J is for Japan

J is for Japan

and Just doing the best I could.

Himeji, famous for its castle, is where we
had our spaghetti dinner.

Several years ago, Miss Landers was living in Japan and Ward and I went to visit her. Before our trip, she sent us literature* on almost every subject that would pertain to our visit. From broad subjects like religions to practical ones on how to ride the trains and use chopsticks. We studied them all and practiced what we needed.

We finally got to put all of our new knowledge to use when we arrived in Japan.  Miss Landers was a great tour guide. She took us to tourist places in cities as well as personal homes in villages. She was well integrated into the Japanese culture and gave us experiences of what the country was really like.

A few days into the trip, Ward and I decided that we were confident enough to strike out on our own. We wandered the streets of the small town we were in looking for a place to eat. I was hoping to find something that catered to tourists where I might have a chance to eat something other than fish and rice because fish is not my favorite food. Luckily, it was common to have a picture menu posted in the window of a restaurant. When I saw a picture of spaghetti on one of the menus, I decided that this was the place.

I ordered spaghetti and was relieved to see it was pretty traditional--tomato sauce with noodles. I immediately dove in showing my best chopstick skills which I had honed by practicing for months. In fact, I was kind of  proud how I was handling the long noodles. Well, pride goeth before a fall, they say. And this time they were right..

One of many pages of chopstick
instructions I practiced.

At one point during the meal, I looked around and the entire staff of the restaurant was standing behind me and smiling. When they saw me looking, they quickly handed me a fork. Apparently, I was not looking like a chopstick pro I thought I was. Instead, I was the entertainment for the evening. Oh, well.

We had a few more adventures on our trip that I'll tell you about another time. But now it's time to think about the letter K.

*This trip was before you could go on the Internet and find everything you need.