Last night I spent a few hours at the Yakitori chatting with Atsuji-san, and also some of the other regulars. It was a lot of fun – we talked about all kinds of stuff, and everyone kept the drinks and food coming. Atsuji-san is a really cool guy, and the more he drinks the less English he speaks. That makes it more of a challenge for me, but I really enjoyed it.
I was up fairly early this morning, and I got cleaned up and spent some time cleaning house and studying. I bought a new textbook on Japanese kanji at the bookstore next door – I’m hoping to focus a little more on reading and writing kanji.
Last night at the yakitori the master had invited me to join him for a late okonomiyaki lunch today before he goes into work. I met him in front of Denya around 3 p.m., and we drove out to a restaurant near Higashi Futami station, where I used to walk every day.
It was a tiny little place that also was selling shaved ice. There were about five other people in there just hanging out, and they were really surprised when we walked in. We ordered up some okonomiyaki from a huge menu – for such a small place they had a great selection. I ordered a kimchee and shrimp okonomiyaki, and the master had an egg and pork one. We had a couple of beers with it, and had a good talk in between bites of the food.
We finished up, and on the way home the master pulled into the liquor store to pick up a bottle of shochu for the yakitori. Atsuji-san came out from the back and said hello, and we talked about the fun from last night and I described my okonomiyaki to him in detail.
Soon enough the master came back out from the shop and then he gave me a ride home. This evening I didn’t need dinner, since the late lunch kind of did me in. I’m getting geared up for tomorrow, and I’ll take my new textbook into school so I can work on it there. Also, Kuniko will be back in town tomorrow – she’s been out of town for her club retreat, so it will be good to see her. This is the second weekend in a row that she’s had to work. No doubt she’ll be exhausted.
