teamEggers

SRF / Singin the Blues

A lot of people ask us what jon does, why we’re out here. Most of you know he’s an engineer for the navy, but that doesn’t really explain much. For most of our trip, jon has been the guy with the clipboard and the clicky pen, helping to train his Japanese counterparts on how to work with nuclear vessels. “um. I help SRF oversee their program for different types of stuff that…” Okay you guessed right, there actually a lot of jon’s job that he’s not allowed to tell you. Sounds awesome, right?

Which brings us to an evening with the folks from SRF (Ship Repair Facility), Jon’s japanese coworkers. Why they decided to do a “team building” night at the end of the trip is beyond me, but it was fun to meet some of the people that come up in work stories every so often.

The Japanese drinking culture is a little different here. It’s copious, often done in groups, and most often involves food. Not meals, mind you, but small bites. “Izakaya” is quite a bit like tapas: small plates.

They don’t seem to have the same shared-food/shared-check phobias that we do. Drinks are usually ordered in rounds, food is put on the table, and everyone tosses money on the table at the end.

Chu-hi is a common drink that can be bought either in the can (from 7-11) or in restaurants, where you’ll always get it fresh. Making it is simple: mix fruit juice, soda water and shochu (the local spirit), throw in some ice and you’ve got yourself a party. What I love is when you get your chu-hi so fresh that they want you to work for it. Interactive drinking. I love it.

Another thing that’s incredibly japanese is Karaoke. Sigh.

It’s not that I’m intentionally trying to be a buzzkill, it’s just that I know I’m terrible at singing. Why does everyone insist this isn’t a prerequisite to singing in front of groups?! I had just about made it through two years, but I think jon had had enough of my bailing early and excuse making. Tonight’s the night.

Karaoke bars in the states usually have large stages where you sing in front of the entire bar. Perhaps this eggs on my distaste of them? Here it’s a little different because you have a private room for your group. It was odd at first, but thanks to our j-friends, we quickly got the hang of it.

Not to mention, there was an extra dose of “oddly translated english” to have fun with!

Sakai-san unabashedly sang and danced, and entertained us all with his mad-karaoke-confidence. He looks like such a quiet, older, man – you’d never expect him to be so funny!

Jon did spectacularly, though I think that was in part due to a good selection of songs.

Below, jon singing a love song to Rich. Okay, it’s not a love song… more like a… well. it was a song that probably shouldn’t have been sung between two [straight] guys.

Rich, singing and sakai-san and meeha? Mija? Mi-ha? (Jon, how do you spell her name!?) being so moved they had to dance.

At the end of the night, after being assured that we “probably had enough time”, we headed home. As luck would have it, we got to the station just as the the lights were flashing – our signal that we had just missed the last train (and only by two minutes!!). Had it not been utterly cold, rainy and miserable out that night, we may have considered hitting another bar and sleeping it off in the (outdoor) train station till morning.

Luckily for us, a new friend offered up his guest room. I can’t tell you how appreciative I am of dan – a distant coworker of jon’s, who seemed to be one of the most genuine and kind people I’ve met in a while. (And I’m not just saying that because he roofed us!)

All and all, a good night. Good adventures, at least.

Ebisu / Yebisu & Odaiba Island

Ebisu: ‘hood in Tokyo. Stop on the yamanote line. One of the 7 lucky gods (he’s the god of good fortune, fishing & merchants)

Yebisu: Beer. Specifically, one of Tokyo’s oldest breweries. It started in 1890 and is now owned by Sapporo. It tastes… much like all japanese beers. You’ve had kirin/sapporo/asahi right? Like that.

After ramen, Will, Dave, Jon & I took to exploring the city. I’m not sure if we had a plan or if we just happened to be in Ebisu, but somehow we find ourselves at the Yebisu brewery/tasting room/museum.

Hey, have you met Dave? Dave works with jon/will. He’s a nice chap. Very pleasant, easy to hang out with. Generally goes along with everything. Has a white DSLR. yeah. it’s weird. So is ordering everything from vending machines. Even my beer? Come on.

Anyhow, after hanging out for a bit in Ebisu, we mill.

Dave had recently discovered the island of Odaiba. Discovered. Planted a flag on that shit. Please excuse my poor word choices – Dave knew about this place, it was a beautiful day, and our band of four was looking for adventure…

Who knew there were beaches, boardwalks, and palm trees in the center of Tokyo? This city’s got it all!

What the heck is that? Will decides that we have to go into the ball. I’m skeptical. Why am I always skeptical? Can someone teach me how to be less uptight? I’m serious.

Walking down the boardwalk, we’re chilled by the wind but determined to find the ball.

Getting closer, but what is it? Can we go in!?

Hoo wee, what a view. Tokyo Tower (on the right) looks like a rocketship.

