Japan, Children and Dilettantes

I recently returned home from my first (and more than likely, only) trip to Japan.

I thought that after almost half a century I had seen pretty much all I wanted to. I'm fairly satisfied that I've seen most of the U.S. I will more than likely see the parts I haven't yet. I have been a voyeur into other parts of the world. A dilettante, if you will. I know a lot about a lot of places, but haven't experienced much of it, except vicariously. I've been to France and Switzerland once - for 2 weeks in high school and have lived on that one ever since!

Then, my daughter moved to Japan. Temporarily.

Let me digress for a moment. The thing about mothers is this: they have a great need to know how their children are living. Even when it means traveling halfway around the world to see it. I suppose it's the shared experience thing. "I gave birth to you, we experienced that together, it goes both ways when you grow up!" maybe. Maybe it's just sheer nosiness. Whatever it is, this mother couldn't stand not sharing in the way her daughter has been living for the past 18 months!

Soooo, my hubby who, as I have stated, is my hero, gave me a 2 week trip to Japan to go bug, er, visit her. As we are in biz for ourselves, he had to stay and slave away so we could afford the trip. What a man!

My daughter never knew that Shogun by James Clavell was one of my all-time favorite novels when I was - uh - quite a bit younger than I am now. In fact, that was my sole teacher of Japanese until my daughter taught me while I was in Japan. I knew wakarimaska? wakarimas and wakarimasen along with hai, iye and the -san, -sama thing for the longest time, never divulging that little gem to my kiddos. Imagine that. Me, with a secret! So, when planning this little junket, of course, Tokyo wasn't even factored in. I wanted to see Osaka and Kyoto and points south. And generally, I get what I want. Unless it's not that important, and then I don't care.

Really, I thought that I would not at all like it. After all, as far as I knew, it was terribly overcrowded, they eat raw horse flesh for Pete's sake AND blow fish (and absolutely everyone knows that blow fish can kill you) not to mention the octopi and squid and seaweed! Oh, and those chicken livers wrapped in bacon. Ugh. I also just really don't do well sleeping on the floor. Of course, I also knew that in their favor, they don't eat dogs and love dachshunds as pets. I guess I really didn't know what to expect, but expected that I did know what to expect, which is the way my brain usually rolls.

I absolutely LOVED it. I adore Japan. More than that, I adore the people. And I apologize to more than one person from those islands for making reference to or joking about something that went totally over their heads!

I loved the food, too. Of course, my daughter, who is very wise (often) steered to me the "safest" food. I have lived long enough to know that raw fish is just not me. Not after getting worms from poorly cooked (translated: almost raw) fish when I was three, which I don't remember, but do remember being told about so many times that I don't eat raw fish. I did try the tuna sashimi just so I could convince her that I did try it. Nah. Not my, uh, cup of tea. Speaking of which, I adore mugi-cha. Buckwheat tea. And melon-pan. A (evidently) Portuguese style of sweet bread that is shaped somewhat like a melon, although that may not be why it's called melon-pan and is called that for some other reason.

This has gone on long enough. More later, dear readers. Sayonara.