Japanese Adventure

It was a quiet and cold Hawaiian December night; well, it was cold because I had turned both air conditioners in my office to full blast.  That is a night I will never forget.  As I recall the files stashed away in my memory banks, I can vividly recall months of cooking and taking home lunch to work.  The pain of having to live with an old CRT monitor that disobeyed to show any other color than green still makes my heart ache.  As I anxiously looked over the final details of my transaction, a sudden jolt of excitement shot through my arm and ordered my finger to click the mouse in hand.  With that one click of the mouse, I was suddenly nine hundred dollars poorer; but with that same click of the mouse, I was to embark on a most memorable adventure.  I, along with four other friends, was going to Japan.

Three months had passed since that cold December night in my office, and there I was sitting at the airport terminal with two of my closest friends.  I couldn’t help but be excited; this was to be my first trip alone.  The airport chairs didn’t exactly help hide my enthusiasm either, I swayed back and forth like a five year old on swings.  I examined my friends to see if they shared the same caffeinated-like high I was experiencing.

To my left sat my best friend Ryan.  Ryan wore a blue shirt that was one size too big for him; but because it was a collared dress shirt, Ryan rationalized it to be classy.  Ryan can be odd at times, but if I was ever to be thrown in jail, I can be well assured that Ryan would be the guy to bail me out. 

Sitting to my right is my cousin Mike; getting back to that jail analogy, Mike would be the guy standing next to me exclaiming “man that was one crazy night!”  For all intensive purposes, I might as well introduce Mike as my brother.  We’ve done everything together when we were growing up, and so we carried this tradition into adulthood.

The flight to Japan was to be approximately eight hours long; it’s a good thing Mike and I expended most of our energy with videogames the night before.  Before the captain could tell us to turn off our electronics, I had already fallen victim to the sand man.  I woke just as we were landing.  The sound of the rubber tires meeting the tarmac thudded and bellowed like an angry whale.  As I exited, I was greeted by a sharp icy breeze seeping through the space where the terminal met the plane; by this, I knew I was no longer on familiar ground.

To be honest, seeing Japan’s cityscape for the first time should have been more captivating.  I couldn’t reclaim the excitement I had just a few hours before.  That all changed as soon as the sun switched places with the moon. 

The air was crisp and cold, much like the freezers in Safeway, but without the funny smells.  Instead, Harajuku was filled with the sweet and savory aroma of freshly made crepes.  No matter where your eyes fell upon, you could not escape the large silhouettes of the buildings being overcome by the immense glow of their neon signs.  I could not help but notice just how clean the Japanese kept their country.  They use bright white lights with the power of the sun to illuminate their streets as a testament to their devotion to cleanliness.  I had failed on every occasion to even locate one car draped in a sheath of dust or dirt.  

Although the sights were breath taking, I had only one clear goal in mind, and that was to eat.  At precisely 8am, my friends and I entered Shinjuku Gardens.  Although I had intended to take in the splendor of the fully bloomed sakura blossoms, I inadvertently stumbled across the most amazing udon to have ever been created.   From the moment it arrives you can tell the udon had been skillfully crafted by a master.  Comparing my bowl of udon to Ryan’s bowl of ramen was like trying to compare the majesty of a thoroughbred to a rhinoceros.  I know it may sound like I’m exaggerating, but make no mistake, it was a masterpiece.  The texture of the noodles were firm enough to hold its’ shape, but soft and chewy enough to engage your jaw in a series of oral jumping jacks.  The broth filled the small space between the bowl and your olfactory nerves with the savory-briny aroma of thinly cut Japanese beef and sweet Japanese green onions.  

I had made more memories on that trip then I will forget.  The sense of adventure that comes with no one in your group knowing how to speak the native tongue, and the sheer agony of having to be packed into a train like sardines will never leave me.  But, for as long as it takes me to make a return trip, I can no longer enjoy udon.