Odawara and Sac State Nomikai - January 10th

Brad and Rina spent their new years in Nagoya, so they were unable to come for the festivites of Hans's birthday, or for the spectacular disaster of our trip to Fujikyuu. But today they along with several other people who have studied at Sac State are in town, and we're planning on going to an izakaya in Shibuya for some laughs. The head count is over 10, so this will definitely get interesting.

Seeing as I had yet to come to Odawara and deliver my omiyage for Sacchan's family, I figured that today would be a good excuse to head down there for the afternoon. She had hinted at the possibility of meeting up with Brad in Odawara to hang out and Garrett, one of my kouhai from Sac State who was travelling around Tokyo at the time, was also free to spend the day in Kanagawa prefecture with us. The assurances by his cell phone carrier that he'd be able to use his cell phone in Japan turned out to be empty smoke, and so Garrett found himself relying on pay phones and the internet. He should complain to them about the exceptional inconvenience they caused him by lying to him about the extent of his service.

At any rate, I met up with Garrett and Brad at baba in the morning, and we scuttled down to Shinjuku andjumped on the Odakyuu. Sacchan met us at the station in her little Daihatsu and took us to her house. Her mom and grandma were there, and were as pleasant and cheerful as ever. Her mom treated us to an extensive lunch of sushi and soba. Perhaps because of their asian heritage and upbringing, Brad and Garrett were hesitant to partake in such a generous treat. I, on the other hand, was perhaps too hungry. I knew that Sacchan's mom loves to give to guests, and that she'd hate for us to leave anything left on the plates. I balked at her generosity to the extent dictated by manners before diving into the meal she prepared for us.

Sacchan took us to the kamaboko museum, which is also the factory where the fishcake is produced. In the museum are various exhibits that show the different kinds of fish that go into the various products that the company makes. Other exhibits show the way in which the fishcake is manufactured. An entire wall of the building is a glass window into the factory, but alas, the factory was closed on Wednesdays. We busied ourselves by walking through the art gallery on the second floor, displaying a variety of works by famous artists from around the world, all done on the wood blocks that kamaboko comes on. It was interesting to see the small blocks of wood used as a medium for paintings and sculpture; some of the works were quite impressive and creative.

Across the street is a well-known beer hall, where we enjoyed samplers of Hakone's award-winning local beer. A pilsner, an ale, and "seasonal beer" were set before us. Brad and I sampled the three beers with zeal; the pilsner had a distinctly hopsy bite, but finished quickly and smoothly, the bitterness of the hops quickly giving way to a mellow aftertaste. The ale had a similar finish, but started much more mildly. The final and darkest beer also had a deep malty flavor with a characteristic full-bodied finish. All three beers were very enjoyable, and I bought a variety pack to share with my host family, along with a pack of delicious umeboshi (another specialty of Odawara). Running short of time, we went back to Sacchan's place to grab our stuff and head back to Tokyo, and once again found ourselves bombarded by gifts from her mom. Loaded down by even more things than we had brought as omiyage, we rode the train back to Tokyo for our meetup in Shibuya.

We gathered in front of the Hachiko statue before going to the izakaya. I got to see people I hadn't hung out with in over a year; we all had a great time catching up. One of the dishes that came to the table was basashi (horse sashimi), and I tasted a piece. It's not a very common dish, and I'm a bit repulsed by the idea of eating a pony, but my indignation at the thought wasn't going to bring the horse back to life. The meat was extremely tender and practically melted in my mouth; definitely an interesting experience, although for the aforementioned reasons I probably wouldn't order it a second time. After an endless parade of food and drinks, we were all quite full and happy, and upon leaving the restaurant, we decided that we would go sing at the Shidax down the street. We had a great time and sang all of our favorite songs. Sacchan and Yurika had to go back to Odawara before it got too late, so they left early. The rest of us stayed around for another half hour or so before we went hoarse and couldn't sing any more. When we went to pay the bill, the people at the counter absolutely raped us for 600 yen every half hour (way more than we were told originally), and even charged us the full amount for the people who had arrived late and left early, "because they didn't tell us when they left." Despite their bullshit argument (my response was "count how many people there are here, obviously some of us left early!"), we still became victims to their well-rehearsed methods of highway robbery. I shelled out the difference for Sacchan and Yurika, vowing never to come to Shidax again. Despite the shitty way the evening ended, we were all still in good spirits and were happy to have seen each other again. It's this kind of get-together that makes Japan fun.