タコパだった！

Oh man, alot happened on this day! I'm writing this from about 3 months in the future so my memory might not be as good as it would have writing the day after, but it was extremely difficult getting time to write any time after getting to Fukui. I was too busy doing things!!

We started off the day by taking a walk to a yakisoba restaurant that was decently close to Atsuya's house. This was my first time having yakisoba in Japan and I think I prefer yakisoba to ramen. I've never been a huge fan of soups and I like how soba is a dry noodle that I was able to dip into a soup-like broth. Once all the noodles were gone, you could add a liquid that was similar to a tea and mix it with the broth. This made the broth change flavors and become more drinkable on its own without the noodles. Apparently the difference between ramen and soba is that soba is made with buckwheat and ramen is made from wheat flour. To me, I find the most important part of the dish to be the flavor of the broth and any noodle will do.

We finished up at the noodle shop and stopped at a shop that was dedicated to building minature models of various cars, boats, buildings, etc. I had never seen a shop that only had models like this so it felt very surreal. Some of the models seemed overly complex and others seemed overly simple! For example, some of the pokemon models were just a couple plastic pieces that you put together yourself. We shuffled through the narrow hallways of the shop and then made our way back to Atsuya's apartment.

Later, we went to the fish shop again to take a look and see if there was any more fresh crab than the time before. Ware, Sekki, and Shu had not been here before so they seemed captivated by the variety of seafood that was offered and I think Sekki even ordered some crabs to be delivered to his place in Kasugai.

While everyone was looking around, I made a stop to the vending machine outside. The vending machines here are dangerous. I feel like every single time I saw one I wanted to grab a drink from it. Maybe it's because everything still felt so new, but I think I would probably still behave this way if I lived here for years 😇 I think the vending machines contributed to my gaining ten pounds while in Japan.

After getting back to Atsuya's house we began preparing for the takoyaki party. For those not familiar, a takoyaki is a fried dough ball with octopus in the middle and a takoyaki party is a gathering of friends to cook takoyaki dough balls at the center of the table. The pan sits at the center of the table and is oiled up to allow for the dough balls to avoid sticking to the metal. Once they've set in the circular divet long enough, we took small toothpicks and turned the balls to allow for the other side to cook. Eventually, we end up
with will fully formed dough balls with octopus inside! It's a fun communal experience because everyone is making the food together and it feels more involved than just having a normal meal together. I'm not usually a fan of octopus because of its tough texture but the octupus in Fuki was so good and soft. This was much better than any takoyaki I had before.

During the party we had a wide assortment of sake and alchohol options provided by Atsuya. I wish I could remember all the names but everything was very delicious. I also discovered sweet potatoe luquor and mixed with milk and in my drunken stupor hugged the bottle and proclaimed my love for the sweet potato. I'm sure I looked like a dork but that's ok, my dorkiness transcends the language barrier. At some point I ended up resting my eyes while laying on the ground because of the amount of alcohol I consumed was making me sleepy. A custom in Japan is to fill someone's drink when they are empty or inquire if they would like more drink. In America, people usually tend to let you get your own drink rather than fill your glass. I think it makes it a bit easier to over drink in Japan because for some reason it's much harder to deny your glass being filled than to deny someone grabbing you a drink from the fridge.

While I was laying on the ground, I remember sekki taking a picture of me and half-conciously I put up a peace sign. I'm glad I didn't fully go to sleep because after my small nap I was able to come back to the real world and hang out with my friends some more on this last night.

My friends also explained to me the concept of 匂わせ選手権。This phrase literally translates to "the smell of victory/championship title". Apparently, this is the idea of showing a photo that alludes to the fact that you are happily in a relationship but does not explicitly say so. An example of this is the deer in Aggretsuko who takes photos that allude to the fact that she is with a guy in the photos. We then proceeded to have a competetion on who could take the most 匂わせ選手権なpost. I've attached the entries to this journal post 😸Read more