Halfway Drunk and Not At All Bad
WOOHOO!!

Tonight I went out to dinner with the head teachers from my Kids' English School to say a temporary farewell to another American part-timer. He's going back to America to get some REAL medical treatment--outside the Japanese hospital system-- for his "so-called" IBS.

One of the other "sensei" part-timers is a classmate of mine... but he didn't end up coming out. It was really his loss, as we ate sashimi, tofu of several kinds... drank beer, shochu and sake, and, above all, consumed several of the Japanese rarities I hadn't eaten until now. Kujira... whale meat... and LIVE sashimi. The whale was teriyaki-style. I'd rate it as "average," although it wasn't bad. I said I'd eat it once... and I refuse to eat it more than once (or risk going to hell for eating something smarter than I.). I put it in the same boat as the horse sashimi I had at Kyoko's Church's Korean Food Party. Not so good... not so bad... the average red meat resembling tough and oily jerky.

The "fresh" (and I mean REALLY fresh) sashimi was exquisite. I felt MUCH worse eating fish from a dead but still-twitching body than eating whale, simply because I could see the carcas (including head and face) of the fish from which my yummy food came. I do believe it was dead when we got it... but nevertheless the body twitched (um, a lot) when we took pieces from the plate, as if to say NOOOOO, Don't eat meeee!!!! GROSS, huh???!?

I said a Buddhist prayer to thank the fish for its life and I felt genuinely sorry for its suffering, in the case that it was still feeling pain. However, I do consider this tortured fish to have had a better life (and death) than many fish and mammals in the American food industry, as it was lucky enough to spend its life until adulthood in its natural environment. Is this rational? I don't know... I've had a lot to drink and a lot to eat. But no matter how tortured the poor fool fish was, he was darn delicious. So, arigatou and gochisou sama.

In any case, my host mom gave me the usual 1000 yen (US $10) so I could eat out... and OF COURSE, the "company" ended up paying for dinner. I didn't know how it was going to work out... but that's not to say I didn't suspect. When they started ordering "whatever" from the menu, I just went along with it for better or worse. Even when the president bought me a square-cup full of his favourite Secchubai sake (and it was GOOD).

My guess is that the place we went was expensive. It was a VERY traditional restaurant and we sat in a tatami room with a sunken table. Although I'd heard warnings about restaurants with gender-indecipherable restrooms before I came to Japan, this was the first restaurant I'd been to that ACTUALLY had two bathrooms featuring the same kanji in different colours. Red is female and blue/black is male, just to let you know.

So we left at 11:30 and I spent most of the 1000yen my mother gave me on a taxi home. Just because I didn't feel like paying 200yen for the bus and then another 200yen for ANOTHER bus just to wait and walk in the pouring rain in between. Therefore, I'm home and it's only JUST turned 12:00.

I'm off to bed... but only after I say once again, YAY!