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Today is the day of Nick's all-you-can-eat party. This morning, I swore to
myself that I would only eat a very light lunch this afternoon, in order
to work up an appetite and stuff myself silly tonight (and so make the
most of my money).
However, my carefully-laid plans were thwarted during today's tutor
meeting with Kisako.
In the middle of the meeting, she suddenly produced a paper bag and handed
it to me. I opened it, and to my surprise it contained....Zenzai!
Zenzai is that delicious sweet azuki bean soup that you eat with toasted
mochi. After Kisako's mum had heard that I've got a sweet tooth, she
actually prepared me a potfull of zenzai!
And not just that. She also gave me a whole packet of mochi to toast, a
number of paper bowls, some disposable chopsticks, a packet of salt, a
spoon and a little letter she wrote. I couldn't believe it! How kind is
that??
Saranne and I decided that although it would keep until we came back from
Beppu, it'd be better to eat it fresh. And that's what we did; we toasted
the mochi, heated the zenzai and dug in. And it was gorgeous. Dark,
purple-coloured, lumpy, sweet, liquid heaven.
Zenzai is incredibly filling (not to mention choc-a-bloc full of
calories), so I'm still full! However, I'm sure I'll still be able to do
the all-you-can-eat some justice!
Ah yes, a couple of entries back, I talked about racial discrimination in
Japan, in particular the "no foreigner" places you can come across
sometimes. Well, this morning I read a good article in The Japan Times,
written by a fellow gaijin, giving the other side of the story:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/geted.pl5?eo20050217gc.htm . While
as a foreigner, I can't help but feel insulted and excluded by the fact
that "Japanese only" places exist, I do agree that if businesses are
genuinely threatened by the presence of gaijin, the owner does have the
right to bar them. However, I'd like to think it's only a minority of
gaijin who spoil it for the rest of us, and most of us know how to behave.
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