Japan Day 15 (jū go)

Today was an easy day. We decided to head over to the local Don Quijote to see what they had. It's another one of those Japanese stores that seem to have everything known to man. Sort of a mini-WalMart with an annoying theme song that is blasted into your ears as you shop.
Don Quijote

The mascot of the store is a crazy penguin-thingy that often is wearing a Santa hat. Up and down the escalator walls, there are murals of him doing interesting things related to what product is on the next floor.



I wasn't sure what Donki was until I looked up their website. Donki


Here's a taste of what it's like on the inside. MADNESS!


After a relaxing day just lounging around, Debbie and I decided to hit a Japanese restaurant in the area. We looked up some on the web that at least had an English menu so we wouldn't be totally lost. We decided on a shabu shabu place off of Roppongi Dori. If you're not familiar with shabu, its where there is a big hot bowl of either water or broth in the middle of your table, and they bring you various thinly sliced meats and vegetables to throw in the pot. You swish the meat around in the water with your chopsticks which cooks it in about 15-20 seconds. They also give you a couple sauces to dip the meat in.


It started off reasonably well, as the waiter spoke a couple words of English. What he couldn't explain very well was the little lottery that we had at the beginning. A waitress (all the waitresses were in yukatas) brought over a little tumbler filled with multicolored, twisted pieces of paper. After some gesticulating we gathered that we were each supposed to pick one of these, and they corresponded to a list of five things, which were all in Japanese of course. The waiter helped out, providing the word 'crab' which was what Debbie had picked, and then pointed at his arm, which I assumed meant crab 'legs'. When I picked though, he was at a loss for words. So was I when it arrived.


It was a little evelope which contained a tiny ziploc baggy that on a first glance looked like it contained dirt and worms. On closer inspection, it was some sort of spice(?) with maybe some nuts(?) in it. It didn't smell bad, but I had no idea what to do with it, and the waiter's vague hand waving gesture didn't help me out. So I set it aside and didn't use it. It was probably to throw into one of my sauces. Or maybe it's for the cat. I don't know.

When the meat and veggies came, we knew exactly what to do and dove into the shabinating like pros.


It was a very tastey dinner and we even got free gifts at the end. Two pairs of chopsticks and two little woven cloth tchotchkes. The hostess even followed us out of the restaurant and gave us a full-on, from-the-waist bow, which we returned in our half-hearted, embarrassed gaijin fashion.

If you're in Roppongi, try out ShabuZen.


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