Not that kinda gal...

After leaving the children’s parade, I headed for the Ameyokocho district of Uena, an outdoor market area home to scads of produce, seafood and dried fish, seaweed, and the like. The most exciting find of this part of my journey was locating the katsuo man (the dude who sells dried bonito fish (I know what yer thinking –how exciting, a guy who peddles dried fish...whooo whoo!!) But wait, this is no ORDINARY dried fish. Along with Kombu (dried seaweed), bonito is what makes Japanese food Japanese food. It’s in just about everything –miso soup, the majority of Japanese sauces and stews, atop pancakes, you name it- and is as delicate as it is kinda weird. To explain: the fish is air dried and pressed for a really long time until it takes on the appearance of hardwood (yum!). Once it’s cured, it is shaved super super thin with a wooden mandoline-like device until it resembles something like fish food (time to feed the fish, Mr. Rogers). It’s in this stage that it’s added to the seaweed stock or used in any way you see fit. Although I’ve been looking for the said item since I read “Japanese Cooking: A simple art,” this is the first I’ve ever seen it. In the states, most people buy the bonito, pre-shaved and in plastic packages or, worse yet, use MSG-laden dried powder mixes which are the equivalent of a bouillon cube to chicken stock. Regardless of the fear that my $15 dried fish log will face an early demise at US customs, I bought the bonito along with a requisite fish shaver for a grand total of a well-spent $70 (I wonder if petty cash will cover it…). Loaded down with my fish and box, I ate more “shave ice” and street food, went to a supermarket and watched an in-house demonstration of tamago-yaki (the egg omelety thing seen atop sushi). The demo was amazing and I recorded the man making it. Unfortunately, in my plight of being a “savvy” (i.e. discreet) documentarian, I taped more of the guy’s head than of his omelets making…oh well.

Now here’s when it gets weird: Word to underage people and those of sensitive dispositions, skip to tomorrow’s entry.
Exhausted from a long day, I walked to Ueno Park and had a seat on the “sit on the bench and rest ride” right inside the park’s front gate. While pursuing through my digitized images, I noticed that these 2 older (i.e. 70+) men were staring at me. I tried to ignore them but it was weird enough to make me think that I had inadvertently taken their seat or I was about to be robbed. Finally standing man left, though sitting man tried to make conversation. He spoke no English, but somehow was able to communicate “do you want to get a drink” (at least that’s what I thought he said). So, as the blog says, "When in Japan..."After a lot of nodding and smiling (boy, am I a good communicator), I went with him to a nearby coffee shop, althewhile thinking the situation odd, though, in the back of my mind hoping it was some sort of cultural exchange. hmmm…As we drunk our coffee, through his hand signals and such, it became somewhat apparent/not-so apparent-(as it wasn’t in English) that he thought I was a prostitute...no really....I think...Mind you, I’m tourist-ed out, with khaki shorts, ugly shoes, maps and the like…hmm...After figuring out his intentions (I think) I sayanara-ed him and left for the station. Like all good lost in translation stories, I’m still not sure what just happened there…I just know the coffee was good.