Bloom In Japan

Alright, so after all the craziness involved with moving 6500 miles, I awoke the next morning with a refreshing 5 hours of sleep under my belt. Much to my dismay, the size of my bedroom was indeed a reality, and not some cruel dream. But since I have not exactly lived in penthouses in the past, I wasn’t too worried about it.

Seeing my first view of Miyoshi from the balcony was rather exciting. This town is pretty comparable to Hales Corners in relative size to surrounding cities, except there is over 36K people squeezed into about 15 square kilometers.

A few hours after waking up, my other roommate Eric awoke from his own slumber. We were both pretty hungry so we decided to go hit the sushi joint down the street. I had heard about conveyor-belt sushi restaurants, but actually going to one was a pretty cool experience in itself. You basically sit down at a table, and different plates of sushi move along the belt around the restaurant. If you see something you like you just pick it up and chow down, but if you are really craving some octopus and it doesn’t seem to be floating around anywhere, you get to use this nifty touch-screen. After placing your special order, your item is placed onto a red plate, and as it approaches your location it will begin to beep at you. As if sushi in constant motion and James Bond style plates weren’t enough, they even made the manner in which you discard your plates and pay for your food fun. There’s a little hole under the hot water spout (free tea) where you insert each finished plate. Since everything is 105 yen (about $1), the screen will count everything up and then you are presented with a bill from the waiter/waitress a minute later. The kicker is that for every 5th plate you get to play some sushi wheel of fortune to try and win some prizes. Technology aside, the food there is awesome, and at 105 yen a plate I’m sure I will be making several appearances over the coming weeks.

Typhoon and Izakaya goodness as Day 1 concludes next time…