田

Fields of fresh, spring green

Slight color variations – darker then lighter – as the wind rustles across a verdant sea

Hisssshhhh

An egret stalking among the blades

Movements slow and inorganic as it struts and jerks on long legs

Sharp eyes trained on the dark mud

Stark white, a lone vessel in sea of green

Mirroring the single cloud passing in the azure sky.

Rain

“Today’s our lucky day!” I said that to myself, my friends, and my guests every time it rained in Japan. I got it from Otosan and Okasan. It was a joke, but, looking back, it did kind of feel like rain enhanced Japan.

I have written about rain many times here on Okashi. Mostly because it was a very large part of my life. I have never lived anywhere with so much annual rainfall. Nor have I ever been so reliant on my own two feet to get me around. I spent a lot of time in the rain. I learned first to accept it, then to appreciate it. And now I miss it.

Rain at Iga Castle

Unlike Japanese rain, American rain doesn’t seem to have the same magic. Thunderstorms are the one exception to this, but that’s due more to the theatrics of lightning than the rain. No, rainstorms in America just seem dreary. Everything is grey and lusterless, like some post-apocalyptic world of barren concrete. The Japanese rain seemed to enhance color and smell. American rain seems to dampen everything. Rain here smells like asphalt or nothing at all.

Perhaps I am just missing Japan. Spring in the Dakotas is an especially dreary season of mud, clouds, and drizzle. It comes late and moves fast, zipping past that brief moment of excitement as buds swell and bloom. Everything goes from brown to green in a weekend then just as quickly back to brown as the heat of summer sets in. So quick you can’t appreciate the awakening of the season.

"Japanese" Food

It took almost a year, but I finally went at for sushi at my favorite “Japanese” restaurant. Don’t get me wrong; I really like this restaurant. They do some amazing things with raw fish. But after nearly two years in Japan, their authentic Japanese billing is pretty inaccurate. Authentic Americanized Japanese would be better.

When I landed in Osaka, I thought I had a pretty good handle on Japanese food. I grew up at Shogun, the owner kindly teaching my sister and me how to use hashi. Okasan loved yakitori and tempura, Otosan had a thing for noodles, and imoto and I loved gyoza and sushi. To be honest, I can’t remember if there was anything else on the menu. That’s all we ever ate.

But what I quickly realized looking around for dinner my first night in Japan is that I had no idea what real Japanese food was. Okonomiyaki, takoyaki, omurisu, oden, tonkatsu, yakiniku, kakigori, yakisoba, dons, ramens, and noodles of all kinds… The list goes on and on.

Just a taste of the foods I ate in Japan

Even my childhood favorites turned out to be pale imitations of Japanese food. Shogun’s yakitori was nothing compared to the variety I found at local izakayas and specialty yakitori restaurants. 

A yakitori sampler from one of the izakayas I visited.

And sushi… Don’t get me started on just how different Japanese sushi is from our American version.

Traditional sushi sampler at my local sushi shop. No dragon rolls in Nihon.

Looking back, I guess I shouldn’t have been all that surprised. After all, everyone knows that American pizza is nothing like real Italian pizza. And if you order a taco in Mexico City, you aren’t going to get something with beef, lettuce, tomato, and sour cream. Just like Japan, America takes in new flavors and makes them her own. I wrote a twenty page paper about it for college!

But knowing you will be disappointed when you look at the menu doesn’t make it easy to show up at an American Japanese restaurant.

Just because I love it... "Dancing" Yakisoba