Shibuya part one and Bizarre Foods

*thank you leah for leaving me my first comment! if you want to leave a comment people, you can do it as "anonymous" without having a profile or being a member or whatever. just sign your name at the bottom so i know who you are.

haven't had wi-fi nor the time to write a new note so here are some recaps of the past 3 days.

3 days ago started off meeting Nicole in Shibuya at the Hachiko statue, a dog famous for his steadfast loyalty. he walked with his owner every day to the shibuya train station and then met him every evening when his owner would come back from work for like 7years. one day, the owner died while at work and the dog waited for him at the train station. and went back the next day. and the next day. and thenext day. and the next day. for 10 years. until he died from old age or too many yakitori sticks. which reminds me, yakitori. more on that later.

so we walked through shibuya and found some shopping districts. everything was $$$$ with the exception of uniqlo (kind of like an H&M crossed with old navy) and super tiny. their XL was the size of a medium back home. kind of depressing. if i move here i will have to become anorexic when it's time to buy new clothes.

went to dinner that night with g-mom, cousin chiako-chan, husband shoso, and daughter maki. we went to the japanese "pub". it's nothing like a pub that we would think of, like an irish pub but it serves beer and their "pub grub" in a casual setting. if only andrew zimmern or anthony bourdain had been my companion. they missed out.

started out innocently enough with cabbage slaw/salad. next was some potato wedges topped with parmesan cheese. easy enough. followed by some yakitori. yakitori is basically skewered meat with a kind of teriyaki sauce on it. and a single raw egg cracked in a bowl to dip the meat in. if you REALLY know me, you know i'm weird about eggs (exception scrambled) i forewent the egg and picked up a regular plain chicken meat yakitori. simple enough.....until this americanized, homogenized palate that likes the leanest chicken and beef it can have came across some huge chunky gristle that couldn't be chomped through. i could actually hear the physical pain my teeth were subjected to trying to tear it. what are you supposed to do when it won't disintegrate under the crushing power of your molars? swallow it like a raw oyster? and there were no napkins for me to discreetly hide it (half of the restaurants we've been to don't have napkins.....someof them give you a damp washcloth instead).......thank the lord there are a few pieces of cabbage left from my slaw maybe that will help choke it down. my intuition is right, cabbage was a useful vehicle for my poultry gristle. okay, try the other yakitori.....a ground chicken infused with herbs, spices in a sausage-like manner. tastes good enough.......what IS that? little tiny crunchy snappy pieces, slightly reminiscent of unpopped popcorn kernels. not any kind of nut either. a peanut is like mayonaise compared to how hard these little things interspersed in here are. that's my last yaki-tori ever. i cant win with plain or fancy yaki.

steamed bamboo shoots dipped lightly in salt? after that last dish it looks safe. this was actually very good and so was the thinly sliced lotus root that was fried, similar to eating potato chips. then came fried rice, then came sashimi. red snapper, salmon, and some kind of sting ray (i think??? g-mom had a little difficulty translating that one for me, but she demonstrated a horizontal kind of fish floating through the water, that much i gathered). definitely chewy.

like a good visitor, i am trying at least one bite of everything. according to my japanese etiquette books it is rude to not at least try a dish.

at this point i am getting full and thinking about my now shattered confidence in trying ethnic food. and praying that the meal is over. then came the next dish. it looked like a bowl of fried onion petals, similar to arbys, or maybe calamari especially when chiako squeezes lemon on it. they start chomping down on it.....
grandmother, what is that?
fried chicken bones.
fried chicken bones?
they're soft.

deep breath, pick up one, eat it. OMG. realization: that's what that crunchy thing was when i ate that yakitori earlier. i have to look away while shoso and g-mom contemplate which body part it originates from while it's in my mouth, making its slow descent to its own hell. (they think it's the knee cap btw). nothing soft about these bones. at that point i kinda wished i was drinking something stronger than my water.

like a good japanese girl, i eat another one.

the next dish was pizza and i couldn't remember the last time i was so excited to see one.