Daytripper

We had a half day of work on Saturday, so we took off to meet Randy and see our office in Sagami-ono. I struggled for a while at the machine to add money to my train card, then I saw the “English” button. The Fussa station is fairly easy to navigate as only two lines come through. We got off at Tachikawa, transferred to another train, got off at Hachiooji, and then Randy said Kawasaki-san and he were just going to drive to Hajiooji to pick us up. He instructed us to get off the train, leave the station, and start walking around, they would find us. We did that. Inevitably, when Randy called and we told him we were at Daiei he did not know where it was, and had us walk back to the train station. Eventually we got to the office. It is a tiny apartment. I went into my first 7-11 in Japan. I wish 7-11 in Hawaii had half the prepared foods they have here. It is a drunkards 2am dream come true. Every kind of pre-packaged baked good, bentos, musubis, yakitori…I did not eat anything then, but there is a 7-11 right off base and I plan on having a few meals from there. Instead we ate ramen. The noodle shop was run by a guy seemingly obsessed with America. The pictures on the wall were of 50's drive-ins, Easy Rider, and a HUGE glossy photo of a few motor bikes outside of a Japanese bar. The broth was the richest broth I have ever tasted in my life. The noodles were a really firm type. It was a pork broth. I ate the noodles, but I swear I could feel a goutbreak coming on, so I did not drink much of the broth. I think Randy said the broth was “tonkotsu” or something. My lips were left sticky and the need to eat dissipated for about 5 hours.

The plan was to meet up at a gathering of an abatement company at an izakaya. They had a few new employees and were celebrating. The place was tiny, smoky, and everyone was past drunk by the time we got there. They have 4 hapa employees. Two are brothers who are Okinawan/white grew up in Okinawa, and spoke not one word of English. On the other hand, one of their new employees, hapa also, grew up at Yokosuka, and speaks Japanese like a 2nd grader. Odd mix. It was fun, although it turns out Randy gets horrendously obnoxious when drunk. That is not fun. We made it back to base before the trains stop running. It was easy to see once we were on the train to Fussa, it was filled with military folks.
We had to get up early, as we were invited to go out and see a sort of war re-enactment out in Fuefuki. Not really my idea of a fun time, but it's different, and away from the base. A Japanese contractor drove us, and we went through beautiful valleys and a lot of tunnels. We stopped at a rest stop that happened to be in peach country. Peaches will not be ripe for a while, but a farmer was there having people sign up if they want to be notified when the peaches are ripe. He did look straight out of soko ga shiritai-the kind of farmer who has his faithful dog, and sings to his peach trees. We then met a plumber at a mall and he took us to the areas specialty soba restaurant. This was the best meal I have had so far here. By far. Best soba meal I have EVER had. They of course make buckwheat soba in house. We all had the soba tei-shoku. The noodles were all you can eat. Fresh, chewy, tasty, perfect. The tea they served was some sort of roasted deal that made regular tea taste like contaminated water, the tenpura awesome. Even the rice was special. It tasted sweet, like a mild sekihan. Tsukemono…even the chicken gizzards and beer were tasty (thank god for allopurinol). It is difficult to describe how wonderful it is to eat that kind of food.
We went to the re-enactment festival on the Fuefuki river. It got hot, apparently around 90F. The build up to the battle was slow and I was nodding off, but it was interesting after they finally stopped doing some sort of roll call. A German guy got up and spoke briefly in German, and for a second I had thoughts of a secret Axis meeting. It was easy to see their favorite fair cuisine. There were 3 yakisoba booths, 3 takoyaki booths, 3 chocolate-covered banana booths, a dried pasta booth, and kebab booth among others.

We went through the Japan's "Napa", and stopped at a winery briefly, and then I passed out until we pulled into a rest stop. An incredibly busy rest stop. There were food vendors, a huge crowded shop with omiyage and food, a dog park, people, their dogs, a Pocky the size of a fire log, and a guy selling moss and bonsai. So surreal. We then sat in traffic for about and hour and a half, but finally back at base.

The weekend restored a little of my energy, as the base seems to sap it. I am excited to shop for food off base at the japanese supermarket, I think I will go today after work. I am trying to find some sort of happy medium with myself. I treid in the beginning to be myself, and that just wasn't flying. I got a lot of blank looks and, "I'm sorry, did you say goonies?" To which I have to avert my eyes and mumble something about not minding me. I need some kind of reaction here!!! We will see how it goes today.