At Home with John and Debbie

On Sunday, I had arranged to meet old gaijin family friend Zak and his wife Kanako, at their home in Shin-Urayasu. I repeated a mistake from my previous visit, in which the Metro map does not indicate that a pair of linked stations linked by a mile of pedestrian tunnel. Still, I made it to Toyko station, and onwards by Japan Rail to Sin-Urayasu, with no problems.

Zak came to meet me in his car, and took me to his flat. It was far more spacious than I expected, though Kanako exclaimed that it was tiny. I suppose it will seem smaller as their two sons grow.

Zak prepared delicious pizza with home-made dough. We had to make an emergency run for tins of tomato, which gave me a chance to poke around a suburban Japanese supermarket. Wasabi peanuts: none.

After lunch, Kanako went for some “me time” (something every full-time mother needs!) and Zak and I took the kids to a small local park, to play in the sandpit. Soon enough it was time for eldest son Kai’s karate lesson. We walked to the local dojo, a square gym with padded plastic tatami on the floor, and padded columns around the edge for practice kicks.

I sat at the edge watching 16 four-year-olds doing katas, shouting out a number for each move: “Ichi! Ni! San! Shi! Go! Rokku! Shichi! Hachi! Kyu! Jyu!”. To finish the lesson, theny donned body armour tried kicking each other in pairs.

When the time came for Zak’s lesson, Kanako turned up for the kids, she gave me directions back to the station, I made my farewells, and set off home.

Having realised yesterday that my reading supply wasn’t going to last long enough, I found a bookshop recommended by Zak and Kanako - Maruzen near Tokyo station’s Marunouchi North exit. It’s huge, with 5 storeys of books. I wouldn’t say its supply of recreational English reading was significantly better than that of Tower records, but its academic section was remarkable. Irrelevant to my needs, but remarkable.

I came away with Joanne Harris’ short story collection Jigs and Reels , and Chuck Palahniuk’s Diary, which between them ought to last me at least until I get home.

I also bought some Christmas cards. The idea was to get some with Japanese elements. It was harder than anticipated, since Christmas is an opportunity for the Japanese to indulge in Western trappings; so even the cards that weren’t based on English Victoriana, had English writing on them. Incidentally, the hotel patisserie has a Christmas cake collection. These are not stodgy fruitcake in the English tradition, but Christmas-themed sponges. The one on the advert in the lift says “Joyeux Noel”. None of the cards I saw was in French, though, and I did eventually find some cards with Japanese on the inside.

I formulated a better Metro route home, but when I got to Tameike-Sanno station (my destination), I decided to leave via a different exit from normal, in order to forage for food. This brought me out directly opposite a “Curry-Rice” joint, so that’s where I went.

At this place, if you chose the standard curry-rice, you got to specify all sorts of stuff — fortunately they had a multi-language menu for foreigners, to explain it:

• Pork, beef or vegetable (I chose beef).
• Spice rating from -5 to +5 (I chose 3)
• Quantity of rice (I went for the standard offering)
• Extras (I chose a hard-boiled egg)

The Japanese phenomenon of curry-rice (or rather, kare-raisu; カレーライス) is derived from Indian cuisine, but it has been heavily adapted to Japanese tastes (just as the Balti is curry adapted for British tastes). The rice is sticky, as the Japanese are familiar with. The curry sauce is rich and hot, with little or no tomato. It’s vaguely reminiscent of a Vesta curry (the lunch that saw me through my A-level revision), only hotter, and containing fresh meat. There is usually a selection of sprinkles, including small pickled onions, raisins and dried fruit.

The only thing wrong with it was that it was a criminal under-use of company expenses, as are many of my meals — my habitual, preferred breakfast of a danish pastry and a coffee at the local Dotour coffee shop is about a fifth of the price of a breakfast in the hotel, to which I’m sure I’m entitled.
I left the curry-rice shop, charged down the street, and realised I had lost my bearings. As I stood by a crossing scratching my head, a man asked me directions to my own hotel. He turned out to be a Korean businessman. I told him the most reliable way — back into the Metro station and out of the correct exit — but he wouldn’t have that. Between us, we managed to get there without going underground.

I retired to my room, had a chat with Debbie on Skype, read some Paul Auster — now with no pressure to ration myself — then bade farewell to the weekend.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 3rd, 2007 at 05:54 and is filed under General. 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.