You Don't Speak English?

So, tonight I had a rough gaijin experience. I wanted to go out to eat dinner, and there’s an okonomiyaki restaurant near where I live, and since I’ve always wanted to try okonomiyaki, I was excited. I got there and it was closed. Saddened, I was still determined to make my first meal purchase by myself, and so decided to stop into the next food place I saw.

On a side note, small restaurants are all over the place here. It’s like the bars in Millvale, only more so. This could get bad if the food is consistently good.

Anyway, I went into this small little restaurant (I think they’re called ensai) which was operated by a man and his wife. I was the only customer in the place, and so the wife immediately moved to take my order. I expressed my inability to speak Japanese, so I took the menu, and just pointed to something. She said “beer.” So, I pointed to something else. Her response was “wine.” I tried again, and it was sake. Now, I was going all over the menu, and she indicated that there was food on this menu, but I’ll be damned if I could find it. By now, she is getting irritated so she calls over her husband. I decide to try a new approach, and just began rattling off every type of Japanese food I knew. With each no, the guy started to get really pissed off. When I finally got to “udon” I figure he had enough, and just pointed to his right, towards the exit, and said in a stern voice “udon blah blah blah I’m speaking Japanese and you don’t understand.” So, I apologized profusely and got the hell out of there.

I now realize how much my lack of Japanese will cause me problems. I think the first thing on my “to do” list is to learn the words and kanji for about 15 different meals, so that I can immediately get an idea of whether or not a place carries that food. I hope that will work.

I do not feel discouraged, though. Tomorrow Ray and I are going exploring around Joyo, so I’ll get a little more practice with him, then on Sunday, victory will be mine.