Last summer, I decided to enroll myself in a online beginners Japanese course through the University of Minnesota. This was my 3rd attempt at learning because I’m a terrible self learner and I need the threat of public humiliation as a motivator for success. This is also how I managed to get through grad school for 3 years.
I grew up speaking Spanish and Cantonese at home. I took Mandarin for 3.5 years in undergrad but mom forced us to go to Saturday Chinese school growing up so I had a head start in learning it in college. Japanese is the first language I’ve had to learn from scratch (watching anime doesn’t count). My classes were Tuesdays and Thursday evenings 4:30-7pm for 4 months. While I really enjoyed it, it was stressful trying to keep up along with work. We went abroad twice during that time too so I was doing homework on plane rides and classes at midnight or 5am depending on where we were.
^Pic of me doing hw at our Airbnb in Paris before heading out for the day
The pressure was worth it though, I finished the semester with an A. I had a conversation with the professor about my goals and she was honest with me that the intensity of these classes are meant for students who plan to live and work in Japan. It’s probably a bit more than what I’m looking for. Considering that and additional travel I had planned for work in the spring, I decided against doing another semester.
I felt like the months of hard work immediately start paying off once we got here where it felt like I was starting to see the matrix for the first time. Funny since a lot of the random characters they use in the movie are just katakana taken from a sushi recipe.
It’s really amazing how much easier it is to navigate menus or street signs now that I know Hiragana and Katakana. Like, エレベーター reads “Erebeta” – Elevator! Or we just went out to eat and they handed us this bottle to go with Joanna’s salad.
It says original dressing! Another helpful text to be able to read was the “Pawafuru” button for the bidet in our hotel.
I get why kids get excited to read now. We’re definitely going to be coming back to Japan in the future and I’d like to make it more of a priority to be better at the language. I can at least form a few sentences and get the gist from reading simple things but it would be nicer to build up my vocabulary and confidence in speaking with people. Maybe I’ll make it my goal to take the Japanese language proficiency test?
We’re still dealing with jet lag so today was meant to be another chill out day. Ohori park was recommended by the travel youtubers that I follow so we decided to head out there as a lazy Sunday morning activity. They have a really nice Starbucks along the lake in the park which was great for people and dog watching. Joanna got the “melon of melons” frappuccino which was blended honeydew and cantaloupe, honeydew whipped cream, and cantaloupe puree on the bottom. It tastes like someone threw a melon at your face.
The people and dog watching was the highlight of the park though. I thought our dogs were living their best lives but I swear I saw more dogs in strollers than kids. Most of the dogs were also wearing clothes which didn’t make sense to me since it was at least 80f outside. That did get us thinking that Speedy and Honey might needs hats…
Joanna found out that the Asahi brewing company was headquartered in Fukuoka and suggested we go check out the beer garden. When we went to Hokkaido in 2017 we went to the Sapporo beer garden and had Genghis Khan, a really delicious grilled mutton dish with veggies. Hoping to get the same experience we took the train to check out the Asahi HQ.
The location wasn’t hard to get to, only 1 subway stop away from where we’re staying and a 8 minute walk from the station. The building was kind of ominous though and unfortunately due to covid, they stopped doing factory tours and haven’t started them back up again.
We were able to get a table at the beer garden despite being a busy Sunday afternoon and to our delight, they had Genghis Khan on the menu. We had the option to do all you can eat meat and beer for like $40 each but we weren’t that hungry.
I think we’re going to have to go to the Kirin beer garden in Yokohama to complete the set of Japanese beer photos with bibs. We got out food and I got to grilling. Unfortunately, Joanna has a thing with gamey tasting food so the quality of lamb here didn’t work for her compared to what we had in Hokkaido. She did get a seasonal strawberry beer that was tasty. The atmosphere in the Sapporo beer garden was definitely nicer than the Asahi one as that one was like a big lodge and this one was just a small cafeteria sized restaurant.
We headed back to the hotel to take a short nap which ended up being a full 6 hour sleep where we woke up at 9:30pm. Thankfully people eat late here. I thought about getting yakitori or something but I didn’t have the energy to deal with Japanese only menus and decided to go to one of my favorite Japanese chains, Coco Curry House.
It was only a 5 minute walk from our place and seeing it lit up was like a beacon of deliciousness guiding us to dinner. I still had meat sweats from lunch so I got a vegetable curry with mushrooms for about $8.
I love how easy it is to get tasty food here but I wish I had access to a gym to balance things out. Tomorrow’s got plenty of walking though as we’re doing a day trip to Hiroshima to visit the peace museum.
