Dougy Mak's Blog

We went to Shobu Matsuri which is a flower festival well known here at Higashimurayama. The flowers were grown in a paddy field. It was like a big mud puddle. The flowers were nice, but I was really more excited about the wild life. The water had a lot of water striders running around. There were also a lot of spiders right above the pond with their webs spun between flowers. These spiders were HUGE and gross. Long butts and long legs *chills*. I saw a spider spinning a fly on its web and crouched down and watched it for a bit. While I was watching the spider spinning the fly, it just so happened that a fly landed right next to me. I blew that fly into the web. I continued on to look at other things and I saw a child holding a chop stick with a string with a dried squid tied to it. My my girl friend told me that the kid was fishing for crawfishes. I was like WOW, that is awesome. I began seeing more children carrying fish nets, and plastic cases for craw fishes. I wanted to join them, but I did not have the gear! I went on to look around to find some though, and found a dead one. After a while of searching, we decided to leave. On our way to the bicycles, I checked out the spider again and it already finished BOTH of the insects. My girl friend’s mom also found an alive craw fish and I was pretty excited. That thing was pretty big for a craw fish, and I wish I could have brought it home. We also saw some little fishies swimming around the murky waters. There were also turtles in the pond, but I think those were just placed in there by humans. My girl friend’s mom also found a frog, it was sticking its eyes out of the water and it was pretty far and pretty hard to see, but we took a picture and zoomed in to confirm it was a frog (thank you Nikon D40). The dragon flies are freaking huge, well, not as big as the one I saw once (5 inches or something!). The dragon flies were fury and were colored black and white.

In every restauraunt that I have ate at so far, they give you these hot towels or wet towelletes to wipe your hands. I think it customary here. We went to a local restaurant today, it was a family owned restaurant. My girl friend and her family are really good friends with the people at the restaurant.  The place was empty today (which was surprising to my girl friend and her mom) because of the World Cup (soccer is really popular here).

I could not read the Japanese, at least not fast enough to keep people from waiting, so I asked my girl friend’s mom to order me something. I had Ten Seiro Udon for dinner today and it was delicious! Tenpura (The tenpura shrimp was HUGE!), udon, mentsuyu and green onions. The whole dish was a new thing to me, so when they first delivered the Ten Seiro Udon and placed it in front of me, I was not sure how was I supposed to eat it. Usually, I would just wait for someone who seems like they know what they are doing begin first and then follow, but I just asked my girl friend and her mom. You dip the udon into the mentsuyu and then you eat it.You dip the udon into the mentsuyu and then you eat it. Adding wasabi into the mentsuyu tasted even better. I really enjoyed the dish a lot. The dish was really balanced. What I mean is, there are some foods where its tastes stacks as you continue to eat it, for example, eating more and more ice cream builds up an overwhelming sweet taste in your mouth. This can apply to any taste, especially the salty taste.The ten seiro udon did not have the building taste which is why I thought it was really balanced.

When we were eating, I was listening to my girl friend’s mom eating because she was slurping really loud. It was distinctly noticeable because the restaurant was empty. At first, I thought it was really odd since it is well mannered to NOT slurp in America, but because she slurped so loud, I realized  it was well mannered to slurp in the Japanese culture. I think slurping shows your host that the noodles are good (I will double check that ).

After finishing everything, you pour sobayu (it is the water they boil the noodles with) into the Mentsuyu and you drink it like a soup. The sobayu’s role was for texture and the combination of the two was really good. I enjoyed the experience and the food a lot, I definitely want to eat there again before I leave.