Day 5: Udon is variety

Today I can quite comfortably say that it started like any other. And it pretty much was; Waking up hating the fact I am awake, standard day teaching, then lunch. Im not going to lie, a little part of me looks forward to Fridays every week. Eating out isn't expensive in Japan, I mean as I have said you have ¥100($1/£0.63) Sushi, Ramen for ¥600($6/£3.80) and Udon, well udon is only ¥500($5/£3.15).

However, it adds up, so as you saw yesterday I get the teachers obento. Only ¥300/$3/£1.90 a day.

Look at the Pretty colours

This is very typical of Japanese lunch. They love variety and presentation, so much so that a Japanese person I know, who had been in to the Uk in the 80's, said "I hear your food is getting better, when I was there they didn't care about presentation or colour." That was fun to hear!

But Fridays, they are my treat day, I eat out for lunch, sometimes it's ramen. I don't know why but I just wasn't in the mood today, strange. I would say about 50% of the time I go for udon. This is udon:

You take out the noodles, dip them in the bowl to the left them slurp them up. Nothing funny about that.

Udon sounds almost the same as ramen, its noodles in a broth with toppings. But when you get to know it, it is massively different, the noodles are thick and have a very distinctive flavour, the soup is usually made of fish stock and soy sauce not meat, so it is much healthier and lighter. Also they sell tempura, which I had no idea was Japanese. Thank you very much Chinese restaurants in the UK. Turns out Chinese restaurants just sell any asian food, so I then later find out that everything they sell isn't Chinese! Next thing you tell me will be the chips from the Chinese aren't traditionally Chinese either!

See, different! Thick!

Next thing you tell me will be that fortune cookies aren't Chinese!

Anyway, udon is a delicious and fantastic distraction from another soup based noodle!

Following lunch there was again a normal school day then the gym. Ah, the school gym, free, a little dirty and with the constant fear that students will come in and watch me work out. But its free, so I'm not going to complain. Bigger than my fear of student watching, is of the rather built gym teacher watching. This is because I am always doing something wrong, always! There I am with a certain weight feeling accomplished, he comes in, and I have to drop down several weights and feel like a fool because I'm doing it the easy way.

Yes! I was doing it wrong and Yes! it is better this way, but on paper it looks worse! (I like writing down all m numbers, I'm so cool)

Anyway after that I went straight for ramen, it is such good post work out food! Today was Miso-ramen, it is a kind of thicker and earthier soup. (Not sure you can tell, but I don't know how to describe food) But its a delicious ramen, but it, in my opinion lacks a certain meaty flavour. Miso is made from soy beans. If you can't tell, Japan love soy. Everything is soy.

Whats that sauce? It's there at the beginning of the meal but gone at the end!

I had gyouza again, and when I eat them I dip them in that sauce you see at the top. But I'm not going to tell you what it is, oh no. I will leave you with a Lost-esque cliff hanger; what is it made of? Why is it red? Find out in the next blog entry!