day 5: gokiburi

Today we took three trains to nara. I think toby has trouble distinguishing train from rain, which have both been in ample supply on this trip. or maybe he has them right in his head, but because he pronounces both of them as ‘main’ we can’t tell the difference. Anyway, his favorite part of the train is the fact that there is a tiny room with a pay phone. Pay phones are like a dream come true, combining his love of phone receivers, and large buttons into one single gadget. In this case, he also seemed to enjoy pushing the buttons on the picture of a pay phone posted next to the phone itself. So jon and I traded off, with one of us getting to watch out the window as we glided past the beautiful countryside, while the other was trapped in a tiny stuffy booth holding a 25 pound baby as he pushed buttons. Once we reached the hotel in nara, we were met by toby’s great grandfather doi, which means that toby has now met all four of his great grandparents, so in that respect, our mission is complete.

after dinner, we left toby with his grandmother and jon and I headed out for a drink. We ended up at a tiny hole in the wall where we hoped to have some sake. The only Japanese characters that I can recognize are for entrance, exit, and Kyoto. None of these are of any help in ordering off a menu. Jon knows a few more, well actually many many more since he can actually read and write in japanese, but regardless, somehow we still mixed up shochu with sake and hot with cold so we ended up with a shochu on ice and, even though it was 98 degrees and humid outside, a hot sake. We then asked to try a yuzu sake, which initially ended up in them having to find a tiny glass to let us taste it before we could just get a full glass. In all, it reminded me of a time during jon’s 30 bars in 30 days where on like day 17 we went to a local bar, and unable to come up with the word ‘neat’ when ordering a bourbon, jon said ‘straight up’ at which point the bartender asked to see both of our IDs. In both instances, I think we could only have appeared less familiar with alcohol if we had ordered wine coolers or mad dog 20/20. Along with ordering drinks like schoolchildren, we also managed to leave our shoes in the wrong place, which required the waitress to bring them in and place them in a cupboard for us. In the end though, I would have been more self conscious about the experience had jon not pointed out the cockroach on the wall idling it’s way toward me. while I tried hard to keep track of him while appearing non-chalant I was ultimately successful at neither. I think I hit my tipping point when our insect friend headed over to the shoe cupboard. So we slurped down the last of our yuzu drink, rescued our shoes and headed out.