Day 18 of writing every day.
I’m really on vacation right now. I slept in but still got up before noon today and only started writing while waiting at a family restaurant for my order.
I decided to get okonomiyaki today, which is a Japanese pancake of sorts that mixes batter and ingredients often consisting of diced cabbage, tempura flakes, and pork. The more luxurious ingredients would include shrimp and squid.
At the restaurant I’m at the staff prepares it for the customers but some places just mix the batter up and let customers do the part of cooking it on the metal plate at the center of the table. Some enjoy the experience of doing it themselves but it can be a challenge letting one side of the okonomiyaki cook just the right amount of time before flipping it over to cook the other side.
It’s a simple food concept and is dressed with a sauce that’s probably part soy sauce and some other stuff. On top of the sauce it’s common to add seaweed flakes (like you would salt and pepper) and dried flakes of fish. The finishing touch is mayonnaise, but not the nasty goop that you’d imagine American mayonnaise to be.
I haven’t had this dish in a while and forgot how expensive it can be to eat it at a restaurant. It’s costing me 2000 yen to get the mixed modern okonomiyaki. This has pork, shrimp, and squid. The “modern” part means it had more carbs in the form of noodles inside as stuffing. And the deluxe option makes it around 30% larger I believe.
Add a soft drink (including soft serve by default) option and now my bill at the end of the meal is 2300 yen or so, close to $20 at the current exchange rate.
I’m not eating fancy food, but it’s a little pricey if you ask me. When I usually eat at this place, I’d try to eat during lunch when the prices are more reasonable. I could get the lunch set for the price of a basic pork okonomiyaki for just over 1000 yen and it’d come with rice, miso soup, and the soft drink option.
I’m reminded of how different my life must be compared to everyone at the restaurant tonight. It’s the end of the year and families are dining out or friends are getting food together while I sit at a booth alone. Lunch time is much quieter. With the waiting time for my food, I think I might be able to write something long this sitting.
Looking at where I’m at
Yesterday marked the last practice of the year at my Aikido dojo, so I went ahead and spent some time today updating my Excel files that I use to do accounting for my dojo as treasurer and to finalize attendance records as one of the instructors.
It’s a simple task really and I don’t need to fill it out every day as I keep a notebook to have physical records of the incoming and outgoing money, which is basically just monthly membership dues, rent, and seminar expenditures. There are miscellaneous things too but nothing more than a few entries.
I’ll be doing some cleaning soon on the last day of the year as is the tradition in Japan, but I’ll be working on keeping things tidy to begin with as a habit, not an obligatory gesture.
Time kind of flies while on break but I’ll be back to write more tomorrow.
Thanks for reading!
One Chance Works 