We make it up and find a viewing deck inside. If you don’t want to pay and go into the main viewing area, there’s still a killer view. We didn’t know it then, but the building we were in was the Fuji TV headquarters – known for its unusual architecture:

photo c/o Wikipedia

We stayed up until the sun set over the city, and then headed back into the technicolor wind.

Bassanova (Ramen)

Have I told you about Bassanova yet? I must have. Maybe a few times. If it’s not my favourite spot in this city, it’s certainly in the top five. I have a week and a half left in this fair city, and I’m devoted to getting back there once more.

You hear me jon? Green.Curry.Ramen.

What makes it so good? Why do I bring everyone that will make the trek out there with me? It’s almost an hour from my house – nothing in seattle would make me take a bus that far. There’s something about the roasty pork-broth base + the perfect softness of their eggs + the creaminess you get from coconut + the kick of spicy (but not too spicy, because then you couldn’t slurp!) of the green curry…

This trip has brought us to some of the finest ramen joints in this ramen-tastic-city, and I just think Bassanova’s hands down the best. Rant and rave worthy. Slurp your noodles and finish your bowl, worthy.

You know what’s also great? Sprinkles. Goma.

Alex asked me what kind of fantastic japanese gems I learned about while I was here, and it’s got to be this guy. They’re the asian equivalent of pine nuts – sprinkle a little on the end of any dish… pasta, rice, salad… and you get this beautiful roasted finish. Slightly salty. The tiniest crunch. I’m going to have to pick up one of these goma grinders (above) before I leave.

Don’t take pictures into the sun, eh? But you know… I thought our mothers might be getting sick of looking at my food.

Sake Brewery

Wow, did I have the wrong impression of this trip. I was actually looking at a different event’s brochure, reading about the haps, getting excited… so I was really surprised when the actual sake tour was nothing like I expected.

Here’s what was going to happen, in my head. I love when I make things up. So we get there, the brewery is run by a guy from Europe who happens to know a ton about sake, but speaks English. He explains the hows-and-whats of what we’re drinking, he teaches us how to read sake labels in japanese. We sip. We sample. We are merry.

Which is, you know, kind of like what happened. Except first we took off all our shoes. Because why would you consider going into a brewery with shoes on? Come on, people.

And then the sake master, who didn’t speak any English, explained a few things to our tour guide… who must not have thought it was worth while to translate for us.

But that’s okay. Because despite my snarky tone, we really did have a good time.

At this point we were like, “okay. so there’s… no tour. That’s okay. Because there will still be a sake tasting! And I love sake! The tour guide said we’d get to try five different kinds!!!” And perhaps my excitement level should have tipped me off that something was amiss. Because the tasting was…. not very exciting.

Two sakes, one plum wine. Plum wine? BUT WHY!!! Good lord. Why. They didn’t tell us anything about what we were tasting. Oh, enough focusing on the negatives here michelle. This was a new experience! You never get to spend 8 hours in a bus with tour groups!

On the bright side, we did get this picture…

Which is exciting. Because now that I have a pic of us on a blue screen, I can put the background of any other MWR trip in there and save myself the bus ride.

Strawberry Farm

The naval base has all kinds of activities planned for the families that come out here. It’s incredibly nice because I imagine there are quite a few people “stuck” in Japan that aren’t as adventurous as j and I. I married so well. Remember when we were growing up and I was the spontaneous one and jon was the methodical one? What happened to those versions of ourselves?

Where’s this going. We usually check out the list of things that MWR is doing and say “yeah, that sounds good! let’s plan our own trip for that!” – which is awesome because we learn about festivals and castles and sights and stuff that we might not otherwise hear of, but we don’t have to spend hours on a bus and herd around like american cattle.

This trip, however, was really far away. It was a 4 hour bus ride into a prefecture that just wasn’t very easy to get to, and they went a few places that we were excited about. So that’s a long way of qualifying why I’m in this bus, writing postcards to grandma, on our way to eat stuff our faces with strawberries.

Unlike U-pick places in the States, you don’t take the fruit with you here. You have 30 minutes to shove your face with as many berries as you can. Careful not to give yourself a stomachache! Those suckers are sweet!

Though how can you resist the elusive 6-legged, white strawberry?!

Just kidding.

You have thirty minutes. Go.

So most people left after about 15. Jon… jon couldn’t understand it. He stayed longer than anyone else, peeking and picking through the
bushes that our group was allotted. There’s so many berries left!

Personally, I had to tap out because I have no self-control. I literally mashed every decent looking berry in my face as fast as I could. After about 15 minutes I recognized the turning point – if I kept going, I was going to be complaining for the rest of the bus ride.

As with everything in life, jon’s style’s more refined than mine. He perused. He selected. He did not come out with a sticky face and red-stained hands.