Japanese Home Cooking!

“What would you like to eat for your goodbye dinner party?”

“I want to eat stuff that a Japanese mom would make on an average Wednesday night!”

Normally this would be an absurd answer. Luckily it was accepted as only slightly absurd in this crowd. First of all, I suspect that they are always half expecting me to blurt out absurd and random comments, and secondly they were all Japanese and were quick to figure out what I meant. I wanted a good ‘ole home style cooking that I had grown up with as my “last meal” with them.

To summarize how I got to that conversation in the first place will be another story. Let’s just say that to summarize I grew up in Japan, left at twelve, went to college where I happened to become roommates with a Japanese girl, found out I was somehow still fluent in Japanese, graduated, got a job at a Japanese company where the majority of the people I interact with were Japanese, and have been there for a year and a half before I announced my plans to leave to travel. Phew! That took me years of practice to gain the skill to summarize life! Yes and when looked at this way, I do notice a common thread through my life as well.

That is how I found myself gorging blissfully on the best home cooked Japanese food east of the Pacific one Saturday afternoon. It was a little get together of all of my Japanese co-workers where we ate, sang karaoke, and had a great time. Everyone even gave a little speech of what they thought of me and wishing me good luck. Luckily what they had to say was very flattering! But the funny thing is that though I learned how they see me, I also learned more about their character better as each had a distinctly different style. They even caught me by complete surprise when they presented me with a Fossil watch! It even has a bright orange wrist band—sooo my style ! Thank you everyone for everything you’ve done. I hope to see you all again soon!