Hisashiburi! (Long time no see!)

Hisashiburi!

I’ve been busy lately with work, but life is good. Oh, except that it is STILL cold here! It’s March!! I’m ready for winter to be over!

So two weeks ago I went to Osaka. TWICE. On Saturday, I went just for the day to pick up the new teachers from the airport. The best part about that was that we got to eat Subway at Kansai International Airport! 

I know that turkey luncheon meat is not as good as fresh turkey breast, but Subway is pretty much the ONLY place in Japan where you can get turkey instead of gross slimy chicken with the skin on it. Another cool thing about Subway in Japan (or maybe Subway in the U.S. too??) is that they have all these sauces you can choose from instead of just plain old mustard and mayonnaise. They have flavors like wasabi-shoyu, creamy lemon (basically lemon-mayonnaise dressing), basil, and of course, oil and vinegar. They also have “Japanese” sandwiches like teriyaki chicken katsu, but really I just crave the classics.

OK so anyway, then I went to Osaka again for two days to visit friends.

I love Osaka. :)

It really is my home in Japan.

Sunday night, I stayed at my family friend’s house who lives with father who we call “Ojiichan” (grandpa in Japanese). Well, when I was about to brush my teeth, I had to rummage through the sink area to find the toothpaste. I found a tube that looked kind of old, but couldn’t find anything else that looked remotely like toothpaste. 

The label had the Kanji for "new" (新 pronounced "shin") the rest was written in Katakana (Japanese alphabet for foreign words), which I didn’t bother to read—mainly because I really don’t like Katakana. It takes forever to figure out what they are trying to say in English and it’s really hard to spell out words in Katakana since they pronounce most English words differently than we do. So anyway, I squeezed some “toothpaste” onto my toothbrush and I notice that it’s pink.

Huh. That’s funny.

It also was a really weird texture—very thick and sticky.

I start to brush my teeth with it but it feels really weird. It tastes kinda weird, too. And it started to ball up and stick to my teeth.

Oh God.

Wait a second!

I looked at the label again and decided to actually read it.

OMG it said "SHIN PORIGURIPPU"



in other words...

“NEW POLY-GRIP”!!!!!!!!!!

Ahhh!!! I used Ojiichan’s denture paste!!!

Spit it out! Spit it out! Spit it out!

Of course it’s not that easy to do since it is basically glue!

So I gargled and gargled over and over to try to get all the paste chunks out of my mouth. And finally found the toothpaste!

It left me with a really weird aftertaste but I kept telling myself that it can’t be bad for you, right?

Moral of the story: READ something before you put it in your mouth! Even if it’s in Katakana!

Other than that, the weekend was fabulous! I ate pizza at this really nice Italian restaurant in Umeda and a BBQ chicken burger at the Outback Steak House!

Why does American food taste so much better in Japan?? I guess because it's so sparse and we always want what we can't have, right???

Osaka, see you soon!!