Ai ya ya, wasn’t so much better for the most part, but the fact that we are in Japan is sinking in!
Dave and I started off the day on the wrong foot, literally. I wanted to get the alien registration thing done so we headed to Tenma(???) late in the morning. We walked from the station to the area where the office located, but gosh, we cannot see any building signs. We circled the area for 2 hours under the muggy weather, and our patience has evaporated since we could not find after getting directions from the convenience store & dry clean shop. And at last, at around 3:30, we finally spot the office, but the location doesn’t process alien registration cards! What a ********itch. That was the most frustrated thing everrrrrrrrrrrrrr. (In retrospect, I found out that I must registar at the Hirakara cityhall to get the AR card since I am a resident of the area , so it was a waste of time doing what we did today, lol)
All this frustration, and hunger, led us to buy snacks and onigiri at the Lawson nearby. We decided to have a kick ass dinner after meeting Keiko, who runs C-FLAT, about the English teaching job, so we just got something to fill us up abit.
So we took the subway from Tanimachi-6 choume and head to Shinsaibashi, an area which I have been to and familiar with!
Luckily, it didn’t took me (and accompanied by Dave) long to find the cafe located in Minami Senba. So in this tiny but clean room (about 4.5 tatami size!) I was meeting Keiko who is like any other Osaka native, really talkative and friendly, I introduced Dave to her, told her how I randomly found out about C-FLAT, gave her my background info, and in turn she gave me information on how the English classes are like. One instructor usually leads 6 – 7 people and he/she tries to prompt the participants to have equal chance to speak. According to Keiko, many people doesn’t have the chance to practise speaking so they would come to the cafe for practise at a really low cost (around 1000 yen each time with tea and snacks). The pay is little but I can see this as an opportunity to make more friends, so I told Keiko to make arrangements for me to teach later on. And, hurrah, finally something to cheer about!
There aren’t just English class at C-FLAT but also Chinese, Korean, and Spanish. And Keiko actually knows a few cantonese lines from her work….I saw a few Chinese text books eh!?
At the end of the interview both Dave and I were hungry, so we said bye to Keiko and looked around for good restaurants. There are plenty along the Shinsaibashi shopping avenue, but the one that caught our eye is 王道, an iazakaya just right behind LOFT. The sign out the window says “Everything is 298 yen”! That is certainly good enough for Dave, and obivously good enough for me. And, boy, WAS IT GOODDDDDDD!
Dave was excited about the fact they have AWAMORI 泡盛, some kind of shochu made from Okinawa with a really strong flavor and has high alochol contents. He is a Okinawa freak (I will explain about that later when I have the chance) and there are no Awamori to be found in Canada, so he hasn’t been able to drink that for awhile. So what did he do to make it up? Ordered 3 for them after having a couple beers, LETS DRINK.
For me, I was impressed with the long list of UMESHUU 梅酒 with a variety of flavours, such as black sugar, green tea, honey, besides the different selections of regular ones. I picked the honey umeshuu mixed with soda (can mix with water or serve straight up as well). It was really good – sweet with a hint of honey but not overpowering, and certainly refreshing for the summer days!
How about the food? Tasty is an understatement! We order ikawasabi, agedashi tofu, sashimi, niku daikon steak, onigiri (Rice ball), seafood salad, umekurage (Plum Jellyfish), mentaiko zousui (Rice cooked in broth with Mentaiko). Everything is delicious, but the best out of all these is the niku daikon! The marinate on the meat is just oh yum yum yum and the comibination with daikon is just perfect syndication. Its simple combination but a wonderful one.
All the frustrations that we had earlier in the day were gone after we had a few zips. We were just chatting and reflecting over the past year. I only knew Dave in last July and we became close friends very quickly, probably because we have the same interest and share the same stupid mindset. And I guess we share the similar taste in girls too! Dave kept saying i m going to hit on all the girls!!!!!! But I know he is not that type of person…. just a bit too hyper.
To cap off our night, we went just out the famous neon signs on Doutonburi after I got Dave to randomly ask one of the girls on the street to take a picture for us (ok we were obviously checking out girls). It has been 7 long years since I last came here. What a 懐かしいmoment that was.
This has been a long post and I thank you for reading…. one of those days that I will never forget.
