Japanese Food Bites: Indulging in the Taste of Summer

Sometimes one forgets how others live, or where you come from. But every now and then you get a reminder of those harsh facts of reality. Hello again, I’m Daniel, a second year Computer Engineering and Science major from New York. My thoughts leading up to this day weren’t too exceptional, as the schedule we were given seemed pretty light for the day ahead. And as quickly as I drifted into the land of sleep, so did my day begin.

Rising at six in the morning hasn’t been a new concept to me for a long time, either due to me going to the gym, needing to get work done before a class, or just waking up out of habit. But my circumstances have changed, where in this case I’m on the other side of the world, jumping from place to place, spending time with friends, which in turn has led to an eroding of my sleep schedule, and awaking at this early time feels as far and foreign as the new lands I’ve explored and traveled.

However, this morning it was much easier to get up and ready as I was looking forward to going to the flea market located at a temple somewhat near to the hotel we were staying, so accompanied with Sora, Professor Ito, Kerem, and Jeremy we embarked on our short walk through the warming morning air. Getting to the temple was the easiest part of the journey, as when we got there at around a quarter past eight, the shuffling masses of people parsing themselves through each other, creating this chaotic turbulences as the Kyoto walking patterns (passing on the right), fought against those from the east of Japan (passing on the left), not to mention the tourist, like ourselves, not helping in this situation as the sun acts as a heating element of this grill we’re all apart of.

As we made our way through the stalls selling everything from handmade ceramics, clothes, old toys, rusted katanas, to empirical era military postcards, which were somewhat alarming to encounter. Once we noticed that the temple’s courtyard wasn’t ending and the stalls kept going and going, quilting this once empty plot forming an infinitely extending labyrinth, our pace grew to keep up the shortening time we had left. At some point the group broke apart and I wandered alone through this sauna of a maze, searching for the few items still left on my list of gifts; mugs, a jacket, and a lighter. Scrambling between tents and people, I was only able to find some very well crafted fired ceramic mugs and matcha bowls made by a very nice old man, and with my time running out I knew I had to head back, I’ll have to get those gifts someplace else. By this point now an hour had passed, which was the decided departure time, the skillet we were on now reached a heat of 30ºC, and so we made the tactical decision to take the air conditioned taxi back to the hotel.

Once back to the hotel the best way I could describe my condition was that of a warm and wet towel, so a shower was very much needed. After a quick rest, the time for class was quickly approaching so I ran downstairs, nuked some rice, made instant miso, and attempted to cut sashimi with a very dull knife, I felt that I brought disappointment upon my sashimi instructor from the week prior, it was still delicious, though a bit chunky. We would then take the train to a Komodo Shodoku, which literally translates to ‘kids cafe,’ which provides nutritional meals to people, mostly children, in the community who are low income or those eating alone at home, and provides them a welcoming and friendly environment for them to eat.

At first when seeing this as one of the activities we would partake in at first we theorized that we might be volunteering to serve food for children, or make the food, but the last thing that came to us was that we were actually going to eat there. When I was younger I’ve been in many similar circumstance as the kids that would regularly come and eat there, but thankfully my situation has changed, and has allowed me to give back to those in need back home, but eating here did feel very wrong, as we were all in the position to afford food, it felt as we were taking from mouths of children, we were reassured that the children were feed first and that this was sort of common as a way to raise awareness for the situation of my children, in order to bring attention to this problem, to push for a solution, and to assist those in need.

It felt very homely where we were seated, it did seem that a house was repurposed for this function to feed the community. A home that hundreds of children must walk through, all living their own lives, all going through their own circumstance infinitely varied from one another, but all brought together by some commonality. There was a kid in the other room eating as well, watching Minecraft videos on an iPad, and for some reason it really got to me, it reminded me when I was younger, who knows how this kids life is going, I remember might wasn’t going too well at his age but those Minecraft videos gave me a short escape from the outside world that constantly engulfed me. The place felt so nostalgic in a safe way, a warm comforting place from long ago, a place that probably no longer exists, except for the vague memories deep within.

Once we left the Komodo Shodoku, we all headed off to class to remind us that we aren’t just here on vacation, but for an academic purpose. It did feel somewhat jarring as the spacing between classes was pretty large, so a sense of being out of practice did radiate throughout the room. Nonetheless, the topics were as very interesting as always, learning more about the inner workings for different organisms and more about the methods of expressing the manner of how an event plays out in a written medium. Though this lecture did put into perspective that our time here is running short, seeing as the program ends next Thursday, as well as all the upcoming assignments’ due date rapidly approaching did send a wave of panic through the crowds.

Once class ended, the groups dispersed in every which way. My little group went off to get some conveyor sushi for a quick and an easy dinner for the long night ahead of work that awaited us. Making it back to the hotel the second shower of the day took place as the weather was really putting my sweat glands to work. Then once all freshen up, I ventured downstairs where the congregation of diligent and somewhat loud students got together to endure the slight stresses of doing work as a group, which fosters a nice sense of community in my opinion. But as time passed there was a strong decrease in the amount of work getting done. So I called it night and went to bed, getting ready for the next day ahead of me.