invited me along, and so we traveled out there with Miss Yamamoto and Ms. Mizuta, the school nurse.
School is only a half day this week because of examinations, so we left the school around 12:30. It turns out that Mr. Komuri is a poor judge of distance – the trip took two hours, rather than one. Before we left I had asked Mr. Komuri if we would be back by 5 o’clock, and he assured me that we’d be back in plenty of time. Miss Kageyama and I had made plans the previous day to see a movie and have dinner, and the movie started at 6:30 – If we were back by five then I should be fine. After the long drive there, I wasn’t so sure if we’d make it, but since Miss Kageyama and I are doing these things in “stealth mode” I couldn’t really explain why I had to be back by five.
Anyway, everything was pretty much out of my power anyway, so I decided to relax and try to enjoy the experience. The restaurant was located in the cradle of a steep valley surrounded by terraced rice paddies. The weather was cloudy and wet, with kind of a light mist of rain falling down on us as we walked into a fairly nondescript wooden building. The inside was decorated beautifully, and we went in and sat down at the only western style table they had. Everything else was set up on traditional tatami mats and short tables. Mr. Komuri said that they women had requested the table because their legs get tired out, and I was very happy to hear that.
The food started to come out, and they explained what everything was – unfortunately it was all in Japanese. I took some pictures to refer to later, and then dug in. Everything was great – and I tried some strange things. We had a total of seven courses and dessert. The middle courses came with sake and we also had a beer with our food. Very good.
The big attraction at this restaurant is the soba noodles, made out of buckwheat. Four of the courses were buckwheat based, some sweet, some salty, all very good.
Mr. Komuri kept looking at his watch while we ate, but I tried not to think about it. He explained to everyone else that I was hoping to get back to my place by five, and everyone wanted to know why I needed to be back. Yikes! I explained that a girl was going to meet me at my apartment at five, and told them that it was an ALT that I met a while back, just to throw them off the track a little. I could tell that Mr. Komuri started to feel really bad then. Miss Yamamoto offered me the use of her phone, but it would have been a dead giveaway to call Miss Kageyama from her phone, so I declined saying that I didn’t know the number.
Finally the last course arrived, and we packed up and headed out around 4:30. Mr. Komuri drove us into town so that everyone could buy souvenirs from Sasaiyama – kind of a sweet paste that is made out of nuts and stuffed into cookies and pastries.
After the quick trip we drove by another restaurant that Mr. Komuri likes, and then we hit the road. On the way back he said that we’d be back to Akashi station around 6:30 – is that OK? I had visions of my phone ringing off the hook with Miss Kageyama wondering what the heck happened to me. It’s definitely not cool to be late in Japan, but I was kind of stuck, with no way to tell her what’s going on.
I made my exit at Akashi, took the limited express to Higashi Futami, and then ran from the station to my apartment in five minutes. When I got home there was a note on my door from Miss Kageyama – she was concerned about me and had dropped by to check on me. I gave her a call and explained, but she was still a little upset.
The lunch was great, and it was a good traditional Japanese food experience. Next time, I need to do a better job of planning my time.
