Japan Trip - Friday, January 11th 2008
11:00
Early in the afternoon we walk over to a local Udon noodle resturant in the neighborhood called “Nakazumi Udon”. Nakazumi is the neighborhood we are living in in Fukuoka, so its a very local and cheap neighborhood shop, however, it’s known as having the best Udon in Fukuoka city. A few years ago my girlfriend had written a letter to a television show that goes around and rates resturaunts, and they ended up visiting this shop and giving it a 5/5 stars.
I had the tempura udon, and quickly noticed that the reason people love it is due to the flavor-full dashi taste (the soup base). When making the soup base, this shop uses a special family secret seaweed in excess amounts to produce a very deep flavor rather than cheating and using soy sauce and added salts. It was easily some of the most tasty udon I’ve ever had, althought I’m noone to judge.
Afterwards we headed over to downtown Fukuoka at Tenjin center to meet up with Ayas’ friend Maki-chan. Here we did some ladies day shopping. I was to judge which bra and panty set was best.
14:00
The afternoon break was again at Round 1 game center, but the focus this time was Karaoke. Let me just say that usually i’m not a karaoke type person, but in Japan, Americans are stars. If you can hold a note, you’re guarenteed success just because they think you’re pronunciation sounds cool. We sang for about 3 hours, and my list of songs were the following:
- Last Christmas - Wham!
- Lets Dance - David Bowie
- Wonderwall - Oasis
- Never going to give you up - Rick Astley
- Theme song - Neon Genesis Evangelion (Japanese)
18:00
Ending the early evening by saying goodbye to Maki-chan, we headed home for the party that Ayakas’ mother is hosting. There I met many of their friends, we ate dinner and had a great time breaking down the language barrier with broken english and broken japanese. Alcohol solves all problems with laughter. It was super duper fun. Too bad i don’t have any photos of it.
Tomorrow we head to Hakone for the hot springs. I’m not sure if i’ll have internet from here out. Pray for me.