Nan and pop shop: tempura for dinner

We were planning on trying to get Yakiniku for dinner, but all three places near us were fully booked or didn't take customers who didn't speak Japanese (as they spoke no English and they were 1-2 worker places), so we wandered about until we came across a tempura place. It was one of the 12 seater shops where you order your food from the vending machine and then they cook it in front of you and serve over the countertop.

It took us a while to work out that you needed to put the money in first before selecting items, and a translation mishap on Michael's phone led to me getting eggplant instead of sweet potato, but apart from that, everything else went smoothly and we now know how to order at these places. This one was solely different types of tempura (items fried in light batter). Michael got a set and I picked out a bunch of individual items.

The shop was run by an efficient elderly pair who smashed through the orders, and the food was delicious. Amazing prawns! The batter is so light and not even the slightest bit oily! Plus I was down to have some veg, so this got in me some yam, pumpkin and broccoli. Michael loved his tempura egg all mixed in with his serve of rice and miso.

When back in our hotel lobby, we realised they have this great station of free stuff, like shavers and facial creams and little free nibbles and a coffee and tea station, so we decided to have hot chocolates for dessert. Whilst there, we got chatting to an American couple and their nephew about a wide range of things about Japan. When we asked them how long they were here and what their planning was, we found out the craziest story.

The nephew and their son had just turned 18, and had come to Japan for a month with money they'd saved up from working part time jobs to celebrate finishing high school. Their plan was two weeks on the slopes to ski board and then two weeks of sightseeing around Japan. On day 8, the son went a bit too hard on the slopes... And fractured five vertebrae in his spine.

So mum and dad had to fly over, the son is in the Nagano hospital recovering after having a bunch of screws put in his back, and his parents, whilst they hate that their son fractured his back, are very relieved he fractured it here in Japan where they only have to pay $18k for his surgery instead of $200k back in the states. Plus, the second best spinal surgeon in the world works at this very hospital (probably because too many people keep having snowboarding and skiing injuries) and their son has had the best treatment he could have gotten. Alas, he's out on Sunday, and they all fly back to the states, and then will most likely fly back over here when/if he needs the pins in his spine removed, and then they can have the vacation the boys had originally planned.

Absolutely wild turn of events. The things you learn over a hot chocolate with strangers playing cards by saying hello.Read more