SOFTWARE, JAPAN, SELF-ACTUALIZATION AND

Ok, so a lot I want to write about, but I want to timebox this to 10 minutes of typing. Lets see how it goes.

This past Thursday Ayako and I met one of her previous bosses, and senpai, Craig-san. Craig-san is an American, but he grew up in Japan and lived in the States for 20 years while his children were in school (they now range from 20-24 years old). After asking us questions about our backgrounds he gave us advice pertaining to some of the differences we will have to face. Much of what he told us mirrored our pre-marital counseling session we had while still in Florence. However, he did provide quite a bit of insight into the cultural influences that will affect our marriage. Perhaps I can outline some of these later, but for the most part we will not have any significant differences to consider until children enter the picture (no time soon).

We met Craig-san at Ohajiki Shinjuku restaurant, a snug little place in the basement of a not so prominent building near the west station exit. The first interesting thing about the place is the door. It is a traditional Japanese style door that looks like a large wooden entrance, but the real door is less than half in size. One panel out of the full door slides - and you have to duck to get in (even Ayako had to duck ). Very cool atmosphere on the inside, a traditional style low-sitting table, sliding doors to individual eating rooms, and the way you get the waiters attention is by pulling a wood plank attached to a small rope that shakes a chime somewhere close to the kitchen (wow, what a long sentence).

Finally, figured I would comment on the cuisine. It was quite delicious, starting with a salad, steamed green beans, sake, and sweet eggs. The real kicker came with the 2 main dishes, a tasty baked chicken roll, and much to my complete shock - small slabs of raw chicken in a sesame sauce. The raw chicken was only slightly cooked around the edges - but was clearly raw on the inside. Craig said that uncooked chicken, although not popular, is common enough around Japan that I will probably see it again sometime.

Not too bad, I ate a couple pieces. But you can believe that the sirens were going off in my head, my brain didnt seem too happy with concept.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 15th, 2009 at 9:11 am and is filed under life in Japan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.